Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
But he’s alive.
“How’d it go?” I ask, holding myself to keep from trembling.
“I won.”
Relief floods me. I have to turn my back on him and close my eyes to swallow back the tears. I had no idea I’d feel this emotional, and I fucking hate it. When I’m steady, I turn back to find him studying me, that stupid bottle still against his eye.
“Let me get you real ice, you idiot,” I mutter, opening the freezer again. I put some in a bag and wrap it in a kitchen towel. “Here, use this.”
“Thanks.” He accepts the bundle.
“That looks terrible.” I prod at a nasty cut on his brow. He puts the ice over it.
“It’ll heal. You should see Vladimir.”
I grimace and try not to fidget. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Probably not.”
“Did you kill him?”
He shakes his head. “Tried to though.”
“Proud of yourself?”
“Only slightly.” He limps over to the kitchen table and sits down with a heavy sigh. “God, I hurt so much.”
I press my lips together, glaring. A dozen answers spring up in my head. Serves you fucking right is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back.
Stefano looks tired. His head leans back against the wall behind him and his eyes flutter closed. His movements are sluggish, and he’s favoring one side.
“Take that shirt off,” I say finally, going over to help him tug it over his head. “Let me see your ribs.”
He grunts and doesn’t argue. There’s a nasty mottled constellation of bruises forming all along his right side. I drag in a shocked breath through my teeth. “That bad, huh?” he asks, glancing down.
“You look like he kicked you.”
“Because he did.” He flinches as I prod at the wounds. “More than once.”
“Stay here. Let me get the first aid kit.”
“I’m fine. Honestly—”
I ignore him and head upstairs. The kit’s under the bathroom sink. It’s well stocked, probably because he has to use it all the time. I bring it back down and get to work tending to his minor cuts, covering the one on his brow with a bandage and cleaning out his cracked and swollen knuckles. I can tell every single inch of him is hurting, but he struggles not to show it.
“You should’ve gone to a hospital. Your ribs might be broken.”
“Probably are.”
“Seems like you could use an X-ray.”
“Broken ribs heal. Mostly, anyway.”
I run my fingers down a nasty group of scars along his left shoulder. “How’d you get these?”
“Knife. I think.” He frowns at me. “No, actually, it was a broken bottle. One of my earliest memories.”
“Seriously?”
“I was around six when it happened. Close to when my grandmother took me in.”
I sit back in shock. “Someone stabbed you with a bottle at six years old?”
He takes a long drink of vodka. “My parents were assholes. Both of them were addicts. Junkie fucks, honestly. Mom turned tricks down near the stadiums and Dad robbed houses. He was mostly locked up, but when he was home, there was always trouble. One night, this tweaker shitfucker showed up looking for my old man, claiming he needed money or something. Mom was passed out in the bedroom and I was afraid he might hurt her. I was always a big kid and I was just learning how to fight, even back then. So I told the tweaker to fuck off. He didn’t like that kind of talk from a little kid. We got into a spirited debate.” Stefano takes another drink and casually mimes stabbing. “It didn’t end well.”
I try to imagine getting violently attacked at six years old and talking about it like it’s some old funny story. But it doesn’t make sense. That kind of childhood is totally foreign to me.
“That’s horrible,” I say quietly. “I can’t believe you went through that.”
“Wasn’t the worst of it. Moving in with my grandmother was the best thing that ever happened. Even if she was a piece of garbage too.”
“You have that picture of her.”
“Sentimental bullshit.” He touches a circular burn on his chest. “Grandma didn’t like it when I got in trouble.”
“She did that to you?”
“Just the once. I knocked her over, you know, on account of her burning me, and I think she realized I was too big to physically abuse. But Grandma was creative. She found other ways to fuck with me.” He finishes his glass and refills it. “It’s all in the past. None of it matters anymore.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Not really. She’s dead. My parents are dead. I’ve got all these scars. They hurt, but so what?”
“I don’t know, maybe your whole obsession with fighting has something to do with your brutal childhood?”
He smiles at me. “No shit.”
I touch the bruise on his ribs lightly. “You’re a real bastard sometimes, you know that?”
“I know.” His eyes close again. “Can’t help myself.”