4. Gio

4

GIO

S he was a little thing, a petite Russian doll, lying still and curled up in the center of my bed.

Bringing Tatiana Petrov to my home wasn't the smartest move I'd ever made, but it wasn't the stupidest one either.

I gripped the apple in my hand and rubbed the bright-red flesh against the fabric of my shirt, polishing it before I brought it to my mouth and sank my teeth in.

I leaned against the doorframe and chewed the sweet fruit, watching Tatiana as she breathed evenly. I should have called her brothers right away. I really shouldn't have fucking brought her here, but I hadn't been thinking clearly after shooting the fucker who had been about to take her life.

"Well?" I took another bite of the apple and watched as the discredited physician I called in grabbed his bag and stood to face me.

Henry Lifeflighter had lost his license five years back for writing illegal scripts to fuel his narcotic addiction. And when I found him gambling what little money he had left at one of my clubs—and owing me a large fucking sum of money—I knew I could use him.

So for the last five years, he was on call as my medical bitch whenever I needed his expertise.

One of those times being tonight.

Henry's eyes were bloodshot. The stench of body odor and the fact that his clothes were wrinkled as hell told me he'd probably been on a gambling bender when I summoned his ass.

"She'll be fine," he said, clearing his throat. "Given time."

I straightened, and he took a step back, clearly sensing my irritation. "Elaborate."

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Tatiana. I gave him this moment to collect his thoughts. Although he'd had likely been drinking all day, I could tell he was sober enough to make sure she was going to be okay.

I wouldn't have let him see her otherwise.

When he faced me again, Henry exhaled and stared me in the eye. It wasn't something he did often. It was his self-preservation that kept him from meeting me eye-to-eye, as if I were a predator and he was prey.

You never stared danger in the face for too long.

"It means she'll be all right, but she's going to be sore and have marks on her." He exhaled again, and I could see he wanted to say more.

"Fucking spit it out, Henry." My voice was sharp like the blade of a knife, about to slit his fucking throat if he didn't get on with it.

I was impatient as hell and growled low. Henry took the fucking hint.

"If you don't want people knowing what happened to her, you'll have to keep her locked away because it'll be very obvious in the coming days." He swallowed audibly. "She's already starting to bruise heavily."

I took another bite of the apple and stared him down.

"She'll have bruises around her neck, which will most likely last weeks. She may also suffer from memory loss and confusion."

"Probably not a bad thing," I said through a mouthful of the crisp fruit.

"She might not remember parts of her assault." He rubbed his neck as if he'd been the one who got choked out. "Those small red and purple dots on her face and upper chest are what's called petechiae." When I didn't respond, he cleared his throat and continued. "Basically… bleeding under the skin."

I made a sound of acknowledgement from deep in my chest.

"She'll probably have difficulty breathing, swallowing, and speaking over the next several days as her throat heals. She had bleeding in her eyes. The blood vessels burst more significantly in her left."

"So she was fucked right up, yeah?"

Henry's eyes widened, but he gave a quick nod.

"But she'll heal?"

He nodded again. "Yes. She'll heal fully. Physically, at least. I'm not a therapist, so I can't speak on how she'll fare psychologically."

I knew all about trauma lasting in a person. Hell, I had dark baggage of my own, enough that I could dismember an entire gang and store each member's limbs, head, and torso separately, before burying them all six feet under. Yet I didn't sit in a room and let a stranger analyze my words to help me heal.

No.

My form of therapy was getting in a ring and channeling all that aggression into my opponent until they were lifeless at my feet.

"So if you plan on keeping—" He snapped his mouth shut at the look I gave him. He was smart enough not to go on with that sentence.

I couldn't keep her here. I wouldn't. She wasn't my responsibility.

Then maybe you shouldn't have fucking taken her and laid her in your bed , I told myself.

If I hadn't known Tatiana Petrov—her fucking brother was married to my sister—and saw it was anyone else who was cornered and being assaulted, I would have kept on walking, right out of that illegal cage fight and then out the fucking doors.

I wasn't the white knight. I was a fucking demon.

D'yavol .

I was a fucking bastard in every sense of the word. There was no other way for me to be at the top of my corrupted empire without having a bloody pile of rubble and bones as the red carpet leading to my throne.

But in this case, it wasn't just anyone. And I didn't even hesitate before removing the nasty fuck's hands from around her throat.

When I didn't respond, Henry took the hint once more and handed me a bottle of pills.

"These are for the pain."

I smirked. "You get these from your personal stash?" I shook the bottle in his face.

He looked away and said, "If you need help disconnecting the IV fluids, call me. I gave her some pain meds through the port, so she'll be out for a while. But if she has any other issues, again, just call me."

I didn't respond, just stepped aside so he could leave my house.

I stood there and finished the apple and, after a few moments, finally forced myself to walk over to the bed.

I'd taken off her black wig and stared at the fucking thing now laying by my feet. Henry had to remove her oversized jacket, and when he examined her abdomen, I felt something hot and violent burn through me as I watched him palpating her belly.

I kept my mouth shut as he did his job. I knew he wasn't just some perv putting his hands all over her, and it shouldn't have bothered me one way or another if he were. But I couldn't deny that seeing him touch her made me want to grab the sides of his head and twist hard enough his neck snapped.

It would have been one of the quickest, cleanest kills I ever delivered to a man. I would have been kind in that regard, and I couldn't say I'd been much of that at any point in my life.

I stared at Tatiana for so long it bordered on creepy. But fuck if I could pull my focus from the marks on her neck. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and her throat was gonna be fucked up with black and blue marks from that bastard's hands on her.

I reached out and ran a finger lightly over her throat, careful to not add any pressure. She was sedated, but that didn't mean I wanted to risk hurting her more.

I pulled my hand away and curled my fingers into my palm hard enough my blunt nails dug into my flesh, threatening to break the skin.

Truth be told, I never thought much of anything regarding the Petrovs. The only thing I concerned myself with when it came to the Russians was the fact that I had an alliance with them.

With Nikolai married to my sister Amara, it was imperative that the bonds that tied us and our organizations together were stronger than anything else .

That was as far as my thought process about them went. And when it came to Tatiana, his baby sister? Yeah, I'd never given her much thought. Why would I?

While I hadn't spent time fucking daydreaming about the woman, I still knew everything about her, as I did the entire Petrov family. Just like I was aware those psychotic brothers of hers knew everything about me and my family.

Tatiana was twenty-three years old, not much younger than my twenty-six.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, unsure where the fuck that thought had come from.

"You stupid motherfucker," I said under my breath.

The pretty, little Russian took online classes for business management, but she made it known she didn't give two fucks about it. It was more to keep her busy.

She spent a lot of time with Dmitry's dog, Sasha, while he was in jail. I knew her brothers were protective as hell over her, but I didn't fault them. I was the same way with my sisters. In our line of work, our enemies would use the ones we loved the most. They'd take our loved ones and dismember them before scattering the limbs across different state lines just to send a message.

That was the world I lived in. So I had to know every single dark secret about anyone who was close to me, especially those who were "family."

I'd let her crash here tonight, then send her on her way. I'd explain that I'd have nothing to do with whatever shit went down with her and her brothers. The threat was taken care of and currently rotting six feet in the ground in the middle of the woods right outside Desolation.

"You stupid fucker," I said to myself once again and turned, looking around at the master bedroom. Desolation wasn't my home. It was a pit stop for when I needed to get in the ring and do damage—not just to my opponent but to myself as well.

This penthouse would never be home, but neither was my house back on the West Coast. I felt like I didn't have a solid, stable place to let my roots grow. But then again, maybe I wasn't the type of man who would ever settle down. I sure as fuck wouldn't find happiness.

I stared down at my busted-as-fuck knuckles, the old wounds nothing but opened-up scabs from my fight tonight. I'd killed countless times—too many times to keep track of. These hands— my hands —were stained with blood to the bone.

To my fucking soul.

I took one more look at Tatiana and cursed under my breath as I left, shut my bedroom door, and headed to the spare room down the hall. After the door was closed behind me, I leaned against it and closed my eyes. The darkness taking me back to the empty storage room and where I put a bullet in that fucker's skull.

And the longer I closed my eyes, the darker the world became, until I was back— way back —standing in the middle of the woods and staring down at the corpse of the first person I ever killed.