Hey, Daddy (Semyonov Bratva Book 2)

We can’t hang out if you’re going to cry when they put us in handcuffs.

—Nastya to Haze

HAZE

My stomach was leaden.

“You know the protocol here, Haze,” Sergeant Daniels said. “She’s going to be arrested.”

“She can’t even talk, let alone explain what the fuck happened. You can’t arrest her for that. She should be at a hospital right now, not in the back of a police cruiser,” I snarled.

What the hell was going on right now?

Was he one of the ones involved in all of this? Was that why he was breaking every protocol we had when it came to situations like this?

Sergeant Daniels looked away, and that was when I saw some stick up his ass suit nod his head at Daniels.

Sergeant Daniels stiffened further, then said, “She’s coming down to the station.”

I gritted my teeth before saying, “I’m taking her to the hospital. Either you can arrest me or allow me to take her.”

Sergeant Daniels went to argue, but I dismissed him by turning my back, then walked to the couch, gathered Nastya in my arms, and walked out with her.

I headed directly for the ambulance, which just so happened to be the same place that both Dima and Shasha were standing. As well as their lawyer, Elianora.

Elianora took one look at me, then at the angry sergeant I could feel following closely on my heels, and said, “You will not speak to our client until she’s been checked out by a medical professional at the hospital.”

Sergeant Daniels stood behind me, fuming.

I didn’t say a word as I climbed into the ambulance and said, “Meet us at the hospital.”

The paramedics took us straight to the hospital, and all the while my mind reeled.

“Will she allow me to check her over?” the paramedic asked as I sat there enraged.

“No,” I said. “She’s going to need a female.”

And I refused to think about the fact that Nastya completely freaked every time a male officer in uniform came anywhere near her.

We arrived at the hospital, and the first thing I asked for was a staff of females to check her over.

“I think the easiest thing would be to get her in the shower,” a nurse said five minutes later as she tried to check out Nastya’s body.

It proved futile, though.

She was literally covered in so much blood, she looked like she rolled in it.

“We need to do a rape screen on her,” I croaked. “We need to collect evidence as well. We can’t give her a shower until samples are taken.”

So they did.

They took samples.

They gave her a rape screen.

They did everything required by law, then gave her over to me to take a shower in the staff breakroom.

They did share with me, however, that she hadn’t been raped.

Thank God.

While the shower was warming up, I smoothed my hand over her hair and talked to her softly, not about anything in particular, though.

“Do you know where the term ‘Peeping Tom’ came from?” I asked, smoothing my hand over her blood-crusted hair.

I needed her to talk to me in the worst way.

And she surprised me by doing so then.

“No,” she croaked. “Where?”

Uncaring of the dried blood in her hair, I continued to pet her.

“Centuries ago, in middle-aged England, a woman rode down the road completely naked to protest her husband who raised taxes on the poor. All of the people agreed to look away but one,” Haze said quietly.

“Tom,” she guessed. “He’s the one who peeped.”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “It’s said that he was struck blind for looking.”

She snorted. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a killing offense. The lady did ride down the street naked on a horse. All those bits bouncing and jiggly. I’m not sure that any man wouldn’t have taken a look.”

She finally turned to look at me, and it was then that I saw the light back on behind her eyes.

She was with me.

“Tell me about your family,” I suggested. “Why was it, after you ate that food to get your blood sugar up, and then went to the bathroom, they talked about you like you were killing them?”

She seemed to finally come back to herself at that question.

So, while we were showering, she told me all about how she felt suffocated by her family. How, when her sister went missing, her life had turned into one huge vacuum that felt like she could never pull away from. How, when she’d been diagnosed with diabetes, the hovering had only gotten worse.

She then told me about running away, and refusing to come back until her family treated her like a person, and not a caged animal.

As she spoke, I used some kind nurse’s shampoo to wash Nastya’s hair.

I washed her body off with a man’s body wash that was in the shower stall and didn’t stop until the water was running clear.

I took care of myself next, then got both of us dried off and dressed in a set of hospital scrubs.

Mine barely fit, while Nastya’s were so big that they hung off of her.

When we opened the door to the breakroom, two uniformed male officers were waiting for us.

That’s when she started to scream.

“You will not, under any circumstance, bring another male officer in here until I have released her to your custody,” the doctor, Felix, announced.

I could see the anger rising off of him in waves.

He was pissed.

The suited man was also there, but it was only when a man came up and addressed him as Senator Kennedy that I realized who he was.

And why Daniels was acting like he was a nut job who forgot how to do his job.noveldrama

“She’s a murder suspect,” Daniels snarled.

“She’s a traumatized woman that needs medical care,” Dr. Felix interjected. “Now get out of this hospital before I have you taken out.”

Daniels looked ready to argue, but that’s when I’d had enough. “Get the fuck out. Right now.”

I was done playing by the rules.

The next fucking way he was getting out was by me knocking him unconscious with a fist to the face, then dragging him out by his ear.

Daniels finally saw the seriousness in my eyes, because he backed away, his chest puffing up. “You are officially suspended.”

I snorted. “Who cares?”

“You should,” he said. “Especially since it’s your partner that was found dead in her apartment!”

That was a kick to the gut.

I’d known the moment I saw the dead body’s feet in the bathroom who it was.

John loved his fuckin’ boots. He’d gotten them from his mom as a present in the military, and he hadn’t stopped wearing them since.

She’d spent eight hundred bucks on them to have them tailor-made for him, and they had a signature at the bottom of his mom’s.

The boots had been all I’d had to see to know that it was John, and the blood filling up the stopped bathtub was enough to let me know he was gone.

“You don’t think that I want answers?” I laughed, my voice sounding strained. “I would love answers, but I know that getting them isn’t going to happen when you’ve been traumatized so badly you can’t talk.”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t use your cruiser anymore, either. So I hope you find an alternate way home.”

Then he was gone, the senator following in his wake.

When I turned around, it was to find Nastya sitting up in the bed, her legs crossed underneath her, and her rocking back and forward.

When she saw me, she started to cry.