Breathe Me, Bratva King

EstinaGo to New York, they said.Men shouted and screamed, raising fists while nurses and EMTs did their best to keep them on gurneys.Go to New York and practice medicine. It'll do wonders for your career.I winced as another patient being wheeled down the corridor swung a punch at the security officer. He missed the man's face because the guy ducked just in time. Instead, the bloody-faced man's fist smashed into the wall. More blood dripped. But that didn't stop him. Cursing in Russian, he lunged off the gurney—either oblivious to his shredded and wounded leg or not caring about it—to tackle the hospital's rent-a-cop."We need some help here!"I flinched at my colleague's shout as he brushed past me. Dr. Fidelis Harroun was supposed to be this hospital's best ER doctor. Right now, as he rushed into the melee, his face stern with disapproval, he sounded and looked more like an unhappy referee, charging forward to break up a fight and stick players in a penalty box."Just has to be a

AnatoliThe call ended with a definitive click.Receiving the news that my daughter would be returning to me marked the end of an era. The end of an arrangement with my estranged child calling Moscow her home. Sixteen years had come and gone, and now she would come "home" to me.Fuck.I shook my head slowly, my mind numb and hesitant. Adjusting was imperative in my line of work. Usually, I could roll with the punches.But this?I grimaced, unsettled with this change.Masha was coming here, to my turf, my rule, my kingdom.It just didn't sit right with me. I couldn't see it going well.Fuck it all.While the anticipation of her arrival in New York City where I reigned as the boss of the Marcelli Family should've felt like a new beginning, my enthusiasm was slow to come.Idle and vacant, I sat at my desk, staring at the opposite wall as I let the news sink in. No excitement came with the prospect of my absent teenage daughter returning to me. This state-of-the-art building in the center

EstinaMany of the patients who'd come in after that explosion at the restaurant were still at the hospital the following day. Burn victims would be lingering under intensive care for a while. Several stubborn men left against medical advice, though.Fatima shrugged at the nurses' station as we caught up on patients and what would need to be done next, which tests and diagnostics were necessary to follow up with. "Hey, I won't cry when people like that wanna get out of here." She huffed with the specific exhaustion and annoyance only long-serving veteran nurses could earn. "I'd be handing out AMAs like they were Halloween candy."I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed a mixture of patience, amusement, sympathy, and mild consternation. All of us, from the LPNs and nurses at the lower range all the way to the attendings and residents, were expected to provide care without judgment. Yet, like what I'd witnessed and experienced last night, some individuals were just that much harder to h

AnatoliOne week passed with Masha in my home. Seven days of her not coming out of her room.She sulked and avoided me, and that was fine by me. Easier, too. She'd be here, safe and fed, and that was all that mattered. Martin arranged her tutoring and provided her with any needs she wanted—clothes and the like. According to what he reported, she was a bibliophile, a voracious reader. She also played the piano, and that was the only reason she ever left her room.Hearing live music was different. She'd go down to the lower floor with the ballroom and play on the grand piano that was mostly only there for show. Martin hired someone to come in and tune the instrument once Masha proved that she was an avid player and pianist.She didn't try to speak with me, and the few times I came to say hello when she read in the library or played the piano, I was met with silence.Still, I let her be. I wouldn't pry. If she wanted to stick with this silent treatment, she'd cave sooner or later. Any pr

EstinaI furrowed my brow, checking his vitals and reading the lab results that had just been sent in. A nurse left the room, leaving me with the patient as he rested comfortably. Stitched up and physically set up to recover from whatever he'd endured to get here, he lay still on the bed.His heart thumped steadily, and his respiration cycles evened out. Everything looked good in the labs. Not a single thing worried me in terms of the blood loss, any signs of infection, or anything else that could be a concern with a gunshot wound to his upper arm and what looked like a grazing of a bullet on his inner thigh.I glanced at him, taking in another look of his masculine face, all those taut lines and sharp angles that made him seem like he'd been chiseled from stone.You're lucky that shot didn't get you another inch over...My cheeks heated up with the indecent thought. Making an offhand and inappropriate joke to myself about his not wounding that appendage wasn't like me. But something