Page 5 of Trapped By the Bratva
“I’m not going to drive myself out of here, am I?” I coughed at the strain of speaking that long, but when she sort of smiled, I knew she got it. I said it in the vein of a joke between us. When she found me and told me that she’d get me out, I was a wiseass in pointing out that I couldn’t walk.
I bet I couldn’t crawl, either. My body wasthatbattered. As soon as she drove me and Maxim away from the warehouse that was engulfed in flames, they brought me to the nearest emergency room in Chicago. They did their best, but with correspondence to New York, we arranged for continued care there. I’d live. That was what the lead emergency room doctor here told me. Satisfied that I was stable to fly home, he’d reluctantly given approval to discharge me straight to the hospital near the mansion the Valkov Bratva used as a headquarters.
“Again, I would advise to wait so we can monitor Mr. Valkov here,” the doctor told Maxim, “but?—”
“But you can shove that advice up your ass, Doc.” I stared up at the ceiling to avoid making eye contact with Nadia or Maxim.
“Dmitri…” my brother said. “He’s just trying to?—”
“Well,Iwant to get out of here too,” Nadia said.
I had a lot to learn about this newest woman in our family, but I respected her already. She got it. She wasn’t intimidated by my pissy mood. If anything, she sympathized.
With a little more fanfare and fussing, the team that helped to declare me stable assisted my exit from the hospital. Maxim andNadia joined me in the plane, and while a couple of guards sat in the back, it was just the three of us on the way back to New York.
Nadia rambled, filling Maxim in on more that had happened. She’d been taken right out of the Valkov building in Chicago, transported and gagged, then she eavesdropped on what Erik planned.
As we flew, I lay there locked in my beaten body and unable to do more than shift on this gurney, but I listened. I let her words sink into my mind. All this information was critical because that man, that fucking Avilov leader, was the only person who needed to be sorry.
He’d be sorry he'd ever laid a finger on me. As soon as I could, I’d make that motherfucker regret thinking about torturing me during captivity. The Kastavas—Sergei Kastava, especially—had a place in hell waiting too, but Erik Avilov would rue the day he ever saw me and decided to turn me into this mess.
Missing fingers. Broken bones. Cuts and bruises. A dislocated shoulder, torn ligaments, and a snapped ankle.
Multiple surgeries would await me at home. Countless exercises and therapeutic assistance would be required. It would take my body significant time and effort to get back to the strength I had before I was taken by the Kastavas and brought to the Avilovs.
But I would get there. I had to. Because the idea of getting revenge was the only thing that made me want to stay alive for another single second.
Maxim sighed heavily, letting Nadia lean against him from her seat next to his. They’d lifted the armrest so they could be closer together, and I strained to turn my head the other way on the pillow.
I didn’t need to watch them. I could give them privacy. I didn’t know all the details of how they’d gotten together, but I wasn’t so stuck in my misery to miss how they clicked. How they worked together.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked her.
Another doctor had checked on her from her shorter time as a captive, and other than a kick to her thigh and being dehydrated, she was given a clean bill of health.
Unlike me.
“Yes. I’ll always be all right. Now that I’m back with you.”
I stared at the opposite wall of the plane, wishing my pain could be a little worse, a little more severe, to just knock me the fuck out.
I didn’t need to hear them kissing and making out over there. I didn’t want to hear Maxim ask her again and again, like a goddamn worry wart, if she was hurt or uncomfortable.
Just like our brothers, Maxim had found a strong woman who’d stand by him no matter what. A partner. A friend. A supporter through thick and thin.
I wouldn’t begrudge him for getting his girl, but dammit, it was like salt in the wound, and I had many of them.
If anyone could benefit from compassion and comfort right now, it was me. As soon as those painkillers wore off, I would be an ideal candidate for someone to distract and nurture.
But I didn’t have anyone. I was the last one standing, the last bachelor of us brothers. It felt like a full circle mocking me. It all started with Alek stealing Mila Kastava. He’d taken her andstarted this entire beef between the Valkov and Kastava names. And throughout the last year, every single one of them had found their woman.
Alek and Mila.
Then Nik found Amy again.
Ivan was happy with Becca.
Clearly, Maxim had started something with Nadia.
