“What’s going on?” asked Veronica.
“Who’s this bitch?” Grigory asked.
“Hey, watch who you’re calling a—” Veronica started.
But when Nicholas looked up, he saw Sloane pulling Veronica backwards and shaking her head at the girl. Good, he hoped his wife could get her out of there before she saw anything she shouldn’t.
What the hell was going on, anyway?
But before he or Alexei could ask, the problem became apparent. The shouts from the back got louder and a man was brought through the door. There was a blood-soaked rag pressed to his face. Jesus, what the fuck?
Nicholas hurried across the room to where Sloane was trying to usher Veronica towards the front door. Too late, as it turned out.
“Holy shit, we need to call an ambulance!” Veronica said, obviously seeing the man.
Alexei’s eyes shot to Nicholas. Fuck, why had Babulya hired an outsider? They didn’t need this extra headache.
Nicholas stepped in between Veronica and the back room. “Look, you didn’t see anything, you weren’t here. Just go home. Forget about this if you know what’s good for you.”
Veronica’s mouth dropped open, but then she shut it and glared up at him. She crossed her arms over her chest and then looked over at Alexei, who was paused, watching her but obviously torn between needing to go back and see what the hell had happened.
“You’re the boss, right? Well I was in medical school back in Russia before I moved here a few years ago. If you aren’t going to call an ambulance, you need to let me look at that man’s injury.”
She started walking towards the back. Alexei grabbed her arm to stop her and she shot him a death glare. “You’ll want to let go of my arm right now.”
He didn’t let go of her arm. He was the Alexei that Nicholas rarely saw. Dead serious. “You’re in over your head.”
“Are you going to keep talking while that man bleeds all over the shop or let me see what I can do for him?” Veronica challenged, jerking her arm away from Alexei.
The vein in Alexei’s forehead twitched, but he finally let her go. She shoved past him and went into the back.
Sloane had watched the entire thing wide-eyed. She followed Veronica. Their eyes met and held for a long moment. He pulled her aside. “Go upstairs. You don’t need to see this.”
But she shook her head quickly. “I don’t want to leave Veronica alone.”
“I’ll watch out for her,” he said but she shook her head and scooted into the back kitchen before he could stop her.
Dammit. This was not a part of his life he wanted her exposed to. Especially considering he knew she already dealt with panic. Seeing the danger brought to her door like this—
But she was scurrying around, clearing the counters of food and ingredients while Veronica ordered the men to help the injured man up on the central stainless-steel topped island that ran down the center of the kitchen.
“What happened?” Alexei barked to a soldier Nicholas barely knew, he was one of the newer recruits. “And why the fuck did you bring him here of all places?”
“Didn’t know where else to go. Tereshchenko’s guys hit us when we were selling at our normal spot. They slashed Leon in the face and said to tell our boss they weren’t going anywhere.”
Alexei froze at that, and then he yanked out his phone. Nicholas’s eyebrows rose. It didn’t take a genius to wonder who he was talking to.
“Dad, what the fuck? You wanna tell me why there’s a man bleeding out in the bakery kitchen right now? I thought we’d pulled back from selling while things were hot with Tereshchenko.”
Silence, then, “Since when?” More silence. “You didn’t think to tell me about this new development?”
Then Alexei’s expression changed, his eyes shut and he breathed out like he was counting to ten. “No. No, of course. I wasn’t trying to say— Of course not! I know that you are—”
Then he pulled the phone away from his ear and looked down at it. “Fuck!” he shouted, then looked back at the table. Veronica was tugging the bloody towel away from the man’s face to inspect the wound.
“Mother of God,” Veronica said, her eyes only briefly looking up from the wound to seek out Alexei’s, then dropping back to the disgusting mass of bloody flesh in front of her. There was so much blood, Nicholas couldn’t even tell who it was at first, it was so bad.
He finally made out Leon’s features from the left half of his face. Leon was a newer soldier, the lowest level. Nicholas barely knew the guy, but shit. Someone had used a sharp knife on the man and cut from his forehead down to his chin. It didn’t look lethal, but damn, he’d have a monstrous fucking scar after this.