Page 104

Lorenzo stands over the table, wearing his faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and black latex gloves slick with crimson. His face is a mask of unbothered hostility as he works on the bullet wound.

Coming toward me, a look of sickening triumph on his face, is Troy.

My stomach turns upside down. His jacket is splattered with blood, and his eyes are wide and bloodshot with adrenaline and alcohol. My skin crawls with terror as he looms over me.

“Look who’s finally awake. My sweet little wife. You look like hell, Cora.”

I try to scramble backward, but my back is pressed against a metal cabinet. The cast on my wrist hits the concrete, and a whimper escapes my throat as fresh tears sting my eyes.

Troy crouches down in front of me, reaching out a dirty hand to snatch a handful of my hair. “Simeon’s got a special plan for you once Scava finishes patching the boys up. You thought that Russian fuck was going to protect you? He’s probably dying in his own burning car right now—”

“Hey. You.” Lorenzo’s sharp voice cuts across Troy’s.

Troy glares over his shoulder. “What?”

Lorenzo doesn’t look at him. He’s digging a pair of metal forceps into the wound on the mobster’s shoulder, completely unbothered by the man’s groans.

“Get over here and hold this gauze,” Lorenzo snaps, nodding toward a tray. “I need to stitch the wound.”

Troy scowls, looking between me and the table. “I’m not a fucking nurse.”

“You want him alive, or do you want to keep running your mouth?” Lorenzo snaps. “Come over here, or I walk upstairs and leave you all to bleed out.”

Troy curses under his breath, letting go of my hair. He pushes himself up and stomps back to the table, grabbing a handful of gauze and clamping it over the wound.

I collapse back against the metal cabinet, my chest heaving.

My eyes search Lorenzo’s face. I wait for him to look at me or give a subtle nod. Anything to show me that he remembers who I am and knows I’m here against my will.

Lorenzo wipes a streak of blood off his brow with the back of his gloved hand and reaches for a suture needle. His pale eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second.

There is nothing in them. No pity. No recognition. Just the hollow indifference of a man looking at a nuisance.

A moment later he turns back to his work.

I don’t understand. The last time I was in this basement, Lorenzo took care of me. He was rude but efficient, and I assumed he was on Zevran’s side. He reinflated Zevran’s lung once. I thought that meant something.

But here he is, pulling a bullet out of a man who just threatened to tear my skin off, with the same focused indifference he used when he set my bones.

Beside him, Troy holds the bloody gauze in place, all the while glaring at me, his eyes full of hatred. I’ve committed the ultimate betrayal by sleeping with another man. A rich, powerful man who humiliated him.

I’m not getting out of this alive.

A few minutes later, Lorenzo ties off the last suture with a sharp, efficient pull and strips off his gloves. He drops them in the waste bin without looking and turns to survey the room.

His eyes land on me.

My heart lifts before I can stop it.

He crosses the basement and crouches down on his heels in front of me and looks at me the way he did the first time. The same flat, assessing expression.

“Please.” I cradle my arm against my chest. “Don’t let them take me. They’re going to kill me.”

Lorenzo doesn’t respond. His eyes move over me with clinical detachment, cataloging the blood that’s dried on my neck and the ruined cast.

He nods at it. “Couldn’t keep this in one piece?”

“Zevran was in a car accident,” I tell him urgently. “I don’t know if he’s alive. There were two men with me when I was taken. Demyan and Ruslan. Are they alive?”