“Give her a chance,” Alek said as he stood to leave. “We’re looking for Avilov. You will get stronger. And I respect that you want to be the one to exact revenge on him. I will do everything in my power to ensure that you’re the one to serve him the justice he’s due.”

I nodded, glad that he understood me so well.

“All you’ve got to do in the meantime is recover. I’m confident you’ll have more success if you give Hannah a chance.”

A chance? It still felt too risky.

She was too good at slipping under my guard.

“Let her assist you,” Alek said. It wasn’t a direct mandate, but it may as well had been one.

“We need you fit and ready to protect the Bratva. You won’t do that on your own.” He raised his brows, then headed out of my room.

Left with that parting wisdom—or maybe it was a threat—I debated calling Becca down here to give me Hannah’s number.

I wouldn’t apologize for what I did, but it seemed that I would need to check that she was still around.

Just not in my bed. Ever again.

9

HANNAH

“Ican’t believe I did that.”

I slowed from running away from Dmitri’s room. Leaving him smirking and scowling in bed seemed like my only sane option. Since Becca found me earlier, I’d been experiencing pure, utter insanity.

What do I do now?Panic was the name of my game, and I freaked out as the consequences of what I did caught up to me.

I kissed my patient.

I let him touch me.

Taste me.

Where was my decency, my common sense? I had neither, because as I hurried out of his private wing and passed door after door and got overwhelmed by the number of hallways and floors in this behemoth of a fancy mansion, I felt like a filthy sinner.

My thighs rubbed together, sticky from my cum that I hadn’t wiped off. Like a deviant, a slut, I wore no panties. He’d ripped them before he?—

Oh, God.I shivered as a phantom tingle of his lips and tongue on my pussy hit me.

I would never, ever lose that memory, but right now, I didn’t want to acknowledge what happened.

“Hannah?”

I whirled around at Becca’s voice. Turning so quickly made my dress flare up, and I slapped my hands down to keep the fabric low. Emily toddled toward me, gaining speed, and I worried that she’d reach me and tug on my dress.

Sure enough, her little arms raised up high in her telltale signal that she wanted to be picked up. I plastered a quick smile on my face for her and masked my uneasiness. Smoothing my dress to my legs, I delicately lowered in a crouch to pick her up.

“What are you doing?” Becca laughed. “A curtsy?”

My cheeks flamed hotter.No. Just doing my best not to moon anyone or let you know that I lost my panties.

“Hi, Em-Em!” I didn’t reply to Becca, instead focusing on this sweet girl I’d missed so much. When Becca helped me pack some things in my duffel bag—a seamless process because Melissa had been out getting her nails done, on my dime, of course—I was happy to hear that Becca and her fiancé, Ivan, lived in the same house as my patient. I looked forward to spending time with little Emily again, even if I was expected to babysit a man in need of nursing help, not an infant.

Babysitting. Yeah, right.What Dmitri coaxed me to do was not an innocent act that fell within the realm of babysitting.

“Uh-oh.” Becca furrowed her brow as she reached us in the hallway. “What’s wrong?”