Sold to the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Lavrin Bratva) Nicole Fox (most popular novels TXT) 📖

done, he wraps clean gauze over the tender skin and slips the shoes back onto my feet. I think of Cinderella at the ball and laugh inwardly. I’m no princess, this is no fairy tale, and the man kneeling before me is the farthest thing from Prince Charming that there is on this planet.

Except, maybe not.

There’s a gentleness to his movements that I’d never noticed before, and the worry wrinkling his brow seems genuine. I think back to our frenzied romp on the table of the terrace and blush. Thankfully, he can’t see me in the darkness. I force myself to think of something else—I’m not ready to process that particular memory yet.

“Thank you,” I say as I gently lower myself to the ground.

The pain is still present, especially after the peroxide, but at least I won’t have to worry about an infection anytime soon. He hands me a couple of painkillers to take.

“Where are we?” I ask, slinging one of the bags over my shoulder.

“I used to come here with my father. We should be safe here for the night, but I have to ditch the car. Gino’s men will be looking for it.”

“Won’t they know to search here if we abandon the car?”

“Yes.” Nikita empties all the bags and supplies from the car. “That’s why I’m going to run it into there.”

I turn to see where he’s pointing and realize there’s a small lake I hadn’t noticed before. More of a retention pond, actually, just a man-made hole to collect water, but it seems deep enough to conceal the car, at least while it’s still dark.

My jaw drops when I realize what he’s intending to do, but Nikita is already swinging into action before I can even protest. He’s behind the wheel again, with the driver’s door swung open. He cranks the wheel around until the nose of the car is pointed at the lake, then guns it forward.

“Nikita!” I cry out involuntarily. I see a flash of movement. He dives out of the car moments before it crashes into the still surface of the water. He hits the ground and rolls in an elegant tumble.

By the time he’s regained his feet, the car is filling with dark lake water and bubbling as it sinks. I stand in place, horrified. He comes up to me nonchalantly, brushing dirt from his clothes. When he’s within reach, I slap him across the face.

“Don’t do that again,” I snap.

He looks stunned, and I don’t blame him. I’m not entirely sure where that impulse came from. It’s certainly not something I would’ve done even this morning. But right now, all I could think about was watching him drown, and for some reason that terrified me.

To my surprise, he looks embarrassed. “Sorry,” he mutters. I can only sigh in response.

We watch as the car disappears below the surface. When it’s gone, Nikita picks up his bag from where he set it on the ground before sinking the vehicle. “We need to get moving,” he says. I follow his lead as we forge into the trees standing sentinel at the edge of the forest.

The path ahead is loose rock, each one washed smooth by the river that brought them down from the mountain peak. Thickly dark green boughs arch over the path from each side. It winds ahead smooth and level at first, but soon it becomes narrow, steep, and rocky. Each footfall costs me more strength. I try hard to ignore the pain throbbing in my feet.

“You came up here with your father?” I ask.

Nikita pulls himself up over a fallen stump then turns and offers me a hand to help me over as well. “Yes, it was our annual trip before he died.”

We continue on. Nikita knows where to step as if he’s traversed this exact path billions of times. He knows when to help me and guides me where to step. Even in the darkness, this is second nature to him. In some places, the path grows wide where the soil is soft and we quicken our pace to almost a jog, and then it narrows in the rocky passes. Sometimes the path is no more than a faint suggestion in the dirt.

It’s one of these times when we stop that I notice Nikita is bleeding again from the bullet graze on his shoulder. I grab the bag from him and take out the peroxide and gauze.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re bleeding,” I say as I rip one of the holes in his shirt a bit wider.

“I’m fine.”

I meet his gaze. “Don’t care. You took care of me, so now I’m returning the favor, whether you like it or not.”

He sits back and lets me tend to his wounds. But there isn’t enough gauze to wrap around the deepest graze, so I grab the pocketknife from the bag and cut off a piece of the sweatpants I’m wearing to use as a makeshift bandage.

Nikita tracks my movements. I’m not sure if he’s worried I might stab him or if he’s impressed I’m taking care of him. That’s one thing I’m starting to hate about him—that emotionless mask he wears. Every time I think I’m getting a glimpse of the man behind the walls, he throws them up again before I can be sure. He’s a frustrating enigma.

I tuck the blade back into its sheath and return the multitool to the bag. Then I take the material I’ve cut and wrap it around his wound.

“Done,” I say after securing the material around his arm.

Nikita nods and stands. “Let’s go. We still have a long way to climb.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nikita

I sigh and my shoulders slouch as I stare off into the distance. This place ... it’s so beautiful and serene. Just like I remembered. My eyes wander along the small hills to the valleys, following the dry creek beds my father and I used to camp next to. How many times did I stand on this very ledge with him? My father used to breathe