Dance of Madness: Chapter 40

MILENA

Rurik grunts, helping me lower Nero onto the couch in the living room as Vasilisa frets and Angelina starts sorting through the first aid kit.

I glance at Rurik, my heart pounding as my face caves a little. There’s holes in his suit, leaking blood. Yet somehow, he’s helped me carry Nero up here.

He grimaces as he rips his dress shirt open, revealing the flak vest underneath it.

“Doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to when the bullets come from five fucking feet away,” he grunts.

He shrugs off his jacket and shirt, undoing the velcro on the vest and tossing it aside to reveal two horrible welts where the bullets hit. One actually went through the vest that slowed it down. Rurik makes a face as he grabs the back end of the slug between his thumb and forefinger and yanks it out of his pectoral muscle with a grunted curse.

“I’m fine, Milena,” he smiles before glancing down at Nero. “Take care of your lunatic here.”

He smirks at Nero, then puts a hand gingerly on his good shoulder.

“You did good, De Luca,” he growls. “And thank you for protecting her.”

“You’re welcome for saving your ass, too.” Nero grins a bloody smile at him.

Rurik rolls his eyes and walks over to help Angelina get Papa to sit the fuck down.

I sink onto the edge of the couch, my face crumpled.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, lightly cupping the side of Nero’s face.

He just grins at me, shaking his head. “For what.”

“For my family,” I groan.

“It’ll definitely make for some interesting Thanksgiving dinners,” he grunts.

I groan again.

“Hey, princess?” he murmurs, his voice raspy and hoarse.

My lips curl. “Yes?”

“I know I’m a mess right now,” he croaks. “But I’d really like to fucking kiss⁠—”

I slam my mouth to his, making him grunt, not even caring if it hurts when I do.

Pretty sure he doesn’t, either.

“Drink?”

I pull back from Nero and see Kir’s brow furrowing as he looks at my father. Papa is completely ignoring Angelina and Rurik’s attempts to get him to sit so they can, you know, address the small problem of the bullet hole in his body.

“Marko, you’ve been shot,” Kir says patiently, like we didn’t just all experience utter hell downstairs, which is still a complete bloodbath.

“Yet—here I am,” Papa crows. “Still standing. Still Russian. So, again, Kir, would you like a drink.”

Kir starts to shake his head, but Papa holds up a hand.

“It was a rhetorical question, Kir. Right now, we drink.”

“Papa,” I sigh, shooting him a look when I grab his attention. “Will you please stay still so Angelina can patch you up until the doctor arrives?”

He grins at me. “Not the first time I’ve been⁠—”

“Sit, Papa,” I snap.

Papa sighs heavily. “Fine,” he grumbles, dropping heavily into his office chair with a grimace. Rurik helps him with his shirt, undoing it to reveal the wound as Angelina, who used to be a nurse, kneels down to start cleaning and dressing it.

“I believe this was a ricochet, Mr. Kalishnik,” she frowns, peering at his stomach. “Otherwise you’d have a much bigger problem on your hands.” She glances up at him. “I think I can get the slug out, unless you’d prefer to wait for the doctor⁠—?”

“I’d prefer to not have a bullet in my gut, Angelina,” Papa sighs, smiling at her with a touch of pain in his eyes. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Angelina gets to work as Papa nods at Kir.

“I’ll have that drink now, Nikolayev.”

Kir glances my way. I sigh. “Sure. He’s going to have one anyway.”

He smiles and walks over to the bar cart near the wall, pouring two glasses of vodka. “Anyone else?”

“Fuck yes,” Nero rasps, wincing as he raises a finger. “Right here.”

“The hell you are,” I scowl at him.

“You understand that I’m in a considerable amount of pain, yes?”

My eyes soften as they drag over him. “What hurts?”

“Everything,” he chuckles hoarsely.

“Nero.”

We glance over to my father sitting in his chair, looking at us. His mouth is grim.

“You saved my daughter’s life. After I beat you to a pulp and broke your fingers and toes.”

My eyes bulge. “Excuse me!?”

“Easy, princess,” Nero groans. “I’ve already put myself in his shoes. I definitely had it coming.”

“I owe you an apology,” Papa continues, grimacing when Angelina yanks the slug from his wound. “To both of you,” he says quietly. “For all of it.” He turns to Kir. “Where are we with that vodka, anyway? One for Mr. De Luca, too,” he grunts.

“Exactly when did I become the bartender,” Kir mutters. “Anyone else?”

Screw it.

“I’ll take one,” I sigh.

“I will when I’m done here,” Rurik grunts, holding Papa’s wound shut as Angelina starts giving him some stitches.

“Fuck’s sake,” Kir growls. “Is anyone not drinking?”

“I’ll stick with tea, thank you,” Angelina says quietly, focused on sewing Papa up.

Vasilisa, who doesn’t drink at all, shakes her head as she comes back into the living room with a stack of clean towels.

Kir pours the drinks as I take a towel, wet it with antiseptic, and start gently cleaning the blood from Nero’s face.

“Still gonna love me if I scar up and get all not pretty?” Nero grins lazily at me.

“You might be stuck with me for a long time,” I shrug. “I think I might have Stockholm Syndrome.”

“You just get wet for a guy who saves your life,” he grins.

“Stop it,” I mutter, grinning at him and blushing fiercely, thanking God that it would appear no one else heard him with his voice so trashed.

“I’m right, though. Right?”

I roll my eyes.

Kir walks over and hands us two glasses. I pass one to Nero as Kir goes back to the bar cart, then he pours two more for Rurik and Papa and takes them over.

“So,” he growls quietly. “Anyone have anything they want to talk about?”

“Uh…” I glance at Nero and Kir. “Yeah, I’ve got…you know, a hundred.”

Kir looks at Nero, his brow arched, asking a silent question.

“Why not,” Nero murmurs. “Fucking cat’s out of the bag anyway.”

Kir takes a sip of his drink.

“I grew up thinking it was just my sister Polina and I,” he says quietly. “When I got older, after my parents had died, she and I found out we actually had a half-sister—a daughter our mother had had with an Italian man here in New York before she and my father met. My mother was barely eighteen when she had the baby, and had no family or safety net of her own. So it was the father’s mother who raised that little girl.” He glances at Nero. “Her name was Natalia Crivello. She became Natalia De Luca when she married Nero’s father, Antonio.”

My heart lurches and my eyes go wide as they dart to Nero’s. He grins, lifting his good shoulder with a grimace before twisting his head toward my father.

“Does me being a quarter Russian ease the pain a bit, Marko?”

Papa chuckles quietly as Angelina secures the bandage around his abdomen. He lifts his glass to Nero in a toast. “It just might.”

“What I want to know,” Rurik says, standing and rolling his neck before taking a swig of vodka, his eyes locked on Kir, “is exactly how you managed to walk in at the perfect time.”

Kir’s expression doesn’t give much away, but I catch the hint of smugness there.

“When Marko reached out for my help after Milena went missing…” He glances at me significantly. “Well, let’s say I had a hunch.” His eyes swivel to Nero. “So I watched this one, and when the eyes and ears I had on him told me he’d been snatched off the street by masked men speaking Russian…” He shrugs. “Well, I put two and two together, and assumed—correctly—that he’d been brought here for some fatherly justice.”

“Thank you,” Papa says seriously, looking up at him and raising his glass. “Truly.”

Kir nods, tapping his glass to Papa’s. “Any time, my friend.”

I shake my head. “But…Uncle Levka…” My eyes meet Papa’s. “I don’t understand.”

“Unfortunately,” he growls, “I think I do.” He takes a drink, then sighs. “Levka is…was…the type of man who always wants more control but shouldn’t ever have it. A man who wants that sort of power is the last one who should ever wield it. Me?” He shrugs. “I hate being in charge. Which is why I’ve done well being in charge. I carry it like a weight, not a crown.” He exhales heavily. “Levka, though, desired that sort of power. And I’ve always known that. I was reluctant to let him take control when I was sick four years ago, but I had no other choice.” He shrugs. “There was Rurik⁠—”

“Not a fucking chance, boss,” Rurik grunts. ‘Told you that at the time.’

Papa smiles quietly. “Indeed. So, my brother it was. And after he got a taste of being in charge, he liked it a bit too much. Even when I’d recovered, it was almost awkward when I had to demand it back from him.”

Rurik frowns. “And Vladimir Debolsky?”

Papa spreads his hands. “I would assume what was actually happening the past week is not Levka trying to make peace with the Debolsky family so much as create an alliance.”

Kir nods. “I’ll know more after my spies report back to me, but I think it’s safe to assume that Levka saw a new route to power through sharing it with Vladimir. Levka would remove Marko from the equation, and in exchange, Vladimir would join their empires together.” He smirks. “Though, based on what I know about Vladimir, I believe Levka would have found himself with a proverbial and literal knife in his back the second he went down that road.”

“So we need to prepare for war with Debolsky?” Rurik mutters under his breath.

Papa shakes his head. “Vladimir is a weak man. The only reason he was bold enough to make that play today with the warehouse is that he assumed Levka had already started taking control.”

Kir frowns. “I’m confused why they’d go after the warehouse, if the plan was to ally. Why destroy that, and the contents?”

Papa sighs heavily. “Because my brother was a very petty man,” he huffs. “We took that warehouse in a small skirmish war with the Albanians maybe six or seven years ago. Levka had control of the offensive, and the victory was his. But then he wanted the warehouse and its logistics for himself. He wanted to run his own operation.” He snorts. “I told him no, put another of our top captains in charge, and that was that.”

“And your brother never forgot it,” Nero murmurs.

Papa nods. “Da, exactly.”

“Your brother might have had more people within your organization on ‘his side’ than you know, Marko,” Nero adds. “Three of those guards downstairs were definitely his men, not yours.”

My father nods grimly and glances at Rurik.

“Already on it,” Rurik rumbles.

Just then, Vasilisa comes rushing in with two women and a man in hospital whites, wheeling a cart full of medical supplies and equipment.

Kir glances at my father as the doctors begin to get to work, then firmly takes Papa’s vodka away as they start to examine the dressing that Angelina applied.

“I think it’s time I left, Marko.”

My father looks up at him over the doctors. “Thank you again, Kir. Truly.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Kir walks over to where I’m sitting with Nero.

“He’s a pain in the ass and there’s definitely a screw or two loose,” Kir smiles, tapping his head as he nods at Nero. “But he’s a good kid.”

“Fuck you too, uncle,” Nero grunts as a doctor gets to work on him.

Kir’s dark eyes drag back to me. “Take care of him, will you?”

“I’ll do my best.”

He smiles. “I know you will.”

When they realize how well Angelina has already dressed Papa’s wound, and exactly how fucked up Nero is, the whole medical team switches from Marko to him.

I’m pushed aside as they get to work, stitching, cleaning, setting finger bones, getting his shoulder back into its socket.

It’s two hours later when Rurik, two of my father’s men and one of the doctors carry Nero upstairs and—at my request—bring him to my bedroom.

When they’re gone, I gingerly slide onto the bed next to him, propping myself up to look down into his gorgeous green eyes.

He starts to laugh, grimacing in pain as he does, but the chuckle just keeps coming.

“What exactly is so funny?”

His lips curl. “I’ve been in this room a dozen times, and that’s literally the first time I came in through the doorway.”

I roll my eyes, grinning myself as he chuckles and winces.

When he’s gotten that out of his system, he turns to me, a bruised, stitched brow arched.

“Well?” he grunts. “How bad is it?”

“Honestly? Pretty hideous,” I shrug.

“Yeah, but I’ve still got a great fucking dick. So there’s that.”

I laugh, my eyes locking with his.