Page 69 of Mistaken
I hesitate, even as I hear car doors slam open.
Yuri pushes my wounded shoulder, grinning as I groan. “Go!”
A few men stay behind with my brother, and I help haul out the most severely wounded, throwing one young soldier over my uninjured shoulder. “Call Dr. Malyshev, and have him meet us at the safe house.” Dmitri nods and puts the two worst wounded in the back of his car and speeds off.
The ‘safe house’ is actually a large apartment in one of the buildings I own under a different corporate entity and is untraceable to me. Sixteen men were wounded, and six of them are in critical condition. I hold a towel over my bleeding shoulder and listen to the lieutenants’ reports as I wait to make sure the men are out of danger.
“You should let him look at your shoulder,” Patrick says. He’s nodding toward the elderly doctor and his assistant, who are both swaying with exhaustion.
“I’ll take care of it at home,” I said, heading for the door now that I know all my men will live, “the bullet went through so there’s nothing to dig out.” Patrick eyes my makeshift bandage, sopping wet with blood but says nothing.
Resting my head against the car seat, I’m glad Dmitri is not injured and that he’s driving me back to the penthouse. It’s possible I might have lost more blood than I’d thought. But even so, perhaps tonight has turned the tides, we didn’t lose anyone, and the only thing the NYPD will find is my brother, outraged at a violent attempt to rob our best club and our legal firearms, used with permits by the club’s “security guards.” No one could buy the services of this many mercenaries without finally leaving a trail. It was just a matter of time.
“Pakhan?” Dimitri’s calm, solid voice wakes me. “We are here.”
“Maksim?”
Ella had waited up for me, an action I viewed with some regret. I’d wanted to patch myself up quietly and rest. She had changed from her serious black dress into leggings and a big sweatshirt I didn’t recognize.
She must have finally unpacked her belongings we put in storage,I thought,she’s settling in. The thought pleased me more than it should.It’s just the blood loss,I lied to myself.
“What happened to you?” she gasped, fluttering her hands anxiously but not daring to touch my bloody shirt.
“I’m fine,” I said dismissively, “I’ll just-”
“I know where that giant first aid kit is,” she interrupted, “will you come into the bathroom? It’ll be easier to work there.”
It was proof of my excessive blood loss that I allowed her to interrupt me and take my hand to draw me down the hall.
“I’m pretty sure you could perform open heart surgery with this medical kit,” Ella said, only slightly sarcastic.
“Hmm…” I leaned my head back against the bathroom wall, keeping my eyes open with some effort. “Are you sure this won’t make you ill?”
“No, I’m kind of enjoying this,” she said with a poorly concealed grin.
“Making me suffer?”
“Yes.”
No shame, my bride. No shame at all.
She held up the shears. “It’ll be less painful cutting your shirt off if you’re okay with that.”
The thought that I would ever allow anyone near my person with such a sharp object seemed impossible, but I nodded, letting Ella carefully slice through my bloody shirt, pulling the pieces away from my torso.
“Are there any other injuries aside from this bullet hole?”
Now I was certain she was being sarcastic. “You must be under the impression, Ella, that I can’t spank you in this condition for your tone.”
She had the nerve to hide her smirk by pawing through my carefully assembled medical kit. “Well, Maksim, it would take a fair amount of effort on your part, but…” Leaning me forward gently, she looked at the exit wound on my shoulder. “Good, the bullet went right through. I’m not seeing any debris. I’m going to irrigate the wound, okay?”
Watching her sure, swift hands open the cleaning solution, my curiosity - and some suspicion - rose. “You seem quite confident with your medical treatment, Ella. Now, why would a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical research give you such insight about this side of the field?”
“You see, Maksim,” she sassed, drenching both bullet holes until satisfied they were clean and snapping on some gloves, “I initially wanted to be a surgeon. I was so fascinated with all the mysteries of the human body; I went to four years of medical school before deciding it wasn’t for me. Also…” she hesitated, carefully threading the needle, “I didn’t think I could possibly get a loan for the rest of the tuition money. With all the expenses, it would have been around half a million. It just… it wasn’t in the cards, I guess.”
I thought about the five million dollars in assets that her brother had stolen when her parents were killed. Yuri's report was quite specific. Perhaps I would just kill him anyway. They weren’t in contact; how would she know? When she pulled out the Lidocaine, I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary for something this small.”
Frowning, she put it back. “If you say so…” Carefully pinching the wound together on the front of my shoulder, she continued, “I’m guessing the presence of this very large kit with so many excellent medical instruments means that you are used to patching yourself up?”
