She turns and leaves. I finish the last of the vodka and by the time I’m setting the glass to the side, she returns with a first aid kit. She sits next to me on the couch and opens the kit. “Hands, please.”
“This is unnecessary.”
“What kind of boss would you be if your hands stopped working?” she asks me, her head tilted slightly. “I’ve got enough on my plate. Let’s not add that, too.”
I hand her my left hand, resting it on her thigh as she gets the alcohol and cotton balls. “I swear every time I come in here, you pull me into trouble. You are bad news, Mr. Orlov.”
That makes me smile, but not for long. As soon as the cold sting of the alcohol laden cotton ball touches the tiny cuts in my knuckles, I flinch and scowl. She holds my hand firmly.
“It’ll only be a second,” she says, pulling it back to her. “Come on. You used these well enough last night. A little sting can’t be that bad.”
I snicker. “You should have been a nurse. You have the right bedside manner for it.”
She dabs my knuckles. Slowly, I start to notice her fingers rubbing my palms slowly. I squeeze her fingers and she smirks at me.
“Sorry. I guess I never noticed how callused your hands are.”
“You don’t like it.”
“I do, actually. Rough hands are a sign of hard work.”
“I’ll remember that.” I let her take care of the cuts on both my knuckles, watching how delicate she is in her treatment. She’s doing her best not to hurt me any more than she has to right now. It’s curious. It’s like she’s a restoration artist working to restore some fragile piece of art.
“I know you didn’t come in here just to tend to my wounds.”
She nods. “No, actually, I came up here on business. Actual club business.”
She turns and tosses the cotton balls in the trash basket a few feet away. Then she turns to the bandages, peeling them from the sticky surface and placing them over my red, scarred, and bruised skin.
“What’s up?” I ask her.
The task done, she tosses the rest of the trash and closes the first aid tin. “I was thinking with everything that happened, we should start interviewing for more security.”
“Not necessary. I handled that. If you didn’t notice, I’ve got one of my guys at the door and several of them working security around the club.”
“Yeah, well…” She hesitates, looking down at her hands for a second. “We shouldn’t rely on your brothers so much for security, anyway. I mean, I know that’s the arrangement for keeping the police out of here, but do we really need them as regular security?”
I raise an eyebrow up at her skeptically. “You’re fucking with me, right?”
She purses her lips and shifts in her seat uncomfortably. “I’m serious.”
“You won’t find any better security than the Bratva,milaya.Just the reputation will keep out the riffraff.”
“It could also draw unwanted attention,” she says.
“So what if it does? I’ve kept my word as far as conducting Bratva business here. If we were raided today, they wouldn’t find anything.”
“They’d findsomething,” she says. “Even if they had to make it up. And anyway, I don’t understand why you’d even want to risk it either way.”
I sigh. She’s being pretty insistent about this. I guess the problem with Natasha’s boyfriend freaked her more than she’s admitting.
“All right,” I say. “You can start looking. I want final say, though.”
“Final say? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. What could you possibly know about security?”
She scoffs and says, “I know enough to hire someone adequate. Have a little faith, huh?”
