Painted Scars (Perfectly Imperfect, #1)(33)

right side. They appear more recent, breaking the flow of the black patterns.

“Those are from the car bomb,” he says, caressing my back.

I move my hand to the left and touch the long thin scar above his hip.

“A knife fight on my sixteenth birthday. A discussion about politics that went too far.”

Next, I pick a round scar on the left side of his stomach and circle my finger around it.

“Gunshot. Disagreement with Mendoza. He's the equivalent of a pakhan to the Mexicans, and things were a bit complicated back then. It was more than ten years ago.”

I look up at him. “Ten? When did you take over from the previous pakhan?”

“Twelve years ago. When my father died, I took his place. I was twenty-three.”

“How is that possible? You were so young.”

“I started working with my father when I was fifteen. People supported me.” He shrugs as if it’s nothing. “It was a much better option than to have internal war. Those are bad for business.”

My eyes drift down to his chest, comprehension settling in as to how extremely different his world is from mine.

“What happened to Mikhail?” I ask.

Roman is silent for a few moments and then takes a deep breath and squeezes me to him.

“My father happened.”

“Dear God. He . . . did that to him? Why?”

“It’s a long story, malysh. A long and terrible story, and definitely not something I want to talk about in our bed. You’ll have nightmares.”

“That bad?”

“No. It’s much worse than you could imagine, Nina.”




My alarm goes off at seven. I look down at Nina who is sleeping on my chest and shake my head. I remember moving her down onto the pillows last night, but she decided to climb on me again at some point.

Trying my best not to wake her, I transfer her onto the sheets again and pull a cover over her naked body. We had sex three times last night, so she will probably sleep in.

After placing a kiss on her shoulder peeking from under the blanket, I get the crutches from where I leaned them on the nightstand, and start getting ready for my appointment with Warren.

Somewhere in the middle of the session, Warren grabs the cane, which has been lying on the chair in the corner for a week, and brings it to me.

“Let’s try this for a little bit,” he says.

Slowly, I get down from the massage table and stand, supporting my weight with my left leg and gripping the side of the table with my right hand.

“We’ll start slow,” he says. “Just a couple of steps for now.”

I take a deep breath, hold the cane with my left hand and release the mad grip I have on the table.

My first attempt is bad. The moment I raise my left leg to step forward, the searing pain shoots through my right knee so I almost stumble.

“Divide the weight between the cane and the leg. And try a smaller step this time.”



It still hurts like a bitch, but it’s slightly better. I manage a total of four steps before the pain becomes unbearable and I have to sit down. It’s pathetic and I feel the need to hit something.

“That was good, Mr. Petrov,” Warren says.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “If that was good, what’s bad?”

“It’s perfectly normal. You are putting almost all your weight on your injured leg for the first time in four months. Just the fact you can do that is very promising. I think you should switch to using forearm crutches from now on.”

My body goes still. “I don’t like those.”

“Why? They require some practice but are much more convenient to use.”

“Because they look . . . permanent.” There. I said it. My greatest fear at the moment—that my knee is so fucked up, I’ll end up walking on crutches for the rest of my life. A cane, I can live with. But I don’t think I could bear crutches.

“They won’t be permanent, Mr. Petrov. However, they are a much better choice for transitioning to the cane than the underarm crutches you’ve been using so far.”

“Alright,” I sigh. “When will I be able to ditch the wheelchair altogether?”

“It depends. Your progress is much better than expected, and with enough practice, you should be able to pull up using only the forearm crutches in a few weeks. But you should keep the wheelchair.

You’ll need it when we start practicing with the cane more extensively. Those sessions will put significant strain on your knee, and it would be better to use the chair in the following hour or two.”

“Just get me to the bloody cane, Warren. I don’t care what it takes, just get me there.”

“I will, Mr. Petrov. Now, let’s try those forearm crutches, shall we?”




The therapy session didn’t go well. One look at Roman’s face when he got back told me enough, and he barely said a word the whole morning.

I take the empty bowl I used for my cereal and go into the kitchen to put it into the sink. After filling up Brando’s dish, I come to stand next to Roman.

“I was thinking,” I say casually, watching him squeeze an orange, “maybe I could join you

tomorrow when you’re working out.”

When Roman doesn’t meet with his therapist, he spends two hours working out, and if he does