“I need to stop the bleeding. I’m not taking off my blouse. I don’t have anything on underneath. Give me your coat,” Madisyn says. The girl is practically ordering me around, but I do as she asks.
I shrug out of it while driving, no easy task, and shove it back at her between the two seats. “Here.”
I’d ask her not to get blood on it, but since I think she’s about to shove it against his wound to stop the bleeding, I guess I’m out eight hundred for a suit coat.
“Let me take him inside the clinic,” Madisyn says. “If it’s about the guard—”
“This has nothing to do with that stupid guard,” I mutter.
Traffic is grid-locked ahead. I make a sharp right, and Ivan groans from the pain, or maybe it’s the sudden intense turn that doesn’t help.
“Can you drive a little more recklessly?” Madisyn shouts at me.
“Traffic was stopped. I’m trying to get us there quickly and in one piece.” Maybe I should have left her ass at work and picked up a different nurse, someone nicer.
I hit the gas harder, weave in and out of back roads, and blow through two traffic lights just as they’re turning red then fly by a stop sign.
I’m keeping an eye out for any cops, but I’m in a hurry.
“How’s he doing back there?” I ask.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. His pulse is dropping. I need you to turn us around and take us back to the concierge center.”
I huff under my breath. “No chance of that happening. Not while the cartel is waiting for us to show up.”
“The cartel wasn’t waiting for you,” Madisyn says. She’s a little too quick with her answer.
“What do you mean?” I growl.
What does she know that she isn’t telling me?
“One of my patients seems like he’s probably with the cartel,” Madisyn says. “He had a bodyguard outside of his room.”
“What’s his name?” I’d stop the SUV and interrogate Madisyn, but every second could mean life or death for Ivan.
My soldier in the back seat is breathing shallowly, and the groaning and wincing in agony are diminishing.
“I can’t tell you that, and this isn’t the time, Mikhail,” she shoots at me. She’s pissed.
Maybe I deserve it. Then again, I’m still on fire from finding out her ex-boyfriend is a federal agent. I sure as hell don’t need him sniffing around.
“Keep him alive, Kisa. Your life depends on it.”
“My life?” Madisyn asks, her voice growing louder. “I left work early and will probably get fired for helping you out. So, yeah, that seems fair, threatening my life when all I’m doing is helping you.”
She’s cheeky. I’ll give her that.
“Really? That’s all you’re doing? You’re not working with your ex-boyfriend to get dirt on me?”
I glance up in the rearview, pinning her with my stare.
Her brow is furrowed, and as soon as we lock our gazes, she shakes her head and returns her focus and attention entirely to Ivan.
Good, she needs to keep him alive.
I don’t want to have to kill her. It’d be a real shame.
“I found out your ex is a Fed. As in Special Agent of the FBI,” I say.
She hasn’t returned my stare—her focus on Ivan.
I glance back at the road, where I need to be paying attention. Another sharp right and I’ve rerouted us around the traffic jam.
“Yeah, so what? It’s just his job. Why does it matter?” Madisyn asks.
I clear my throat. When she puts it like that, I feel like an ass.
I haven’t told her that I’m bratva or that my business associates are my blood brothers.
I don’t want to be in bed with someone who might be spilling my secrets to the enemy.
“I don’t like cops sniffing around my property,” I say. I have to ask, even though I don’t want to give her a heads up that it’s missing. “Did you steal something of mine?”
“Of course not! What are you talking about? What could I have possibly stolen?”
I don’t answer her question. I turn back to the conversation about Aaron. “Are you and he friends? I don’t like how he showed up last night.”
“Did it look like we were friends last night when he came to my house, bothering me?” Madisyn snaps.
She’s got a point. And that’s why I had Luka keep a close eye on her, assigning her a bodyguard in case he shows up again. Though at the time, it was more about protecting her, now I need Luka watching her make sure she’s not divulging anything to him.
Even more so now that I’m bringing her in to help Ivan; she’s going to see things that she can’t unsee.
We pull up outside the gate. One of my men lets us in and shuts the metal contraption behind us. I park in front of the main entrance and shut off the engine.
The front door opens. The attendant must have notified my men at the gate. Nikita and Dimitri hurry outside and open the back door, helping carry Ivan inside. He’s slumped forward, and each man puts an arm around his shoulder as they maneuver him up the main steps and into the compound while trying to hold the bloody jacket in place to keep him from bleeding out.
Ivan is pale. He’s always been a bit fair-skinned, but he looks ghastly. Perspiration appears across his brow as my men lug his ass inside.
I toss my keys at Luka as he follows outside. “Park it for me,” I say.
Madisyn climbs out of the back seat after Ivan is lugged out by two of my men. “You’re coming inside with me,” I say and gesture for her to follow.
She’s right on my heel.
Her hands are bloody, the scrubs marked with crimson, stained from helping one of my men.
She’ll need a change of clothes and a shower, but not before fixing up Ivan. She’s got work to do.
Madisyn follows close behind me. She’s inside and accompanying me down the hall where my men have taken Ivan.