Page 6 of Trapped by the Bratva (The Valkov Bratva #5)

DMITRI

I strained to reach the cup on my nightstand.

Stretching over that far pulled on my shoulder, and the pain lanced through my entire back.

Agony set in, and I cursed as my fingers touched the cup.

It tipped and spilled. Water splashed out, streaking down to the floor just as the door to my room opened.

“Oh, dear.” Margie rushed in, Emily propped on her hip. “Dmitri…” she scolded, as though I were the same age as the toddler she carried. “What happened?”

“I think it’s fairly obvious what happened,” I replied.

She set Emily down and shot me a stern glare.

It was that look. The kind mothers perfected.

My mother died when I was young, but this maternal-prone housekeeper was a staple within the Bratva.

She’d been working here in this mansion for as long as I could remember, and it was hard not to see her as a motherly figure.

“Don’t you use that tone with me,” she nagged. While she wiped up the spill, Emily climbed onto my bed to sit next to me.

“I—”

She pointed her finger at me and narrowed her eyes. “The next words out of your mouth had better be an apology.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, Margie.” I had no right to get smart with her.

She was like family, but that wasn’t saying much.

I used the same attitude with my brothers too.

No one was spared my moodiness, and it wasn’t as though I was trying to be an asshole.

It just happened. It came out whether I wanted it to or not.

There was simply too much darkness in my life to pretend to be happy or pleasant.

“Little Miss Emily’s keeping me company, and I thought we’d come by to see if you ate any of your dinner.” She smirked at the plates on the rolling cart. “Looks like you’re being difficult again.”

“I couldn’t cut the chicken,” I said, deadpan.

She sighed, pulling the tray over to cut it. “And the big, bad man you are, you will refuse to ask for help.” Pointing with the knife, she gestured at my phone on the nightstand. “You can text any of us in the house, you know.”

I sighed, watching her cut into the now-cold chicken.

She was right. I’d be damned if I asked for help cutting my food.

My arm and hand just didn’t have the strength to do that fine-motor skill.

Erik bashed most of the bones in my fingers, two of which were severed by his filthy shears.

And the long, wide gash on my arm was so deep my muscles were sliced.

Emily was fascinated by the web of scar tissue, and I kept my arm flat for her to trace her little fingers up and down the maze of stitched flesh.

I’d always mind my mood with her. She was just a baby, a curious one at that.

Maybe letting her see my scars and disfigurations would set her up to avoid a habit of staring at people later in her life.

I’d lost most of the nerve endings there. All that skin was numb and dull, but the pressure of her small hand almost felt like a weak massage.

I would love one on my back. The reconstructive surgery on my rotator cuff and other injuries there felt too damn stiff.

Not that I’d ask for help.

“Asking for help is not a sign of weakness,” Margie reminded me as I struggled to get comfortable on the bed.

No matter how the pillows were positioned, they always slipped. And no matter how many were used to cushion my body, my back and shoulder felt like shit.

“Want me to adjust those?” Margie asked as she reached closer.

“It’s not your job to worry about that.”

“You need someone to knock some sense into you,” she grumbled, helping to fluff and rearrange the pillows.

“Oh, I wasn’t knocked around enough?” I retorted.

“I mean it figuratively. You are family, Dmitri. You matter. And if all of us want to worry about you, we will.”

Her words should’ve been a balm on my shitty mood, but the pain and anger had taken root too deeply. Until I could vent some of this fury and frustration, I’d remain festering in this darkness.

“It’s still not your job to be a nurse for me.”

“Shame you make all of them run as soon as they see your surly face.”

I arched a brow, wincing as I tried to sit back again. “I didn’t make the last one run.”

“Hmm.” She hummed and nodded. “That’s true.”

Maxim found out—after the fact—that the last nurse was a niece of a capo within the Rossini family, trying to spy on us.

Alek saw her out immediately, but I argued they should’ve done a lengthier background check on her before she got in the house.

I knew they were diligent, as much as they could be.

The turnover of nurses and therapists was so high that I was probably keeping Maxim too busy with the task of looking into them all.

“You would do well with qualified help, though, young man.”

I smirked. “ Young man?”

She smiled. “You boys will always be ‘young men’ to me. I understand that you’re angry. But for the sake of your own health, you’ve got to stop acting like a wounded lion snapping at us for removing the thorn in your paw.”

I clamped my lips shut. “I’m not trying to be difficult.”

She crossed her arms. “No?”

I shook my head. “No. This just is difficult.”

“Oh, don’t start telling me you’re not the man you used to be.”

“I’m not.”

She smirked, lowering her arms for Emily to reach up to her. “But you can be. Healing takes time, Dmitri. For once in your life, you’ll need the lesson of being patient.”

“Dmitri? Being patient?” Ivan joked as he entered the room with Alek.

“That’s a joke if I ever heard one,” Alek said.

I glowered at them. “What is this, a fucking party?”

Ivan rolled his eyes at me as Emily reached out to be picked up by him. Margie transferred her over as Becca entered. “Watch your language.”

I groaned. “You come into my space, you deal with my language.”

Becca, never one to back down, huffed. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

“What isn’t a good idea?” I asked, dreading that they were deciding something for me.

“Finding you another nurse to help,” Becca replied. She smiled at someone who approached from the main living area of my suite of rooms.

“For the last time,” a sweet voice sassed good-naturedly, “I’m not a nurse.”

“Then what the fuck are you bringing her in here for?” I demanded.

As soon as she entered the room, two things happened at once.

I swore my heart stopped.

Emily reacted too. She recognized the gorgeous woman. “Ha. Ha!” She wasn’t laughing, but trying to say her name. Ivan laughed as the toddler reached out her arms to be moved again, this time, to her former babysitter she still recognized.

“Em!” She held her hands out and grinned so wide with excitement to see the little redhead clamoring to get to her for a big hug.

Hannah?

I couldn’t believe it was her . She’d never left my mind. I often thought back to her, wondering how she was doing since I drove her to the hospital for the head injury she’d received when Emily was almost kidnapped.

I hadn’t forgotten her affection for the baby she watched. I hadn’t lost the memory of her beautiful brown eyes, so captivating with their dark depths. And the sight of her curvy yet slender figure…

Fuck. Seeing her in the flesh again was a punch to the gut. I couldn’t breathe too well with how tight my chest felt, but it wasn’t an altogether bad sensation. It felt something like… anticipation.

A thrill.

Stop. This is stupid.

I wasn’t sure how Becca managed to find her and ask her to come play nurse for me, but she was definitely here. Not in my dreams or my memories but right here, hugging little Emily and laughing along with the girl as she clung her small arms around her neck.

“All right, let’s not strangle Uncle Dmitri’s new nurse,” Becca said.

“No.” I firmed my expression into the stoniest deadpan I could manage.

It caught her attention. Hannah slowed down the slight swaying hug she gave the toddler. She locked her caramel gaze on me over the child’s shoulder and sighed. “This is who you want me to care for?”

“No,” I repeated, answering in place of any of the others even though she hadn’t asked me.

“As you can see,” Alek said, then cleared his throat, “he’s been resistant to the concept of cooperation with his recovery program.”

Hannah opened and closed her mouth, seeming stuck on what to say.

“And,” Becca added, “you can also see why the advance and salary were so high.”

Blinking quickly, Hannah snapped out of her reverie. At the mention of money, she ceased the confused expression she’d adopted since she saw me.

Does she remember me? At all? It felt like a stretch to count on any recognition from her side. She’d suffered a head trauma that night. We’d only been in each other’s company for a couple of hours at the most, and that whole time was chaotic with the kidnapping attempt.

Of course, she wouldn’t remember me. She peered at me with worry, though, perhaps reconsidering her act of volunteering to be my nurse aide.

We entered a stare-down. It wasn’t a matter of an inability to look away that kept me gazing at her, but a sneaky, deeper draw. I was pulled to her, ensnared by the chance encounter with the woman I couldn’t really forget.

“Hannah?” Becca asked.

She glanced at her, breaking the connection between us, but she immediately looked at me again, almost clinically. I watched as she spotted all my wounds, but she didn’t cringe or flinch.

“I said no,” I repeated. It was bad enough that I struggled to banish her from my thoughts. This would be a disaster.

“Who asked you?” she sassed, handing Emily over to Becca.

My jaw dropped, but I pulled it back up and glared at her as she approached. The bossiness. That take-no-shit attitude.

“Ooh,” Margie whispered as she snuck closer to the door. “She’s gonna be perfect for you.”

“You need assistance, Dmitri,” Alek said.

“But not from someone who’s not a nurse,” I argued. It was a weak fighting point, but I’d be damned if I told them I didn’t want Hannah here because she might distract me.

“Damn near a nurse,” Ivan said. “We already looked into her background from before. Hannah had to drop out just before graduation.”

“She’s trained in physical therapy, too,” Becca added.

I glared at Hannah as she probed at my wounds, testing my ankle, then my hand. She didn’t make eye contact, focused on her assessment, but I had to wonder if that slight tension in her jaw meant that she felt the same burning zing when our skin touched.

She intrigued me, keeping that professional aura up. As she leaned over to check my shoulder, her breasts came near my face. I warred with immediate desire.

Dammit. I don’t have time for this.

“Be nice,” Alek warned.

“Be reasonable,” I shot back.

But they all filed out, leaving me with this young woman. I grunted, determined to keep up the walls and ban her from mattering. “How old are you?”

“Younger than you.”

I narrowed my eyes as she continued to check my back. “Answer me.”

“Does it matter how old I am?”

“If you’re not qualified to assist—fuck!” I caught my breath from her swift repositioning of my shoulder. “What the hell was that for?”

She massaged the scar tissue around my shoulder blade. “You’re not doing your therapy exercises, are you?”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I held in a groan at the kneading pressure that felt too damn good. It hurt but also helped. A necessary pain. I’d be damned if I gave her the satisfaction of knowing it felt awesome.

“I do know what I’m doing. I don’t have my credentials, but I’m trained in therapy on top of the nursing skills expected of an RN.”

I bit my lip, declining to respond as she rubbed the tension.

“I’m twenty-one,” she added. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“And I have been doing my exercise, not that it’s any of your fucking business either.”

“It is if I’m expected to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” I shot back, knowing how inaccurate my uncensored claim was.

I did. I just didn’t want to require anything of her.

Her sweet, clean scent messed with my head.

The nearness of her tits taunted me to peel back her shirt and see if her nipples were dusky pink like I bet they were.

And her hands on me… It was therapeutic but also somehow arousing.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how long it had been since a woman had really touched me.

“Shut up and just do as I say, Dmitri.”

I bit the corner of my lip, dragging my stare to hers. Amused that she thought she had any authority over me, I enjoyed how her calm expression faltered into a frown.

“Do as you say,” I repeated. It should have been a question.

“Yeah,” she said, defiant as ever.

I couldn’t look away, mesmerized by the challenge in her stare.

We’ll see about that , Darling.

I decided I’d teach her a lesson about who was in charge here.