Page 110 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
The gunshot shatters the moment. Everything happens too fast.
Glass explodes. People scream. Dimitri is moving before my brain processes the sound, lunging across the table, covering my body with his.
The impact knocks us both to the floor. I’m screaming his name, don’t remember starting, can’t stop. Another shot. Then another.
Return fire from somewhere—Felix, maybe, or Oleg, security I didn’t know was present. The restaurant dissolves into chaos. Tables overturning, patrons fleeing, the sharp smell of gunpowder mixing with expensive wine soaking into carpet.
Dimitri’s weight pins me down. Too heavy. Too still.
“Dimitri?” My hands find his back, come away red. “Dimitri!”
He makes a sound—pain and effort and something that might be my name.
Then Felix is there, hauling Dimitri off me with surprising strength for someone so lean. Blood. There’s so much blood.
“Get her out,” Dimitri manages, voice rough. “Now.”
“Not without you!”
Felix ignores me, already coordinating with security I hadn’t noticed flanking our table. They move as a unit—practiced, efficient, executing a plan they’ve clearly rehearsed.
Dimitri is on his feet somehow, leaning heavily on Oleg, face ashen but eyes still sharp. Scanning for threats. Protecting me even as blood soaks through his shirt.
We’re moving out a back exit, into an alley where cars wait with engines running. Felix shoves me into the back seat. Dimitri follows, or maybe falls, collapsing against me with a grunt of pain.
“Drive!” Felix barks.
The car peels out. I’m cradling Dimitri’s head in my lap, hands pressed uselessly against the wound in his side, trying to stem bleeding I don’t know how to stop.
“Stay with me.” My voice breaks. “Please, stay with me.”
His hand finds mine, grip weak but present. “I’m fine.”
“You’re shot!”
“I’ve had worse.”
The absurdity of the statement might make me laugh if I weren’t so terrified. Blood keeps pumping between my fingers, warm and too much, and Dimitri’s skin is getting colder under my touch.
“Who was it?” I demand, looking at Felix in the rearview mirror.
“Zullo men. At least three shooters.” His voice is clinical, detached. “They’ve been planning this.”
“How did you know?”
“Didn’t. Just got lucky with positioning.”
Lucky. Right. This feels anything but lucky.
The car screams through traffic, running lights, weaving between vehicles with precision that suggests the driver has done this before. Probably has. This is Dimitri’s world—violence lurking under every expensive dinner, every moment of normalcy.
I knew that. Understood it intellectually.
Understanding doesn’t prepare you for the reality of the man you love bleeding out in your lap.
“Hospital,” I say. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
“No hospitals.” Dimitri’s voice, stronger than it should be given the blood loss. “Too many questions. Felix knows where to go.”
