“You’re glaring.”
“You’ve given me no reason not to, have you?”
His breath fans across my face in hot puffs of laughter. Exhaustion weighs my eyelids back down. It doesn’t stop me from nipping at his shoulder. I don’t expect him to actually wince. I can tell he isn’t faking it just for my benefit, either.
“Iosif?”
“I’m fine,” he says too quickly.
That wakes me the rest of the way up. “Put me down,” I order, wriggling, impatient. “Right now!”
He curses—and obeys, glowering at me the whole time. The fact that he actually listens to me and sets me on my feet is all the proof I need. His eyes can’t distract me from the fact that he’s limping and favoring his left side.
“Whathappened?” I reach out and still him with my hands on his arms. I’m terrified he’s going to pull away. I feel no relief when all he does is sigh.
“Bratva stuff.” Succinct. He gives nothing away. It isn’t an accident.
My lips purse into a hard line.
If he doesn’t want to talk? Fine. Right here in the hallway, I reach for the buttons of his shirt and start undoing them. Iosif stiffens, stunned. The element of surprise lets me get halfway down his chest—nothing I haven’t seen before, I can say now. Or I could, if he didn’t have such an effect on me.
“No,” he says firmly, ripping my hands away from him.
I let out an agitated laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I snap, and smack at his hands until he lets me have a real look. “You’re favoring that side. Which means something is wrong here. Let me see. God knows you’re not going to see a doctor.”
Iosif shoots me a dark look. “I already saw Yulia,” he corrects. “My ribs are bruised. I’ve already been instructed to—”
“Ice for two to three days, then switch to a warm compress when the swelling subsides,” I finish for him. Pointedly, despite the question in his eyes, I don’t explain either. Two can play this game. “I’ll get the ice and meet you in your room. Try to have your pants on this time.” I give it my best attempt at playing an ice queen.
At least he has the grace to look disgruntled by it.
It’s a satisfying note to turn away from him on. The high of it is enough for me to ride the wave of—I do, all the way to the kitchen and back.
The sight of his shirtless body, for the first time since we—
It knocks the breath from my lungs.
He’s so sexy.
At least he’s slumped in one of the chairs in front of the windows instead of his bed. That’s something, right?
My heart still does a funny little dance in my chest when he looks up at me. I scold it, reminding and reprimanding the fickle thing, while I wrap the icepack in a towelette and dare my hand not to shake as I bring it to his side.
Any surge of vindication is snuffed when he flinches.
I almost do, too, when he insists, “I can do this, Janella. Just go to bed.”
It stings, this game of Russian Roulette we’re engaged in. Will he pull me in now, or shove me aside? Will it numb, wound, or maim? These stupid games only ever have stupid prizes.
Fine.I shove the icepack at him and retreat.
“I’ll pack my stuff and go sleep where I’m wanted,” I say resolutely. I anticipate the moment he reaches out for me, trying to grab me and root me here for him to do whatever the hell he wants. I dodge his grasp. “No.You either want me here, or you don’t. I’m either a part of this world, or I’m not. Let me in or let me go. Share your life with me, or leave me to whatever mine is going to be. You can’t have it both ways.”
In the face of all of my emphatic words, his heavy silence is intimidating.
It’s only when I’m about to turn away once more, this time for good, that he exhales. “It isn’t a big deal. This shit adds up. I’ve told you before—this is the deal, in this world. Sometimes we get fucked up. Most times, the other fuckers get fucked up worse.”
Worse,he says. Worse than bruised ribs. Worse than—what, the man he’d stabbed the night he took me?
