Without Remorse

“Is it bad?” Alexei asked, turning and then freezing when he saw for himself.

Veronica put the bloody towel back on the guy’s face. “Keep pressure,” she ordered Nicholas. “I need to go get my suture kit.”

Swallowing and ignoring his queasy stomach, Nicholas stepped in, pressing down on the towel even though Leon screamed in Russian and squirmed on the table.

Veronica looked around. “Don’t you have anything you can sedate him with?”

Alexei’s eyes shot to the other soldier who helped bring him in. “What do you have on you? What were you selling?” he demanded, not sounding happy. He wouldn’t. Nicholas knew Alexei was trying to get them out of the street drugs game. Their other streams of income were far more lucrative and less risky. But Papa still clung to the old ways he was familiar with, apparently behind Alexei’s back.

“Papa said we’re supposed to keep you out of it,” the soldier—Nicholas couldn’t even think of the fucker’s name—looked weary as he answered Alexei in Russian.

“Well bringing this to my doorstep isn’t keeping me fucking out of it, now is it? So hand it fucking over. And you,” Alexei looked to Veronica, his voice softening only a little. “Go get your suture kit. How long will it take before you’ll be back?”

Her eyes widened. “My apartment is only a few blocks away.”

“Nicholas, go with her,” he barked, taking over holding the towel while the soldier came forward and pulled out a baggie of powder.

Nicholas nodded, but no way he was leaving until his wife was headed upstairs. He shot her a look and she nodded. She gave Veronica’s arm a squeeze and then scurried out of the room.

“Text me when you’re safe in the apartment, door locked,” he whispered as she passed him.

Then he took Veronica’s arm and led her out the back of the building, stopping only so she could pull on her coat. He took hold of her arm again the second she did. She was shaking slightly and she pulled away from him the second they hit the cold winter air.

She crossed her arms over her chest as they walked, lips pursed as she stalked down the alley way. Fine with Nicholas. He didn’t want to make small talk. Or any talk.

But of course the quiet was too good to last.

“Sloane’s a good woman,” Veronica finally said after they’d turned onto the open sidewalk. “She doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this life.”

Seriously? Who the fuck was this chick?

“You’re the one involving yourself in business that doesn’t concern you, lady. Now let’s just get this done.”

Veronica huffed and kept walking. “Men,” she blew out.

The next two blocks passed in silence. They came to one of the giant brick apartment buildings popular with Russian immigrants and she pulled out her keys.

“Stay here,” she ordered. Nicholas smirked. Cute that she thought she had any say about where he went. Alexei had ordered him to stick with her, so stick with her he would.

When she pushed the door in and tried to slip inside and close it behind her, his huge palm easily stopped her.

She glared up at him, but she was tiny. A small huff of frustration later, and they were both walking down a long, dull hallway with peeling yellowed linoleum to an elevator. They took it up to the eighth floor and stepped out.

She led him down to the end of the hallway, and you could hear voices from apartments all along the way, the walls were so flimsy. She paused before opening the door, her eyes were pleading. “Please, don’t come in. You’ll scare my brother, and my other two roommates. You don’t exactly blend in. I’ll be right back in just a minute. You can come storming in after me if I’m not.”

Nicholas sighed, but nodded. He was a big bastard, he knew, and with all his tattoos, likely hard to explain away. “One minute. In and out, got it?”

She nodded, then disappeared inside. Nicholas shook his head. What the hell was this girl doing working at the bakery anyway? Couldn’t she have found a job somewhere else?

But then, didn’t that make him a fucking hypocrite? Because he’d dragged Sloane right into it all, too. He pulled out his phone and checked his messages. He breathed out when he saw one from his wife. Home safe, doors locked.

He dragged a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. Jesus, he was too old for this. A hell of a thing to say at thirty, but there it was.

The door in front of him opened and Veronica reappeared, medical bag in hand. Thankfully she didn’t have anything else to say on the walk back.

And by the time they’d stepped back into the bakery kitchen, whatever had been in the baggy—fentanyl most likely, a heavy opiate—had knocked the fucker on the table out.