Page 3 of Thrown to the Wolves
“At least let the girl leave.” I twirl the knife in my fingers and use it to point over my shoulder at Scarlett.
The guy spits on the ground. Delightful. “We have a score to settle,” he says. “For Yuri.”
“Yuri? He wasn’t one of yours.”
“He was my cousin,” the guy growls. “No matter if he ran with you honorless bitches in the Syndicate.”
Well, that’s just rude.
Still, it explains at last what Yuri was doing in this part of town the night he died. He did have Sokolov relatives, I remember now—we’d asked him about that when he wanted to join the Syndicate. The bratva were on the way out, he’d said at the time. He had no interest in drug running, and the Syndicate suited him better.
He’d been a popular member, too. I know Aurora, whose training group he was in, had liked him very much. And Aurora, that little Suzy Sunshine, has changed things for all of us in the Syndicate, brought us all closer, somehow.
So Yuri might have been this fucker’s cousin, but he’d been my brother.
We stare each other down. Behind me, I hear Scarlett’s breath hitch, her body vibrating with nerves against my back. Poor thing has no idea what she’s stumbled into.
“I didn’t kill Yuri, you morons,” I say. “In fact, that’s why?—”
It happens in a blur, like it always does—a storm of flashing steel, grunts, and the solid thunk of a blade sliding through flesh and muscle. My world narrows to the one dance ingrained in my very being—move, strike, counter, survive.
Always survive.
I lose myself in it, the rhythm of combat as natural to me as breathing. And joy thrills through me as I unleash every ounce of pent-up rage and frustration into each blow, each parry.
Gotta enjoy your work, right? And these are the only times I really feel alive.
But a panicked shriek behind me reminds me that there’s an audience to this particular show, and I switch at once to a more defensive tactic—a non-lethal one.
The last thing I need is this Scarlett pointing me out in a line-up. Hadria would be pissed if she had to shell out any more bribes, especially after the fortune she spent covering up the attack on Elysium.
The last of the Sokolovs hits the pavement with a meaty thud, unconscious, but still breathing. I pivot on the ball of my foot, fists raised, ready in case one of them has dragged himself up from the ground to try again. But the only sound is Scarlett’s ragged breathing as she crouches against the side of her car.
When I take a step toward her, she flinches. And those eyes, those lovely forest pools, are wide and afraid.
Damn it. I don’t think I’m getting laid tonight after all.
CHAPTER 2
Lyssa
I put up my hands in a calming gesture and stop right where I am. “Hey.” My voice is low, gentler than normal. “You hurt?”
For a beat, I see naked fear flickering in Scarlett’s face, before she seems to clock I don’t plan to hurt her myself.
“I-I’m fine.” Her gaze drifts around the unconscious Sokolovs strewn about. “Just…shaken up, I guess. Who—who’s Yuri?”
Not the question I expected. She’s clearly rattled, but there’s a curious contradiction in her body language and her actual language. No what the fuck, no stay the hell away from me, no screaming for help. It suggests a core of steel beneath the big eyes and the soft hair. But I file that observation away for later as I reach out a hand to help her to her feet.
“There you go. Good as new,” I say, and I sound like an idiot, but I’m not all that great at giving comfort.
She’s still holding my hand when she gasps and tugs me into a pool of light from the one working streetlight, inspecting the bleeding gash along my upper arm with a grimace. “You’re hurt!”
The cut’s not deep enough to be life-threatening, but I think I’d like a tetanus shot or something, given the shitty state of the Sokolov knives. God knows what bacteria were crawling all over their blades. I pull away a little, but Scarlett grabs me back. “That needs to be properly cleaned and bandaged,” she murmurs, almost to herself. She looks into my face. “I can help.”
A derisive snort escapes me before I can bite it back. “No offense, sweetheart, but the last thing I need is you poking around an open wound.”
Those captivating eyes narrow, jaw setting in a stubborn line I find oddly endearing. “I’m a third-year medical student. I may not be a brain surgeon, but I know my way around stitches and wound care.”