His to protect

Blood in the alley

CHAPTER ONE

The alley smelled like piss and regret.

I should've taken the main street, should've listened to my gut when it told me shortcuts through the Southside at midnight were a terrible idea, but my shift at County General ran two hours over, my feet were screaming, and I had exactly four dollars in my checking account until Friday.

So, a shortcut.

I was halfway through when I heard it, not a scream. Worse. That was the wet, gurgling sound people make when they're drowning in their own blood.

"Shit." I stopped. Looked back toward the main road where normal people were probably living normal lives, where cars passed under streetlights and the biggest danger was a flat tire or a bad date.

The sound came again, weaker this time.

"s**t, s**t, shit."

I found him slumped against a dumpster, one hand pressed to his side, the other still gripping a gun. Blood pooled beneath him, black under the flickering streetlight. His head was tipped back, eyes half-closed, breathing shallow and ragged.

Expensive suit, expensive watch, expensive problem.

My nursing instructor's voice echoed in my head. Scene safety first. Always assess the scene before approaching a patient, make sure you're not putting yourself in danger.

I looked around, an empty alley, broken bottles, graffiti tags on the walls. No one else, just me and him and the sound of his breathing getting weaker.

"Hey." I crouched in front of him, keeping my distance from the gun, close enough to help, far enough to run if I needed to. "Can you hear me?"

His eyes cracked open, dark, cold. The kind of eyes that had seen things and done worse. They focused on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

"Leave." His voice was rough, accent clipping the edges. Russian, maybe. Eastern Europe for sure.

"You're bleeding out."

"I said leave."

I should have. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to walk away, call 911 from a payphone, let someone else deal with this, but I was three years into nursing school and six months into hating myself for every patient I couldn't save, and this man was going to die in the next ten minutes if someone didn't stop the bleeding.

"I'm a nurse," I said, not technically true. Student nurse. But close enough.

"I don't need a nurse."

"You need a surgeon and about four units of blood, but I'm what you've got." I reached for his hand, the one pressed to his side, he caught my wrist, fast. Too fast for someone who should've been seconds from passing out.

His grip was iron.

"Touch me and I'll..."

"You'll say what? Bleed on me? You're already doing that." I yanked my hand free, rubbed my wrist where his fingers had been.

"Look. You can die here, or you can let me help. But decide fast because I've got class at eight, and I need at least four hours of sleep to function."

He stared at me, his pupils were dilated. Shock, probably, blood loss, but there was something else there too, something calculating, like he was weighing options I couldn't see.

Then, slowly, his hand dropped.

I pressed my palms towards the wound, warm, too warm. The blood soaked through my scrubs instantly, hot and sticky against my skin. I could feel it pulsing under my hands with each heartbeat.

"Gunshot?" I asked.

"Knife."

"How many?"

"Two …maybe three."

"Jesus." I yanked off my jacket, wadded it up, pressed it hard against his side. He hissed through his teeth but didn't pull away, didn't make a sound beyond that. "You need a hospital."

"No hospitals."

"You're going to die."

"Then I die."

I sat back on my heels, I looked at him. Mid-thirties, maybe, sharp jawline dusted with stubble, dark hair matted with sweat and something that might've been blood. More blood on his collar, his cuffs, a tattoo peeking out from under his shirt sleeve where the fabric had torn, cyrillic letters, ornate and detailed.

This man was dangerous.

This man was dying.

And for some stupid, idiotic reason, I couldn't walk away.

"Fine." I stood, held out my hand. "My apartment's two blocks away."

His eyes narrowed, suspicious, like kindness was a foreign language he didn't speak. "Why?"

"Because I'm an i***t with a God complex and student loans I'll never pay off if I don't finish school. And I can't finish school if I let someone bleed out in an alley and end up in therapy for the next ten years." I wiggled my fingers. "Can you walk?"

He stared at my hand like it was a weapon, like accepting help was more dangerous than bleeding out in the gutter.

Then he took it.

His palm was calloused, rough. The hand of someone who worked with violence the way I worked with IV lines and bedpans. I pulled, and he rose with a grunt of pain that he tried to hide.

He swayed, I caught him, wrapped his arm over my shoulders. He had heavy, solid muscles and bad decisions.

"Two blocks," I repeated, more to myself than to him.

"I know."

"You know where I live?"

"I know everything about this neighborhood."

That should've scared me, should've sent me running. Instead, I started walking, one foot in front of the other, his weight pressing down on me, blood dripping onto the pavement behind us.

We made it half a block before I heard the car.

The engine growling, headlights cutting through the darkness behind us, getting closer.

"Keep walking," he said. His voice was tight, controlled.

"Is that..."

"Don't look back, just walk."

The car slowed, crawled beside us, black sedan, tinted windows, I could feel eyes on us even though I couldn't see them.

My heart hammered against my ribs. "Friends of yours?"

"No."

The passenger window rolled down slowly. I caught a glimpse of a pale face, a gun resting on the window frame.

"Walk faster," he said.

I did. Half-dragging him now, his weight was getting heavier, his breathing more labored. The car kept pace with us, matching our speed exactly.

"Adrian Volkov." The voice from the car was smooth, amused. "You look like shit."

So his name was Adrian, good to know, terrible timing to find out.

"Keep driving, Mikhail," Adrian said.

"Can't do that, you know how this works."

We were twenty feet from my building… Fifteen... Ten.

"The girl has nothing to do with this," Adrian said.

"She does now."

The gun shifted, pointed at me.

Adrian moved fast, faster than someone bleeding out should've been able to move. He spun, putting himself between me and the gun, his own weapon rising in one smooth motion.

Two shots cracked through the night.

The car's tire exploded, the sedan swerved, the engine roaring as it sped away.

Adrian sagged against me, the gun clattered to the ground.

"Inside," he gasped. "Now."

I didn't argue, didn't ask questions, just ran.