“No. What I do know is that she managed to get out of the apartment and she was enduring repeated electrical shocks as she raced down the hallway.”
“Fortunately, I don't think most of the blood is hers,” Mother says, running her hands over the girl’s arms and legs. She leans back just in time to avoid getting her nose broken as the girl regains consciousness, shooting upright, struggling against our hands with a scream.
“You're safe,” Mother says in a low tone, close to her ear. “I'm Dr. Ella Morozova. You are safe. You are at our medical clinic. No one will harm you here.”
The girl’s frantic gaze darts between us. “You called the police?” she grits out, her voice raw-sounding, like she’s been screaming for a long time.
“There's an investigation on site,” I say, avoiding her question. “Whoever is involved will not get away with this.”
“What's your name?” Mother uses the same gentle tone she did when we were hurt or scared as children.
“A- Ava,” the girl manages. “Ava Blue.” Her hands are starting to shake again, and my mom nods to a nurse.
“You’re going into shock, Ava. I’m going to give you a sedative. Your heart’s beating too fast.”
Ava lets out an anguished sob, her body arching off the stretcher. “No, I don’t- I need to stay awake, you can’t-”
Mother’s hand rests gently on Ava’s forehead. “I swear on my son’s life that we will keep you safe here.”
There’s a silver flash of a needle in Ava’s arm, and she struggles against us for a moment longer before the sedation does its work and her eyes droop closed again, her little body going limp. Looking down at her, I feel a strange twist in my gut. She's so small, so fragile, still covered in blood and with those burns seared around her neck.
Revenge is traditionally Roman's job asVorand enforcer. But I intend to take a personal interest in fucking up whoever is involved in this.
***
Iisus Khristos- Jesus Christ in Russian
Chapter Seven
In which Dmitri approaches the bachelor party with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for an IRS audit.
Dmitri…
“Really? You swore on my life,Mat',Mother?”
She’s leaning against Ava’s bed, arms folded. “Well, I have three sons,” she says unrepentantly. “That does spread out the karmic risk, right?”
“You were looking right at me,” I say. “It seems pretty pointed.”
Chuckling heartlessly, she gives me a kiss on the cheek before picking up her iPad. “So, your girlfriend-”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“MissBlue,”she continues, “has a bit of a jangled nervous system from repeated shocks. I ordered an MRI and fortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s any permanent damage. But her injuries were significant. Your girl-”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“-has injuries consistent with a severe beating, based on the defensive cuts and bruises on her forearms and hands.”
I will find who did this and peel their skin from their body.
“She’s mildly concussed, and you’ve already seen the burn marks on her neck,” Mother is getting angrier as she reads, her customary distance during a medical diagnosis seems to be failing her. “However, as earlier noted, most of the blood isn’t hers. It looks like she utilized a glass shard or something similar as a weapon. The body Roman brought in from the apartment bled out from parallel cuts to the femoral artery in the left thigh. Impressive. Most people would go for the throat or chest.”
“The areas you’d most likely protect during an attack,” I note.
“Exactly,” she says approvingly. “She went low, and it was two precise cuts. They weren’t accidental. Miss Blue knows her anatomy.”
“Interesting,” I murmur, looking at Ava's still form. Her cheekbone is bruised, she's got a black eye and there's a cut on the side of her mouth that looks ugly. "How soon before she wakes up?"
