2. Lyssa

I putup my hands in a calming gesture and stop right where I am. “Hey.” My voice is low, gentler than normal. “You hurt?”

For a beat, I see naked fear flickering in Scarlett’s face, before she seems to clock I don’t plan to hurt her myself.

“I-I’m fine.” Her gaze drifts around the unconscious Sokolovs strewn about. “Just…shaken up, I guess. Who—who’s Yuri?”

Not the question I expected. She’s clearly rattled, but there’s a curious contradiction in her body language and her actual language. No what the fuck, no stay the hell away from me, no screaming for help. It suggests a core of steel beneath the big eyes and the soft hair. But I file that observation away for later as I reach out a hand to help her to her feet.

“There you go. Good as new,” I say, and I sound like an idiot, but I’m not all that great at giving comfort.

She’s still holding my hand when she gasps and tugs me into a pool of light from the one working streetlight, inspecting the bleeding gash along my upper arm with a grimace. “You’re hurt!”

The cut’s not deep enough to be life-threatening, but I think I’d like a tetanus shot or something, given the shitty state of the Sokolov knives. God knows what bacteria were crawling all over their blades. I pull away a little, but Scarlett grabs me back. “That needs to be properly cleaned and bandaged,” she murmurs, almost to herself. She looks into my face. “I can help.”

A derisive snort escapes me before I can bite it back. “No offense, sweetheart, but the last thing I need is you poking around an open wound.”

Those captivating eyes narrow, jaw setting in a stubborn line I find oddly endearing. “I’m a third-year medical student. I may not be a brain surgeon, but I know my way around stitches and wound care.”

Well, isn’t that another interesting little tidbit? I study Scarlett with newfound curiosity, taking in the resolute set of her mouth. She’s determined, I’ll give her that much.

What I don’t tell her is that usually I’d call on one of the Syndicate medics to look me over, but lately it’s been real tough getting hold of any of them. They’re all too busy or out of town or retired. It’s getting to be a problem—but we have bigger ones to deal with at the moment. The assassin, for one.

Hadria Imperioli’s impending wedding to Aurora Verderosa, for another.

Yeah. It’d be a pain in the ass to find a medic to patch me up, and besides, Scarlett is sexy as hell. She’s the one good thing about tonight. So with a casual shrug, I say, “Fine, have it your way. You can wound-care me, but we’re going to have to take this little party elsewhere. I don’t want to be hanging around when these guys come to.”

“We can go to my place,” she suggests, and goddamn if that doesn’t just sound like the best offer I’ve heard in a long, long time.

“Okay,” I say with a grin. “Let’s go.”

The drive to Scarlett’s apartment passes in shadowed streets and furtive glances. We’re both quiet, and she asks no more questions. Not about Yuri, not about the bratva.

And not about me.

Not about who I am, where I learned to fight like that, and what problems I might have caused to make the Sokolovs think I killed someone called Yuri. But I like that she’s not curious.

It’ll make things so much easier when I sneak out in the early hours.

I spend most of the trip sneaking sidelong peeks at her, because she’s just that pretty. From this angle, I can make out the gentle curve of her cheek, a few wispy strands of dark hair framing her features. Despite the chaos a few minutes ago, there’s a tranquility about her, hands loose on the steering wheel, shoulders relaxed.

It’s like watching two completely different women—the frightened doe from the alley and this unruffled creature. Terrified one moment, unflappable the next.

My musings are interrupted as we finally pull up to a modest apartment complex. I follow Scarlett up a cramped stairwell and into her flat.

At first glance, the place is unremarkable—a cozy living area opening into a small kitchenette, a hallway presumably leading to the bedroom and bath. Scattered textbooks and notes litter the coffee table next to an old, battered laptop, bolstering her claims of being a student.

But it’s the little things that snag my attention. No photos, for one thing. No TV, either. “You must be real busy with your studies,” I say.

She shoots me a look that I can’t interpret. “I guess it’s one of the reasons I got into that situation tonight,” she says. “All I’ve been doing lately is studying. I needed a break. Felt a little…reckless.”

I give a dark grin. “You got your adventure, in the end.”

She doesn’t respond to that, bustling about gathering supplies to tend to my arm. “Take a seat over there.”

I pull off my jacket and top but keep on my undershirt, and settle onto the worn sofa at Scarlett’s request. She kneels beside me, inspecting the wound with a clinical detachment.

I can smell her hair products, whatever they are. Flowers and then something richer, sharper, almost pine-like, with a darker undercurrent. She smells like…

Like a forest.

Despite the pain in my arm, I find myself hyper-aware of every point where our bodies come in contact. And I can see down her top, see a lacy bra the same color as her name, lovingly offering up those luscious curves…

So while Scarlett fixes me up, I let my eyes wander over her—not just her body, but over the alluring lines of her face, too, the delicate swell of her full lips up to the sharp angles of her cheekbones. There’s a quiet fierceness about her that draws me in, and when she glances up at me, I feel a smolder low in my gut.

“I need to give you a few stitches,” she says.

“Nah.” I try to pull my arm away, but her fingers tighten on it.

“The Big Bad Wolf is scared of a little needle?”

“No, but the cut’s not that deep.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she tells me, and pulls out a sterile-packed medical needle. She sure has all the props. “Why did they call you that?” she asks casually, opening up the packet. “The Big Bad Wolf, I mean.”

I give a one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t stick me with anesthetic,” I warn, as she picks up a fucking syringe. “I don’t need it.”

“Fine.” She puts the syringe down and grabs my arm again, making me jerk out of habit. People don’t usually come in close physical contact with me unless they can’t help it—or unless I’m fucking them or training them. “Hold still,” she scolds, and then points with a finger. “Look over there while I do this and stay still.”

“I don’t need to look away.”

For the first time, her confidence wavers. “It’s…been a minute since I’ve done this. I need to concentrate, and I can’t if you’re staring at me like that.”

At least she didn’t call me out for staring down her top, I guess. I roll my eyes hard, so she knows how dumb I think it is, and then I turn my head away, taking in the apartment again. And I try not to wince as the needle enters my skin.

“There, all done,” she says a second later. I turn back to find Scarlett studying me with an intense scrutiny, searching, weighing. My skin prickles beneath her stare, the urge to squirm almost overpowering.

“You done?” I say, looking down to where she still holds my arms. She takes her hand away slowly.

“Um. There are towels in the bathroom if you’d like to shower. You have…blood in your hair.”

I pull my blonde ponytail around to check. She’s right, and I’d rather not walk around with sticky hair. I can’t resist leaning in a fraction closer. “You got a little blood on you there, too,” I say, nodding at a smear on her wrist, below where the gloves end. “Feel like joining me?”

Not subtle, I know, but subtlety has never been my strong suit. Especially not where beautiful women are involved.

For a heartbeat, something dances across Scarlett’s face. Surprise, maybe. Followed by resolve. Then a sly smile curves those full lips, and the gentle forest pools of her eyes turn even deeper and darker.

“You know what? I could use a shower.”

I stand, and she does too, stepping well inside my personal space. The scent of her surrounds me, her eyes inviting me in, and I raise an eyebrow at her unexpected boldness. This isn’t the cowering, anxious woman from the alleyway. This Scarlett is all sin and temptation and challenge.

And I’ll be damned if I’m not enthralled.

“Then let’s get you out of all those dirty clothes,” I tell her.

The smile slides into a smirk again, and she pulls off her top, slow and seductive, until she’s standing there in that pretty lace demi-bra, the tops of her breasts quivering as they threaten to spill out.

“Come on,” she says, brushing past me and heading out of the room. “Time to get wet.”