Page 22 of Bratva's Mercy
The glass exploded inward with a brutal crack.
Pain shot through my hand immediately as jagged edges tore through the fabric and bit into my skin, but I barely registered it. Warm blood slicked my knuckles as I shoved the broken shards aside and forced my arm through the opening.
All I cared about was getting to Leo.
“Leo, are you hurt?” I said sharply.
“What are you doing here?” he mumbled.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Saving you.”
I gritted my teeth and felt for the lock, releasing it. The door groaned as it opened.
“Go away, Sergei. I’d rather die than have you save me.Youkilled him.”
The words landed like a punch straight to my ribs. For a split second, I froze, my hand still gripping the twisted frame of the door. My lungs burned from his accusation, deeperthan anger and a hell of a lot worse than the cuts burning across my knuckles.
You killed him.
The words echoed in my skull.
Maybe I had. Not directly. I hadn’t pushed Bradley off that roof. But I worked for the man who had. I helped cover it up. Helped move the pieces afterward, like it was just another problem that needed solving.
So maybe Leo wasn’t wrong.
That didn’t make hearing him reject me, even my attempt to save him, hurt any less.
7
LEO
I’d rather die than have you save me.
For a moment, the only sound was the ticking of the engine and the wind whispering across the highway. My head rang so loudly it was like a drill boring into my skull, and the world tilted slightly to the left.
I heard my own voice echo in my ears.
And I meant it.
I meant every ounce of hatred behind it. Sergei represented everything that had destroyed my life. The man worked for the monster who had driven Brad to his death. The entire Bratva world had swallowed my husband whole and made him fall, gravity finishing the job the moment his body met the pavement. Multiple fractures. Massive trauma.
I’d barely recognized him when I insisted on seeing what was left of him, what they’d scraped up off the pavement. But hearing Sergei’s voice calling my name—steady, calm, frighteningly close—sent an entirely different feeling through my chest.
Relief.
The realization made my stomach twist violently.
I should have been terrified. Instead I felt…safer at the familiarity of his presence, and the thought alarmed me more than the wreck.
Sergei leaned further through the shattered window, his broad shoulders blocking out the flashing hazard lights behind him. Glass crunched under his boots as he reached inside the car and wrestled with the airbag to press the seatbelt release.
The belt snapped free. The moment the tension vanished, my body pitched forward, and a dizzy wave swept through my skull.
“Easy,” Sergei muttered, catching me before I could crash forward. “Can I move you? Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere?”
The contact startled me. He was warm. Solid. One arm braced behind my back while the other steadied my shoulder with careful control, like he was holding something fragile, which was ridiculous. I wasn’t fragile. I worked out whenever I could, and it wasn’t easy with my schedule at the hospital. My shoulders were broader than most men my age, my body lean and strong from years of discipline and long hospital shifts.
“I’m fine.”
