Mafia Princess by Kennedy Slope

Chapter Sixteen

Two weeks had passed since Sasha had been shot, and she was just being cleared to return home for the first time. The bullet had done a great deal of damage, and while it was still healing, the doctors felt that she was ready to return home.

I was glad about it. Trying to make sure that the hospital was secure was a challenge. Considering that the cops were sniffing around, I couldn’t be too obvious about why we needed security.

Being home would allow me to make sure that Sasha was protected.

“I’m so happy to be out of the hospital,” Sasha groaned, as I pushed her into the foyer of our home. We’d spent almost every moment together over the past two weeks, and I noticed that Sasha had become much chattier when she was more comfortable. I hadn’t been able to leave too often. I still didn’t know who had tried to kill her, and though I suspected they wouldn’t try again in a public hospital, I wasn’t willing to take the risk.

“The hospital wasn’t terrible,” I reminded her.

I’d done what I could to make sure that Sasha was comfortable. She’d also charmed the nurses and doctors with her infectious smile, and they were all smitten with her by the end.

“It wasn’t,” she said. “But I’ll be glad to be back with my own things, and back at school.”

I pursed my lips. We hadn’t talked much about her going back to class, and I had been putting it off. I knew how much Sasha wanted to go to school, but it would be too difficult to ensure her safety on campus.

“The doctor told you that you needed to take things easy,” he said. “You are still healing.” I had learned a lot about Sasha over the past two weeks, despite the fact that I didn’t want to get to know her. One thing I learned was that Sasha didn’t sit still well.

“There’s still a lot of healing that you need to do,” I told her. Sasha still couldn't walk. Her abdomen muscles were healing slowly, and though things were looking good, the doctors had been concerned. They made it clear that she needed to rest and stay off of her feet.

“It’ll be fine,” she said.

I said nothing. I didn’t care to argue with Sasha who was fiercely independent. It was odd in some ways considering that she tended to do what she was told.

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Blanchi,” Giovanna, my housekeeper, said as she stepped in the room. Giovanna hadn’t liked Sasha, but she had been key in helping me keep Sasha comfortable. I hadn’t known where to even start when it came to Sasha’s room, and Giovanna had picked up the slack just as she always had.

“Evening Giovanna,” I said.

I dropped the bags that I had been carrying on the floor.

My hand which was on Sasha’s shoulder felt her stiffen. I wasn’t surprised. Giovanna hadn’t been particularly nice to Sasha when she arrived. Neither had I. I’d done my best to be kind to Sasha in the past few weeks. Mostly because I needed her. Sasha knew something about what had happened, of which I was more than certain.

“I moved Mrs. Blanchi’s things to your room,” she said.

“What?”

I cringed. I hadn’t told Sasha of our new living arrangements. I’d planned to ease her into the idea.

Giovanna looked at me with sympathy in her eyes, and I wondered if she had spilled the beans on purpose. “I’ll get dinner finished,” she said, leaving me and Sasha alone with one another.

“What was she talking about?” Sasha asked. She turned in her chair to look at me, and I noticed her cringe from the action. Her wounds had not yet healed, and I knew that the action was painful for her, so I moved from the back of the chair to the front.

“I suggested that Giovanna move you to my room,” I said as emotionlessly as possible. Things hadn’t been good between me and Sasha prior to her being shot. Partially because of my desire to punish her. I couldn’t act against the Bratva, but I could act against her.

“Why?” Sasha asked. “I’m perfectly fine in my own room.”

“You can’t walk,” I reminded her.

“Which is why I have a wheelchair.”

I shook my head. “You're staying in my room and that’s final.” I couldn’t have Sasha injuring herself any further.

“I don’t want to stay in your room,” she told me. “I need my own space. I have homework to catch up on and lectures to listen to. I’m sure that you have work to catch up on as well.”

“I didn’t say that we would be together constantly,” I told her. Because she was right, I did have work to get done. Marco had been spending the past two weeks keeping the business running, but I needed to show my face. Lorenzo had been punished, but I had no information on the person or people who had shot Sasha in the first place.

“Oh,” Sasha said. I thought that I noticed a bit of disappointment in her eyes, but it was gone just as quickly as it came.

“This is the quickest and easiest way to get you back on your feet,” I told her.

I expected her to argue with me, but she didn’t. Instead, she gave me a quick nod.

“Let’s get you upstairs and settled,” I said.

Sasha raised a brow and gestured to her chair. “Not sure how I’m going to do that unless you have an elevator hidden here somewhere.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned down before I scooped Sasha up into my arms. I was shocked by how light she was.

“What are you doing?” Sasha asked. Her arms immediately went around my neck, and I could smell the lavender that always seemed to cling to her skin. Sasha was by far the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Even dressed in sweats with limp hair, I had to tell my body not to react to the feeling of her being in my hands.

“You can’t walk, remember,” I said. I started walking up the stairs, taking two at a time in an effort to try and avoid holding Sasha for longer than I had to.

I heard a small hiss and looked over before stopping in the middle of the stairway. “Are you alright?” I asked. I noticed that sweat was beading on her forehead, which seemed to happen when her pain threshold had been met.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You aren’t.”

She bit her lip, and I tried my best not to groan at the action. I was attracted to Sasha, and I couldn’t deny that having her body so close made all the blood rush to my cock. I needed to keep it together though, because Sasha needed to heal.

“You are walking too fast,” she said. “It’s fine, but it jostles the stitches.”

I felt like an asshole. In an effort to ease my own desires, I hadn’t thought about Sasha’s comfort. I’d been desperate to let her go and in doing so had caused her pain.

“Sorry,” I told her, and I started walking slower. I held Sasha close to my body, and she snuggled into my chest. I tried not to allow myself to feel for her, but there was something intimate about the way that we were right now, and though I was enjoying it, it made me uncomfortable.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your room,” Sasha said, breaking the odd tension that I felt between the two of us.

“You didn’t sneak in there when I told you not to?” I asked, trying to be lighthearted. I hadn’t allowed Sasha into my personal space, and now that I was walking into the room, I realized how odd that actually was.

My parents had had a normal marriage. One full of love and happiness, and though I’d never pictured myself married, I hadn’t thought that I would have to marry a Bratva princess who I didn’t know.

“I was so busy the past few weeks, I barely had time to sleep in my own room let alone sneak into yours.”

I laid Sasha gently onto my bed trying not to think about how her pale skin contrasted against my dark sheets.

“I’ll have Giovanna bring you up some dinner,” I told her. I pulled back the comforter and allowed her to get underneath it. “Here’s the remote. The TV is hidden behind the paneling, but if you press the red button on the top, it’ll come out.”

“You're leaving already?” she asked. Her large blue eyes had lost their sparkle, and that sadness that she always seemed to linger grew.

I hated that it made me feel bad. “I have to meet my brother. We’ve got some work to get through. How about you call up a friend?”

The sadness on Sasha’s face grew deeper, and I immediately knew that I had said the wrong thing.

“I’ll be fine,” she told me. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that.”

Sasha pressed the button and the TV slid out from the paneling. I couldn’t remember the last time I had watched anything in this house. I’d bought it years ago because I liked the view and it was easy to secure, but I hadn’t spent much time in the house, and I’d never considered what it would be like to share it with someone else.

“What did you like to do when you were growing up?” I asked. I sat at the edge of the bed.

Sasha snorted. “Pretty much this, except my mother never would have let me eat in bed. I once had the flu, and she made me sit through a six course meal for three hours.”

“Sounds like your mother,” I said.

We hadn’t talked about her parents at all, and neither of them had come to see her. It had sickened me how alone she was, but Sasha barely batted an eye at it. Her father had called her once to make sure she was alive, but that had been the only communication that the family had had.

“You don’t need to stay,” Sasha said. She lifted the remote, but the sad look on her face was still there. “I’m sure there’s some sort of reality show that I need to catch up on.”

“Marco can wait a few minutes,” I said. “At least until Giovanna brings up your dinner.”

Sasha and I had developed a cordial relationship over the past few weeks, but I wouldn’t be the first person to say that the two of us were friends. I wasn’t sure what the two of us were even doing together. But I enjoyed learning more about Sasha. She had a light about her which I found myself being drawn to even when I wanted the exact opposite, especially because I knew that she was keeping something from me.

“I mean it,” Sasha said. “I’m used to being alone.” She shrugged slightly. “I’m used to it.”

“You had your brother,” I said. I don’t know what made me think about Nikolai Petrov at this moment. It was probably not the thing that I should have brought up considering the dark look that came over Sasha’s face.

“Nikolai and I were close enough, but there was such an age gap between the two of us that he was almost out of the house by the time I was old enough to want to hang out, and then, he was…”

“Dead,” I said. I don’t know what compelled me to finish the sentence, but I did. Nikolai Petrov had died in a shootout that had taken my eldest brother.

“You are lucky to have grown up with so many siblings,” Sasha said. “I always wanted to be part of a big family.”

I raised a brow. “Don’t you have a lot of cousins?” I asked. From what I remembered, the Petrov’s were a large family. My father used to joke and call the family a hydra. You’d kill one off and another would spring up to take their place. It felt like a tasteless joke to make now.

“It was important to my parents that I be protected,” I said. “My mother isn’t a Petrov by blood, and she’s always been odd about mixing.”

There was a lot of sarcasm in Sasha’s voice. I had suspected that Sasha and her mother didn’t have a good relationship. Though Sasha was very much the apple of her father’s eye, I was surprised by how much distance both of her parents kept from her.

“Your mother was the daughter of the last Pakhan,” I said.

Sasha sighed. I could tell that she didn't want to talk about this, but this was a rare opportunity for me to learn more about the Petrov family, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

“She was,” Sasha said. “It’s a sore subject. I think that deep down my mother believes that she should have been Pakhan. Of course that never would have happened. You and I both know that neither family would want a woman in power.”

“My father had all sons, as did my grandfather,” I said. “I don’t think there’s even been talk of a female Don ever.”

“My grandfather never would have heard of it. He considered my father to be the son he always wanted, and when it came time, he married my mother off to him, and made him heir to the Bratva. I don’t think my mother ever got over that slight.”

I wasn’t surprised. Katarina Petrov was well known in mafia circles as being ruthless, even more so than her husband.

“I think that my mother resents me. Nikolai was her favorite. The heir.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. My mind was already racing as I considered the information that Sasha had just told me. Katarina Petrov resented her place in the Bratva, and as the daughter of the former Pakhan, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if the Bratva was splitting apart.

Nikolai would have been her great hope of seizing power, and now that he was dead, I wondered if she had found another way to get what she so desperately wanted.

“Anyway,” Sasha said. “I think that's enough for tonight. Talking about my family was depressing.”

I nodded. I wanted to press more. I wanted to know what Sasha had discovered before she got shot, but I knew my new wife well enough to realize that if I pressed too hard, she might clam up, and then, I wouldn’t get anything from her.

“You should get some rest,” I told her. “I’ll be back in a few hours. There are guards here and Giovanna if you need anything.”

I didn’t want to leave, but there was work to do, and part of that work was making sure that whoever threatened Sasha was no longer a problem.