The Don's Innocent Collateral

Chapter 5

For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound was the violent crack of thunder outside. Amelia stood frozen against the steel door. Her oversized jacket was still damp and cold from her walk to the diner, her worn out, muddy sneakers completely out of place on the pristine, hand-woven rug beneath her feet.

Nicolai didn't move from the leather sofa. He just watched her. His dark, pitch-black eyes cataloged every single detail: her pale face, the shivering of her shoulders, and the trembling hands clutching her cheap duffel bag like a shield.

"You're shaking," Nicolai finally said.

His voice was a deep, quiet rumble in the massive room. It didn't sound angry. It sounded observant. Calculating. Dangerous.

Amelia swallowed hard, fighting the urge to shrink back. "It's freezing."

Nicolai leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. The movement clearly pulled at his heavily bandaged torso, but his face didn't betray a single flinch of pain. He was built out of iron.

"You signed the contract," he stated, his eyes dropping to her muddy shoes, then back up to her face.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Amelia shot back, her teeth chattering slightly, the sheer exhaustion making her reckless. "Between the fifty grand and the man holding a switchblade in my kitchen, your lawyer bought me pretty cheap."

A faint, dark amusement flickered in Nicolai's eyes. It was gone a second later, replaced by that same terrifying, predatory calm.

He slowly stood up. Even injured, his sheer size was overwhelming. The unbuttoned black dress shirt exposed the heavy, dark ink of the Bratva stars tattooed just below his collarbones. He began to walk slowly across the room toward her, his footsteps completely silent.

Amelia's breath caught in her throat. She pressed her back flat against the cold steel of the door.

Nicolai stopped mere inches from her. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body, contrasting with the freezing dampness of her clothes. He smelled like expensive cedar, gunpowder, and the sharp, metallic scent of fresh blood.

He didn't touch her face. He didn't say a word. He just reached out, wrapped his massive hand around the strap of her duffel bag, and effortlessly yanked it out of her grip, dropping it heavily onto the floor.

Amelia gasped, her hands suddenly empty.

Nicolai braced one hand flat against the steel door right beside her head, trapping her. He leaned down, his face dangerously close to hers.

"You talk just as much as you did in the alley," he murmured, his breath brushing her cheek.

Before Amelia could form a response, Nicolai grunted, a low, harsh sound in his throat. He pulled back slightly, his hand dropping from the door. Against the stark white gauze wrapped around his midsection, a fresh, bright red stain was blooming, slowly spreading outward. The stitches had torn.

His dark eyes locked back onto hers, cold and expectant.

"You're on the clock, moya," he said, his voice tight with restrained pain. "Do your job."

Amelia blinked. She looked down at the rapidly expanding bloodstain on his bandages, and her stomach did a violent flip.

Her heart was hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against her ribs. Every survival instinct she had was screaming at her to press herself harder against the door. He was a monster. He was a Bratva boss who had just cleared out a room of armed killers with a single word. He could snap her neck with one hand.

But the bright, arterial red blooming on the white gauze triggered a deeply ingrained muscle memory. Her fear didn't vanish—her hands were literally shaking—but the clinical ER nurse inside her violently took the steering wheel.

"Sit down," Amelia blurted out.

Her voice trembled, but the command was there.

Nicolai paused, his dark eyebrows twitching in genuine surprise. No one in his entire syndicate spoke to him with that tone and she did it again..

"I said sit down on the couch before you tear the fascia layer," Amelia ordered, stepping away from the safety of the door. Her knees felt like jelly, but she pointed a shaking finger at the leather sofa. She immediately started shrugging off her damp, oversized rain jacket, tossing it onto a nearby velvet chair. "Where are your medical supplies?"

Nicolai stared at her for a long, heavy second. A slow, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth before he turned and lowered himself onto the sofa. He nodded toward a sleek, silver trauma case sitting on the glass coffee table.

Amelia dropped to her knees in front of him, popping the latches on the case. It was stocked better than a hospital crash cart.

"Lean back," she instructed, her voice breathless

Nicolai leaned his head back against the leather, watching her intently from under his thick lashes. He didn't flinch as she peeled the soaked gauze back. The wound from the alley was angry and inflamed. Two of the thick, black sutures had completely snapped when he walked across the room to intimidate her.

"You shouldn't have been walking" Amelia whispered, the terrified scolding words slipping out before she could stop them. She grabbed a bottle of saline and a stack of sterile pads.

"Careful, moya," Nicolai warned, his voice a low, gravelly threat that vibrated in his bare chest. "I still run this city."

Amelia swallowed hard, forcing her shaking hands to press a heavy wad of gauze directly over the bleeding tear.

"And right now, I run your stitches," she replied, her voice cracking slightly under the sheer weight of her terror. "So please... hold still."

Nicolai inhaled sharply as the pressure hit the open wound. But he didn't pull away. He just stared down at the fierce, terrified nurse kneeling between his legs, his black eyes burning with a sudden, intense fascination.

Amelia tossed the soaked, bloody gauze onto the silver tray. She grabbed a sealed suture kit with shaking fingers, ripping the paper open.

She had to lean in close. Dangerously close. To get the right angle on the torn stitches, she was practically hovering over him, her knees pressed against the edge of the leather sofa, her face mere inches from his bare chest. The heat coming off his skin was intense.

She took a deep, shaky breath, gripping the curved needle with a pair of forceps.

"This is going to hurt," she whispered, keeping her eyes glued to the wound so she wouldn't have to look at his face. "I don't have any local anesthetic in this kit."

"Just do it," Nicolai commanded softly.

Amelia lowered the needle. But before the sharp metal could even graze his skin, Nicolai’s massive hand shot up. His fingers wrapped around her wrist like a steel vice, stopping her completely.

Amelia gasped, her heart leaping into her throat. "What are you—"

He didn't answer. With a swift, effortless twist, he forced her wrist outward, turning her hand palm-up.

Amelia’s breath hitched. Exposed to the dim light of the study was the jagged, ugly cut across her palm. The one she had gotten from squeezing the shattered porcelain plate when the enforcer cornered her in the kitchen.

Nicolai stared at the raw red line marring her pale skin. He didn't let go of her wrist. Instead, he slowly lifted his other hand and ran his rough, calloused thumb lightly just below the edge of her cut, deliberately careful not to press on the wound itself.

A violent shiver ripped down Amelia’s spine at the contact.

"Who did this?" Nicolai asked. His voice was no longer a quiet rumble. It was completely dead. A flat, lethal tone that promised absolute violence.

"It was an accident," Amelia lied quickly, trying to yank her hand back. It was like trying to pull her arm out of concrete. "I broke a plate. Let me go, I need to finish your stitches."

Nicolai’s pitch-black eyes slowly dragged up from her bleeding palm and locked onto her face.

"I've spent my entire life watching people bleed, moya," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "That is a defense wound. You grabbed something sharp."

Amelia froze. She couldn't breathe.

"The enforcer who broke into your house," Nicolai stated, his thumb brushing her pulse point. "He threatened you. You fought back."

Amelia swallowed hard, her pulse completely out of control. "How do you know about him?"

Nicolai finally let go of her wrist. But he didn't lean back. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.

Silver metal glinted in the dim light. Amelia’s eyes went wide. Dangling from his massive fingers was the cheap, broken silver chain he had ripped off her neck in the dark alley three weeks ago.

He dropped the broken necklace into the center of her palm. Instead of forcing her hand shut, his large fingers gently curled hers around the cool metal, making absolutely sure the chain didn't scrape her cut.

"Because I had him killed an hour before my lawyer met you at the diner," Nicolai said coldly.

Amelia's blood ran entirely to ice. The room started to spin.

"The contract you signed wasn't just to pay off your father's gambling debt, Amelia," Nicolai murmured, leaning in so close his lips almost brushed her ear. The thunder cracked violently against the glass windows behind him. "The Italians who put this bullet in me? They found out a little nurse kept me breathing. They've been hunting you for two days."

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes, his expression utterly terrifying.

"That is why you are locked inside my fortress," he whispered. "You aren't just my nurse. You're the bait."