Reap (Scarred Souls, #2)(21)

This monster, this animal, this apparently unsalvageable man had protected me. And now, alone, here I sat with him. My obsession in the flesh. My forbidden addiction.

It should have been my chance to get away. I knew he’d be sleeping for the next few hours. Hell, I knew his daily routine down pat. But as my mind tried to convince me to go, my heart kept me rooted to the spot.

Glancing to Zaal, I edged closer. Taking the chance while I could, I brushed back his dirty matted black hair from his face. My lips parted and I drew in a sharp breath as his features were revealed.

With my forefinger, I slowly traced his broad forehead, then his nose and, finally, his jaw. He was beautiful, exotic, and every inch a man. But he was severely unkempt, his hair dirty, and his body still peppered with weeks’-old bloodstains.

Looking about the sparse room, there was nothing in here to clean him with. I couldn’t leave him like this, soiled and riddled with filth.

Determined, I got to my feet and headed up the staircase. As I opened the door to the basement, Savin and Ilya were suddenly in my face.

They were livid.

“What were you thinking by going down there?” Savin asked coldly. “He could have killed you.”

Ignoring Savin, I walked around him and headed into the downstairs bathroom. Searching the cabinets, I quickly found a bath sponge, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, some towels, and a hairbrush. Gathering them in my hands, I headed to the kitchen, and located a large bowl.

Ilya walked to the counter. His eyes fell on the items lying on the top. “You can’t be serious?” he asked incredulously. I didn’t say a word as I ran the hot water and filled the bowl to three-quarters full.

“Miss Tolstaia, you’re not going back down there. We can’t allow it.”

My back stiffened and I turned to face Ilya, who’d been joined by an angry-looking Savin. “I’m going to say this as politely as I can, guys. I’ve known you both my entire life, your fathers served mine honorably. I both love and respect you as friends, and as my guards, but I will not be ordered around by you. I’m not twelve, and I don’t need your f*cking permission to do anything.”

I lifted the bowl and set it next to the other items. Seeing a shopping tote bag on a hook, I filled it with the products I’d need and pulled it over my shoulder. Looking at my byki, I added, “Yes, I’m a woman in the Bratva. I’m controlled by my father, my Pakhan, and now, my ‘knayz’ brother. But I’m telling you now, I refuse to be spoken to like a f*cking errant child by you two.” My eyes narrowed. “I’m going back down to the basement to clean the man who has been left down there to rot for two friggin’ weeks. The man I believed had died alone on that God-awful hard rubber floor, and there’s sweet f*ck all you two can do about it.”

I lifted the bowl and walked around them. Ilya cussed and Savin stepped in my path. “He’s a Kostava,” he said in a deadly hush. “You’re a Tolstoi. Yet you help him? The knayz helps him? I don’t get what the f*ck is going on. He should have been slaughtered when he was found. Hung up and paraded through the streets.”

For a moment I felt a flash of shame. Real shame that I was about to help the enemy. But something stronger overcame this shame—a need to help Zaal. A need to get close to him. I couldn’t explain it. Of course, it was irrational, it was wrong, but I had to. He had no one else.

I was it.

Ignoring the men, I headed for the basement, and Ilya called out, “We’ll be watching that monitor, miss. If he so much as touches you the wrong way, we’ll come down and I won’t hesitate to kill him.”

It wasn’t a threat. His words were a promise.

Mu‘duk, I muttered under my breath, and resisted telling him to f*ck off. When I reached the small landing of the basement, I saw the switch that controlled the security camera directly before me. Turning to bolt the two inner locks of the basement door, I then smiled directly into the stair’s camera hanging from the ceiling, and cut the live feed. Last thing I needed was Ilya and Savin watching me wash Zaal down.

When I walked down the stairs and returned to Zaal’s side, I set the bowl down and carefully began to wash his body. Blood and dirt eventually gave way to tanned skin. I gently washed every inch of him, and when I reached his face, it was to find a pair of unfocused green eyes, staring up at me.

My hand froze but I stared right back.

My heart raced and my cheeks flushed with heat.

Zaal studied me, his eyes widening, then he began to move.

Quickly shuffling backward through fear of what he might do, I stopped when he dragged his lethargic body into a slumped sitting position. His gaze dropped to the bowl and then to his half-washed torso.

He looked back up at me and I could see confusion clouding his features. He watched me and I watched him. The room seemed to increase in temperature and a powerful magnetic tension formed between us.

Zaal’s attention fell to the sponge in my hand. His black eyebrows pulled down and, lifting his hand, he ran it over the clean side of his body.

Swallowing, watching his array of facial expressions communicate without words, I slowly shifted onto my knees. Zaal’s eyes snapped to mine and he tensed. Perhaps he perceived me as a threat?

I held up my sponge, and his wary eyes narrowed. Edging closer, I nervously whispered, “I was cleaning you.”

The clean hand moved to the soiled and sweat-ridden side of his body. He fixed his gaze on me once more and dropped his hand. He focused on me blankly. I moved ever closer. His nostrils flared, his hands clenched, the chains attaching him to the wall rattled at even this slight movement.