The Don's Innocent Collateral

Chapter 9

Amelia left her eggs half-eaten on the counter and took the stairs two at a time, the marble cold even through her socks. By the third floor she'd stopped rushing. There was no point rushing toward Nicolai. He was never anywhere but exactly where he meant to be.

The study doors were open. She didn't bother knocking — there wasn't much point anymore.

Nicolai was behind the desk, a stack of documents in front of him that he wasn't really reading. Lev stood near the window with his arms folded, looking like a man who hadn't slept and didn't plan to mention it.

"Sit," Nicolai said, without looking up.

"I'm not here for a meeting." She crossed to the coffee table where she'd left the trauma kit the night before and popped the latches. "Shirt off. I need to see the fascia."

Lev made a low sound, somewhere between a laugh and a warning, and pushed off the wall. "I'll leave the two of you to it, Boss."

"Stay." Nicolai finally lifted his head. His eyes found her and stayed there, like he'd already known it would be her before she said a word. "He stays."

She didn't argue. Arguing with Nicolai in front of an audience was a losing game, and she had a job to do regardless of who was watching. She snapped on gloves, gathered the saline and gauze, and rounded the desk.

He unbuttoned his shirt one-handed and let it fall open. The bandage from yesterday sat stark white against a ribcage inked in old Bratva ink, dense as scripture.

She peeled the tape back. The gauze beneath it had gone rust-colored at the center.

She let out a slow breath. "Okay. This actually looks better than I expected." She kept her eyes on the wound, not him — easier that way. "No heat, swelling's already going down. But you're still straining it every time you move like you're fine. Keep doing that and you'll tear it for real this time, and then we're not talking about a few weeks anymore."

He wasn't looking at the wound. He was looking at her.

"I heal fast, moya."

"You keep saying that like it's a personality trait and not something you're going to regret." She pressed gauze against the wound, firmer than she needed to. "I've seen this exact injury go bad in guys half your age who thought the same thing."

She flushed the wound with saline, cleaned the dried blood from the edges without hurrying, and he didn't so much as tense. His breathing stayed even the whole time, like pain was a language he'd simply decided not to speak anymore. She taped a fresh square of gauze down tight.

Lev watched the exchange in silence. He'd seen men stitched together on warehouse floors with whiskey and dirty thread, but there was something almost unsettling about watching his boss sit perfectly still while a woman half his size scolded him like he was an unruly patient instead of the most feared man in the city.

"Keep it dry." She stripped the gloves and dropped them in the bin under his desk. "And keep your heart rate down, if that's a thing you're capable of."

The corner of his mouth moved. It might have been the beginning of a smile.

Then his phone buzzed against the glass, and whatever had been building in the room went cold.

He looked at the screen for a second too long before answering, and put it on speaker.

"Speak."

"Boss." The voice was rough, half-swallowed by static. "Got chatter off the street books. Arthur Quinn's back in the city. Asking around."

Amelia's stomach dropped straight through the floor. Her father.

"Asking what," Nicolai said. His eyes cut to her face, and whatever he saw there made his jaw tighten.

"Went to his old lenders begging for more rope. They turned him down flat — his tab's already covered, paid off in full, cash. Quinn wanted to know who did it. Nobody would give him a name, but that didn't stop him asking around. He's not a genius, but he's not blind either. Word on the street ties you to a woman. He knows this house sits on the cliffs — there's only one estate up here."

"Lock the perimeter," Nicolai said, and there was nothing in his voice now, no warmth left at all. "If he comes within five miles of this property, you put him in a trunk and bring him to me."

He ended the call. The silence that followed was worse than anything the phone had said.

Amelia stared at the black screen like it might still be talking. Relief and dread were fighting for the same space in her chest and neither one was winning. Her father was alive. He was out there. And he was looking for her.

"He's coming for me." She heard her own voice shake and hated it. "He knows you took me. He's coming to pay you back and get me out of here."

Lev made a sound from the corner that wasn't quite a laugh.

Nicolai stood, unhurried, and didn't bother with his shirt. He came around the desk until there was no space left between them, until she had to tip her head back to keep looking at him.

"Amelia." No pity in it. Just weight. "Your father is a man who just watched fifty thousand dollars of debt disappear overnight. He isn't out there because he misses you."

"Then why—" Her voice cracked. "Why is he asking where I am?"

"Because he's broke again already, and desperate people sell whatever they have left."

"My men have been following him since he left those lenders. They heard every conversation worth hearing."

His gaze never left hers.

"The Viperas want to know exactly where the nurse is who ruined their hit. They're offering for it. And your father just found out he's sitting on something worth more than any loan shark ever gave him."

The words landed somewhere under her ribs

The room seemed to tilt beneath her feet. "No." She stepped back, shaking her head. "You're wrong." Nicolai didn't move. "You're wrong," she repeated, though there was less certainty in it this time. "He's weak. He's selfish. He's... a lot of things. But he's still my father." "Amelia—" "He wouldn't do that."

"Did he hesitate before gambling away the money meant for your rent?" Nicolai asked quietly. She said nothing. "Did he hesitate before leaving you to answer for debts he created?" Her lips parted, but no words came. "People don't become monsters overnight. They become desperate one compromise at a time."

"He already sold you once," Nicolai said quietly. "To men who'd have broken your legs over a card debt. This is the same man, Amelia. He is hunting you right now. And if he finds you before I find him, he's going to hand you straight to the people who want you dead."

"So don't give him the chance." He said it simply, like it wasn't even a decision, like the alternative had never existed. "He can't touch you in this house. Not him, not the Viperas, not anyone. You stay here, you're untouchable. The second you walk out that gate, you're just a woman with a bounty on her head."