Page 81 of The Bratva's Captive

“Easy. Easy,” Saul coached. He looked up at an Ivanov soldier arriving to help. “Get her water.”

Nik and I went to the bed, finding Father unharmed and alive. A glance at the monitor next to his headboard showed the same green lights blinking and filling in like usual. I wasn’t well-versed with medical knowledge about what those vitals all meant, but from previous visits when I’d come to check on him, those numbers and racing lines on the screens resembled what showed now.

He was stable, but barely so.

“Fucking hell,” Nik growled as he pointed at the syringe on the bed. The needle’s cap was off, lying a few inches away from the tube. Even though the items were too close for comfort on top of his blanket, it seemed that the drug hadn’t been used. Dark liquid waited in the plastic, and the tip of the needle had been broken.

“He came in and startled me,” the nurse said. “I tried to fight him off but he was too strong. I had just enough time to… to…” She broke off, crying and still wincing at the pain to swallow. Red marks ringed her neck, suggesting she’d nearly been choked so my father could be harmed again.

Or killed.

“I pushed the button as I struggled to keep him away from the bed,” she said.

A pair of soldiers assisted her toward a chair, guiding her carefully while Saul joined me and Nik at the bed.

“He’s okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Nik replied, pointing at the syringe that hadn’t been used on him.

“It was a man?” I demanded, turning toward the nurse. Now that I could see that my father hadn’t been poisoned—again—I had to move on to the next step of avenging him. Whoever dared to come in here with the intention of hurting my family would be dead. Swift justice would be delivered and no mercy would be counted on.

She nodded weakly. “A man,” she confirmed. “With a…” She pointed at her face. “A strange mask on.”

Just then, a gunshot went off. I froze, placing the sound from further down the hall outside his room. Sloane and Grandmother weren’t out on the floor anymore. By the time it took me to meet my brothers and the other men and get back to Father’s room, they’d already moved aside.

I couldn’t breathe. Panic and dread snaked through me and kept me rooted in place as I waited for a report.

Nik held up his phone, staring at me as he answered.

“The intruder has been found,” a soldier in charge of the house security stated on speaker.

“Is that the only casualty?” I asked, exhaling long and hard.

Sloane is fine.

She has to be.

She’s a survivor.

She wouldn’t run to danger.

She’s going to survive.

She has to be fine.

“Only one,” the soldier replied. “He shot himself as we closed in on him.”

Letting my shoulders drop with relief that Sloane hadn’t been near the immediate danger, I hung my head and breathed easier.

“Fuck,” Nik said as the soldier hung up to handle the mess. “It would’ve been helpful to get some intel out of him.”

It always was unfortunate when someone had to take the easy way out of being interrogated and questioned like that. The only time they ever took that route was when they were certain they’d be dead anyway.

Feeling cheated of being able to kill the asshole who tried to take out my father, I let the anger warm me. Fury accompanied me as I returned to the hallway. I was pissed that someone had tried to finish the job of killing the boss of the Ivanov Syndicate, my father, my leader who was too young to be gone. I was pissed that someone had attempted this when I was with Sloane, enjoying her offer of thanks and seduction, all for me.

I was pissed, and nothing would calm me down like seeing Sloane and knowing she was all right. But first, duty called.

Instead of asking the men where Sloane was in the building, I accepted the foreign sense of confidence that she’d be with my grandmother, helping. Like she’d wanted to rush to help that wounded cook, she’d extend that same sympathy and care toward my grandmother.

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