Page 35 of Enemy of the Heart

She helps him to sit up and bends his elbow before retrieving a sling from her bag and nestling his arm within it. Sean appears exhausted by the time she finishes, a sheen to his skin as he leans against the headboard of the bed with a visible weariness gripping his features.

Rinsing and repeating the same process through Jace’s exam, Amaliya applies an ointment to the wounds on his torso and back, as well as a handful of butterfly bandages. But when she gets to the part where she asks him about being assaulted, he rubs the back of his neck and glances away. “No, but…I think my, uh, balls are bruised.”

Jeesus Kristus. What the fuck happened?

I communicate his statement to the nurse who has me instruct him to undress so she can take a look. To give him some privacy, I face the wall. While I’ve already seen his dick since it was swinging between his legs the entire journey to the boat, this is…different.

See, I can be polite.

“She says that the swelling is minimal, and you shouldn’t have any lasting issues, but it’ll be uncomfortable for a week or so while the bruising goes down. She said you can put your pants back on,” I relay, turning around after I hear the faint rustling of fabric.

“Vasha ochered’,” Amaliya states in a gentle voice, looking squarely at me.

“Oh, I’m fine. I’ve already been tended to,” I reply in Russian.

She purses her lips like she wants to argue, but doesn’t. She probably doesn’t believe me. I wouldn’t. Not with my vast number of cuts, burns, bruises, missing toenails, and broken fingers.

To prove that she suspects I’m a liar, she leaves some medical tape on the ottoman before walking out with Honey Eyes on her heels.

“Lay with me,” Sean murmurs, his words heavy with sleep.

As I strip down to my knickers, I realize that we’ve never shared a bed before. It’s the first time I’ve shared a bed with someone I didn’t intend to kill. The prospect of curling up with Sean fills my stomach with an odd, giddy sensation that I’m absolutely not going to analyze. It feels like our first taste of normality, a glimpse through the window that shows our future.

I flip off the lamps and crawl into bed next to him, but as soon as I have the sheets pulled up around us, he shoves them away.

“What’s wrong?” My face pinches as sit up, trying to make sense of things.

“I—The sheets.” His voice is hoarse and thin.

Ah. I was trained to endure all manners of hell, but I don’t imagine that whatever the army’s training was prepared him to undergo intense physical and psychological torture. Only to inflict.

“Do you want to sleep on top of the sheets?”

Moonlight streams through the sheer curtains, and I clock the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he nods. I nuzzle into his side, careful not to put my head on his chest. If I had to guess, he’s feeling like he’s locked in that box again. I don’t want to add to the sensation that he’s trapped.

After several quiet moments, I whisper, “I’m here if you want to share what happened to you.”

I’d make an awful therapist, but for Sean, I would try.

His good arm snakes beneath me, tucking me to him tighter. “How did you survive it?”

That’s a question with a complicated answer. His fingertips brush the years-old injury on my right side, beneath my ribs, that I got when I was careless. I hadn’t intended to talk about this, but scars—both inside and out—tell our stories, and while I’ve never wanted to erase a single one, I’ve never wanted to share mine with anyone either…until now.

If I bare an emotional wound, perhaps he’ll show me his.

Louhi

“I nearly died that day. It’s the only time I was completing a job where I thought I might not survive.”

I loathe admitting defeat, but as Sean tenderly strokes the raised skin, it reminds me that I’m not entirely on my own anymore. If we’re together, he should see all my pieces. “I’d only been taking jobs for a year and was eager to prove myself. I wasn’t as good as I thought I was back then, and I accepted a hit that was reckless, even for me.”

There’s a low hum as the heat cycles on, the only noise for a moment, as I take myself back to that night. “Gabriel Santos was an international assassin with multiple hits out on him. I knew killing him would put me on the map, and I decided I was going to be the one to take him out. What I didn’t know was that Santos was formally trained in the Filipino martial arts of Latigo y Daga. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have posed as a sex worker, locking myself in such close bloody quarters with him, nor would I have agreed to being whipped when he suggested it. I thought I was signing up for a mild caning or something, not being abused by a fucking whip fighter.”

Shuddering, I close my eyes. I can still remember the taste of blood in my mouth as I bit my tongue, the smell of sweat filling the air, and the venomous sound of the snake whip cracking through the small hotel room in Cairo.

“He only got a few strikes in before my patience snapped like a twig. When I whirled around, I was able to embed my blade into his chest, but I missed his heart in the chaos. Latigo y Daga translates to whip and dagger in Spanish, and Santos expertly knew how to use every weapon in that room with us. He was more skilled than I was then. I managed to get the knife out of his chest, but he had the whip. I turned at the exact moment he struck me. The force of the blow split me open.”

The lazy circles over my scar deepen in pressure, but they don’t hurt. They’re just intense enough to keep me in the present.