Page 80 of His to Own

Nikolai takes the gun from me and shoots the guard in the stomach, knocking him to the ground.

We run down the driveway and make it to our car. I glance back at the house and see Aleksander standing in the doorway, calmly watching us as he rolls his pocket watch between his fingers.

He doesn’t come after us. His eyes are… curious, like he’s studying me and Nikolai. Like he wanted to know what we would do in this situation.

Nikolai and I drive away from the house. My arm is fucking bleeding. The blood stains the leather seat underneath me.

“I’ll get you to my doctor,” Nikolai says.

“That would be appreciative.”

“You insulted him. It’s why he attacked us.”

I scoff. “He was going to attack us no matter what. When you’re not afraid to cut people’s heads off, you tend to be insane. I mean, even I have never done that.”

“We lost the element of surprise with him.”

“Did you really think he’d make a deal?”

Nikolai doesn’t answer. Always a stickler for rules. Nikolai prefers to make deals over death if he can. It’s why he made his deal with me. But I know how easy I am. I don’t think Aleksander is going to be as easy.

Dr. Ivanov, Nikolai’s doctor, quickly gets the bullet out of my shoulder and stitches up my wound.

“You’re lucky it was just your shoulder,” he says. His beady eyes are intent on my wound. If he weren’t such a kind man, I’d assume he was a freak for how he looks.

“I know. I was.”

Dr. Ivanov finishes with the stitches and steps back. We’re inside his private examination room inside his large mansion. Nikolai pays his doctor well. “Be careful using your shoulder though. It’s going to be tender for a while.”

“No shit. Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

Nikolai is waiting for me by the front door. “Everything fine?”

“Yes. What are we going to do now? About Aleksander?”

“No fucking idea,” he mutters. “But I’ll handle it. I always do. Go home to your wife. You need to rest. You’re no use to me if you’re hurt.”

The last thing I want is to return to Elena and the icy coldness between us. In this moment, I want to find a warm body to fuck to forget all my troubles but I know that will only make things worse.

So I do as Nikolai says and return home. Elena is in my private library, reading a book. Of course she is.

She glances at me when I enter the room and her eyes widen as she sets the book down. “You’re bleeding. Your jacket.”

I glance down at my shoulder. My jacket is covered in my blood. “Huh. Would you look at that.”

“What happened?”

“Got shot in the shoulder. One tends to bleed when shot in the shoulder.”

“How did you get shot?”

“With a gun.”

She sighs and gives me a pointed look. “You know what I mean.”

“Do you really want to know? After everything that has happened. I thought you wanted to go back to being in the dark on what I do.”

She bites her lip. I want nothing more than to kiss those lips. I haven’t kissed her in a while. Such a shame. “You got hurt. I want to know exactly how you got hurt.”