She nods and gives me a concerned look. “Are you sure you’re all right, Avery? You’ve been so tired lately. I know taking custody of them was the right thing, but I don’t want you to burn yourself out either.”
If only she knew. I can’t think about that now, though. One slipup and everything could be fucked.
“I’m alright. I’m going to have a few days off soon, and I plan on doing nothing. I’ll send the kids to their friends and just veg. And soon enough, they’ll be heading to college.” Sadness fills me. Ever since they came to live with me, the kids have become such an integral part of my life that I don’t know what I’ll do when they’re not my whole purpose.
“Good.” She pats my shoulder. She glances around, then lowers her voice to ask, “Did you hear back from that clinic job you applied for?”
It’s been a secret between us that I applied for a job in a local doctor’s clinic. I love the pace of the ER, but with the kids and everything else, I want to slow down and work in one of the local clinics. Though, if the charge nurses here ever found out, they’ll be pissed. I’m one of the few people who will always cover shifts without too much pushback, and they won’t want to lose that.
I give her a sad smile. “They decided to hire someone else,” I murmur with a shrug. “But they said that it was close. Theyjust wanted someone with a bit more specialty experience. So I’ll keep looking.”
She gives me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, the right thing will come along soon. Now, I need to go and check on my patients, and you need to start getting ready to get out of here. Go home and get some rest, sweetie.” She hums softly under her breath as she walks down the hall.
If I do end up leaving, she’ll be the one I miss most.
It takes me the full hour to finish my final rounds, notes, and giving my report to the nurse covering for me. By the time I sign out and head down to the staff exit, my feet hurt, my back is tight, and I’m anxious to get to bed. The kids will probably be asleep when I get home, and if I’m lucky, Isla will have something out for me to snack on since it was her turn to cook tonight.
I sense them before I see them. My heart starts to pound and dread pools in my stomach. Damn it, not tonight.
I barely make it to my car when they step out from the shadows, menacing and with a sick excitement. It’s always the same men. “Boss wants you,” one of them—I call him Bozo in my head—tells me curtly.
They spin me around, blindfold me, and toss me inside the SUV. I don’t recognize the man waiting for me, but then again, it’s always someone different in here when I arrive.
They probably do it on purpose.
I try to keep my fear from showing as I gather the supplies I need from the dilapidated medical supplies cabinet. I hate it here, and I hate that I’m being forced to do this. All because of my stupid mother. The same one who can’t keep the drugs out of her extremities, or her legs closed so she can buy the supply she needs. But the moment she tried to pimp out my siblings, that was the moment I knew that she couldn’t be saved.
That I didn’t want to save her anymore.
Taking custody of them was my sole purpose, but that also meant it put me in my mother’s crosshairs. Apparently, she made sure to tell everyone in her little drug world that I was a nurse and that I could help them out, get them the good drugs legally. Or, if they were dying, I could save them. To the point that I have moved five times in five months to escape her. But she always finds me. And she always threatens to sell the kids off to the highest bidder if I don’t comply with her.
Normally I call the cops and they deal with her, but there was no getting out of it this time. This time, she got herself into trouble with the dealer’s supplier, and the only way she didn’t end up dead was by offering me as collateral. And by extension, not killing my siblings.
The minute I walked into my cramped apartment and saw the men with guns on my terrified siblings, I knew I didn’t have a choice. There is nothing I won’t do to save them. Even if it means being at the beck and call of a Russian mobster to fix up his men. All on top of my regular job at the hospital. But if it keeps my family safe, then I’ll do whatever I have to.
“Move it!” the man shouts impatiently.
“I’m getting it,” I snap. I should probably be more careful with my words, but I’m exhausted after a full twelve-hour shift, and then being ordered to come here. I can feel my mind wanting to shut down, but I force myself past it, grabbing the last few things.
“Alright, I’m ready,” I tell the man, glaring at him.
He sneers before stalking out into the dark hallway. I keep my gaze ahead, filtering out the screams and pleas of women behind closed doors. It’s not hard to figure out that this is the soldiers' quarters, and they do whatever the hell they please.
When we reach the end of the hall, the man clicks a few buttons on a keypad, and the door opens. He steps back and gestures for me to go inside. I move forward, and then I see him.The giant of a man. In the darkness of the inner hallway, the only thing I can make out is the size of him, but I can feel those cold, soulless eyes on me. I fight back the urge to cower or shudder. Instead, I keep my head held high and my shoulders straight.
“This way,” he rumbles, turning and leading me further down a hall to a simple wooden door. When he opens the door, he turns to me, but I can’t see past his large frame. “You will treat him only enough to keep him alive. No more. No less.”
I barely manage to keep my gasp inside as I see the man hanging from the ceiling. Blood drips from him, his head hanging down, and his chin touching his chest. He’s only wearing a pair of jeans, and his body is covered in slices and cuts. None of them are deep enough to need stitches, but it’s almost worse. I move forward cautiously.
Who is he? Why is he here?
He doesn’t even move when I stop next to him, and I’m certain that he’s passed out until I open my bag and see the slightest twitch out of the corner of my eye. Okay, so maybe he’s pretending, then? Or he’s unconscious and starting to come around? Either way, I need to be careful. I move around him to check his back, and again, I barely contain my horrified gasp.
His back is torn to pieces, his face swollen, eyes black and blue. Wounds ooze blood, dripping and sliding along his skin to the floor, soaking the jeans he’s still wearing. I need to treat them quickly, or the man isn’t going to live through the night from an infection. I glance around the room, seeing the blood staining the floor, pieces of skin still clinging to the whip on the table only a few feet away. The air smells of sweat, blood, and damp. How the hell is he still alive? I’m almost tempted to give him half a dose, let him die, and escape this nightmare, but no, my oath will never allow that.
I quickly move back to my bag and pull out the antibiotics and syringe. But the moment I move to open the bottle, a handgrabs my wrist, stilling me. I look up and see the ogre, Nikolai, looking down at me. Even the men are scared of him, and I can see why. “No,” he tells me firmly.
“Then he will die.” My heart pounds furiously in my chest. “Infection is going to be setting in, and he’ll be dead by morning without it. Especially in a non-sterile environment. You said you wanted him alive, but you don’t want me to save him. So what’s it going to be?” I force myself to hold his stare, even though everything inside me wants to cower back. Up close and seeing him out of the shadows is enough to let me know he might just be the devil himself.
