Page 49 of Loathe Me (Touch of Death 1)
“This is infected.” She wrinkles her nose. “Dante could stitch better than this.”
“Sasha didn’t have much to work with,” I say, feeling the need to defend him.
She picks up the syringe, and I instinctively flinch away from the unnecessarily large needle. I mean, really, it’s like she’s trying to reach my spine with that thing. She rolls her eyes before stabbing it into my already abused flesh. My eyes prickle, and I grit my teeth, sucking in sharp breaths. I’m fairly certain she’s enjoying this.
After a few seconds, my shoulder starts to go numb, and I release the breath I’d been holding.
“Who shot you?” she asks.
“Sasha.”
She lifts a brow, and it strikes me how similar her mannerisms are to his. Exactly like siblings.
“Shot me to kill an Elite.”
She picks up the scalpel and gets to work removing Sasha’s stitching. I can feel the tug and pull but nothing else. “They want you badly.”
“Enrique does,” I correct.
“Enough to pay a lot of money for you. The Elite are not cheap.”
I chew on my bottom lip as I mull over her words. I doubt he will ever stop. “The Bianchi’s are powerful; money is no object to them.”
We fall into silence again while she removes the last of the stitching. As soon as she does, a trickle of blood runs down my chest and soaks into my shirt.
“Does he think himself in love with you?” she asks.
I snort. “He doesn’t know me. I’m just a prize, a Ricci bride. Old bloodlines to breed with.”
“I wasn’t talking about Enrique Bianchi.”
“What?” I don’t understand… Those violet eyes of hers meet mine, hard, probing. “Sasha?” I squeak.
“Sasha.”
I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She’s not laughing though. “You have met him, right? No, absolutely not. He’s my bodyguard.”
“And yet, he chooses you over his family.”
The blood still runs down my chest and arm, and I have a feeling she’s deliberately allowing me to bleed. Maybe it’s a sign of things to come. It would be just my luck to run halfway across the world only to be killed by my protector’s jealous sister.
“He’s just honoring an agreement he made with my sister. It’s Sasha. He’s honorable.”
Her eyes narrow, and her lips twitch in a humorless smile. “Yes. He is. A weakness of his. Sometimes honor leads us to act against our best interests. The Elite are chasing you like a pack hunts a fox. He is the only thing standing between them and you. How do you think this will end?” She knows I don’t know how to answer that. “Bianchi wants you alive, but my brother is entirely disposable.”
I straighten, my muscles tensing. “I tried to run. I asked him to drop me at Enrique Bianchi’s gates. He wouldn’t.”
Sasha has been as much my jailer as my protector these last few weeks. He always seems so invincible, but my problems are not his.
“Then perhaps—”
“Enough.” My gaze snaps to the doorway where Sasha stands, his frame tense and his eyes fixed on Una. “This is not your choice, Una. If you do not want Adelina here, then we will leave.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
His jaw sets, and he turns away without a word. Una gets up and goes after him, leaving me with an open—and bleeding—hole in my shoulder. Great. Rummaging through the first aid kit, I pick up a wad of gauze and use it to stop the steady trickle of blood.
“You’re back then.” Tommy strolls into the room with that easy smile and soothing disposition.
“Unfortunately.”
He presses his hand to his chest dramatically. “I’m hurt that you aren’t thrilled to see me.”
I can’t help but smile. I like Tommy, he doesn’t make me feel like a leper around here. “It is nice to see a friendly face.”
He takes a seat on the sofa next to me, slumping back into the thick cushions. “Ah yeah, weeks with just Sasha for company…” He sucks his teeth and shakes his head.
I chuckle. “He’s not that bad.” He raises his eyebrows, obviously not agreeing with me. “He’s not!”
“I’ll believe ya.” Sitting up, he grabs some kind of solution from the coffee table and pulls away the gauze at my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I ask, glancing down at what he’s doing hole. It’s a mistake because my stomach rolls at the sight of the inflamed, bleeding hole in my flesh.
“I’ll have you know, I’m the number one bullet hole stitcher around here.”
“Oh, well, sure. In that case…”
He picks up a bottle of something.
“Wait, are you sober?” I can smell a hint of whiskey on his breath.
“I feel like that’s a trick question. I’m half Irish. Do you mean drink and drive limit sober, or…”
I can’t help but laugh. “Fuck it, just do it. If I end up with a Frankenstein shoulder, you have to let me shoot you and stitch it up.”
“Jesus, if you wanted matching scars, I’d have gotten a tattoo with you, you crazy bitch.”
