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Alina used the ointment on her knife wounds. She hadn’t remembered getting so many. Some were deeper than others. Those she bandaged like he had her foot. She hesitated to lift the nylon material of the shorts to reach the wounds in her thighs, but when she looked toward the corner, his gaze was pointed nowhere near her, was focused on the far door instead.
All of her aches had soon been addressed. Clothed and bandaged, a sense of well-being slid into her, ridiculous in its presence.
“Rest,” Luka encouraged her from his corner. He still didn’t look at her.
Alina twisted to stare at the bed behind her. Crawling onto the soft surface felt all kinds of wrong, like it would be an invitation for him to join her. She curled up on her side on the ottoman, facing away from him. Tension filled her back as she waited for his next move.
Only nothing happened. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. With her back turned to him, she could almost imagine she was alone.
Alone and waiting for her captor to return. It was the smallest part of her life that she had lived so far, but it was also all she could think about.
It should be over now. She’d stabbed him again and again. He would never have another chance to hurt her.
It wasn’t the pain he’d caused that made her breath hitch. No, it was the memory of all she’d done to avoid it. Pointless acts that she’d carved into herself when the pain was inevitable.
Her mind cast about for anything to distract it. She remembered Luka’s small hiss of breath, the way pain had filled his eyes and twisted his mouth. It was like her touch had hurt him.
Wondering why slowly consumed her thoughts, and she was grateful.
Chapter 5
Luka waited until he was sure she had fallen asleep before he allowed his gaze to brush over her. At first, it was just that—a side glimpse of her curled-up form—and then he stared down at his arm again. The pain when she’d grabbed it had been excruciating. So much worse than the gloved hands and needle jig his artist used.
His eyes shifted back. The spare clothes hung loosely from her body. The white bandages she’d finished putting on peeked out along her arms. Her foot had been bad, but the adhesive he had added to the gauze should hold it in place. Even if she decided to run.
He’d left to hide the bloody trail her limping instep had created. The safe house didn’t belong to the Bratva, so masking the trail should be enough to throw off anyone who found the dead boyevik in the nearby alley. Alina should manage to slip away.
That would be best for her. He’d considered her options as the shower had run. When he’d been a child, he’d been given only two. Somehow that had made it so he couldn’t see beyond them.
Alina shouldn’t be limited in that way.
A shiver ran through her curled body. The heat in the safehouse had been set to low. Luka found the cold most comfortable himself. Her hair hadn’t yet dried, though. Dampness darkened the light strands. Her blonde hair reminded him of a man he’d once nearly killed.
In fact, he often thought about Giovanni Di Salvo. Luka would have to warn him that he’d used one of his safe houses. He doubted the new Mafia boss would mind. Giovanni was the closest thing someone like him could have to a friend.
Luka padded to the bed and the blanket folded there. Alina’s breathing didn’t change as he covered her with it.
He never carried much cash, but he took what he had out of his wallet, placing it near the tweezers he’d used. Then he found the gloves from before, pulling them on despite the blood that darkened their fabric.
His feet paused as he crossed the bedroom. He stared at the door, willing himself to continue to move without looking back. Looking back had never helped.
His eyes traced over her lumpy form anyway. The blanket even covered her feet. Only the top of her head was visible.
He silently wished her a happier life than what his sisters had endured. Then he finally slipped from the room. A key unlocked the deadbolt. He pocketed it afterward and only turned the lock within the knob. It wasn’t as safe, but it meant she could leave the house once she woke. He placed a coin along the bottom of the door, just so, and stood.
Ivankov had been waiting for his report long enough.
When Kiryl Ivankov had first taken over as pakhan, he had used the estate the Bratva’s former leader had once called home. That hadn’t lasted very long. He preferred to take over homes while the family was still alive. There was a sadistic happiness within Ivankov that enjoyed slipping into someone else’s role and torturing those who used to care about them, but the pakhan’s family had run early. An empty home did little for him.
Luka had kept his sister near him as Ivankov tore the former pakhan’s home apart and burned the remains.
Yes, Willow had been alive then. Luka had sold every piece of himself in order for her to remain that way as long as she could, but he’d never asked her what she had wanted. He tried not to remember his part in extending her torture.
He’d been the younger one, scrawny on top of it, and huddling in front of his older sister had done little at the time. But Luka’s father had reminded him time and again, when he’d been alive, what his role was: to look after his sisters. It was a man’s job to protect women and children.
Luka had failed in that role often enough. He’d always been less of a man than his dead father.
When he arrived at the new house Ivankov had recently taken over, the family it used to belong to was awake and sniveling at the table. Father, mother, and son this time. Ivankov hadn’t killed the father right away. He was much more entertained by torturing those the father cared about in front of him. At present, the son had a fork embedded in his hand. At least the boy was older. Not really a child, though he cried like one as blood spilled around his fingers.
