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She sinks to a seat on her rolling stool and gives me a half-joking, half-stern glare over the rims of her glasses. “No need to fib to your doctor, June.”
I blush and turn my gaze down. “Okay. It hurts. A lot.”
“Best not to put pressure on it then,” she says, satisfied with my honesty. “You could use a hand when you do stuff like showering, moving around.”
“Oh no.” I cringe hard. “Is that really necessary?”
“I’d say so, until the ankle has fully healed. It might take a little longer, considering your pre-existing injuries. The body is a little stubborn once we start accumulating miles, unfortunately.”
She rolls herself forward to check my blood pressure. A cascade of red hair tumbles over her shoulder and I catch a whiff of coconut. I like that she doesn’t tie her hair when she’s working, as minor as that seems. It makes her come off as a friend, not a professional.
I need the former way more than I need the latter right now.
“You sure you’re okay, June?” Sara asks, unstrapping to the cuff, moving across the room, and taking her coconutty scent with her. “You seem a little preoccupied this morning.”
“I guess I’m just a little nervous. I haven’t had a proper sonogram since the doctor first told me I was pregnant. And I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention back then.”
Sara doesn’t ask many questions. In fact, she doesn’t ask any questions.
“You know the… details, don’t you?”
Sara raises her eyes to mine. I appreciate that she doesn’t even try to deny it. “I don’t know everything. But I know enough.”
“I don’t want to be here,” I tell her.
She nods solemnly. “As I understand it, you’re safer here than anywhere else,” she says as diplomatically as she possibly can. “You and your baby both.”
It seems she’s picked her side. I try to swallow my resentment, to remember that I like Sara. More importantly, I’ll need her help in the next few months. I’m short on allies and friends alike, so I can’t afford to burn bridges.
“How do you know Kolya?” I ask, hoping that’s a safe question.
“My father used to work for his.”
“Used to?”
“I lost my dad a few years ago. Cancer. Took him quick.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say automatically, although even as I say it, I remember how much I despised it when people dropped rote lines like that on me after Adrian’s death.
I’m sorry for your loss.
How ya holdin’ up?
Hang in there—it gets easier.
“Don’t be,” Sara says breezily. “My father and I weren’t what you would call close. He paid for my education, supported me through medical school, made the obligatory Dad calls during birthdays and major holidays. Some might say he did the bare minimum, but he did just enough for me.”
“So can I assume that he was Bratva, too?”
Sara nods. “He was. The Bratva was his religion. And Luka Uvarov was his god.”
I freeze. Have I made a fool out of myself already in front of someone who’s way more loyal to Kolya than they’ll ever be to me?
Sara reads my discomfort. “Luka was a god to my father,” she clarifies. “Not to me. As far as I was concerned, Luka Uvarov was the man who stole away my father and turned him into a stranger.”
“So then why would you want to be a part of this world?” I ask. “If you don’t mind me being nosy.”
“I’m not a part of it,” she says. “I’m here to do a job, and I’m paid handsomely for it. That’s all. I don’t concern myself with the politics.”
