AllFreeNovel
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The words stick in my throat. I’m not going to let you die alone.
He’s been shot in the chest. The blood is pumping out of him too fast, spreading across the sidewalk. His face is pale. Too pale.
Am I going to watch every member of my family die like this?
Nik slides his hand into mine. It takes me a second to recognize that he’s handing me the car keys.
“Go save your kid, Yakov. Save your family,” he says weakly.
My throat tightens. I can’t save Nik, but I can try to get to Luna in time. I can save her and our baby.
I lean over my brother and press a kiss to his forehead. When I pull back, his eyes are closed.
Rage propels me off the ground and down the sidewalk. The only reason I can walk away from my brother is because I know the man responsible for his death is going to die slowly and painfully.
But first, he’s going to take me to Luna.
75
LUNA
We drive for hours. Days, it feels like. If someone told me I was in hell, I’d believe them.
The only thing that keeps me from throwing up is knowing there’s a hood over my head. I’d end up swimming in my own vomit and I doubt a warm bubble bath is waiting at the end of this drive.
I’m alone.
The voices around me are deep and unfamiliar. They’re speaking Russian, so I can’t understand them. Not that understanding them would change anything. I can’t see and my hands are numb from the zip ties around my wrists. This isn’t a fight I can win.
There’s only one thought I cling to—one tiny bit of hope in this literal darkness.
Yakov will find me.
He’s furious at me. He said he wanted to get rid of me. But he’d never let me die like this. Not without a fight.
Suddenly, the car lurches to a stop. I brace my knees against the seat in front of me so I don’t face-plant into it when the driver hits the gas again.
But he doesn’t hit the gas this time. He turns the car off.
I stiffen, listening as the men talk and move around. Doors open and close. Then someone grabs my ankles and yanks me through the open car door. I scream, but it only makes the men laugh. Their sweaty hands clamp down around my biceps, setting me on my feet before they shove me forward.
I trip over the uneven ground and my own feet, earning more laughs every time I stumble. The man behind me keeps yelling things in my ear that I don’t understand.
Am I walking to my death? To my grave? The image of a freshly-dug hole in the ground fills my head. Tears pour down my cheeks. “Please.”
I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. No one here is going to save me. They don’t take mercy on me. They just shove me forward.
Up ahead, I hear the rolling metal screech of a garage door. Then the ground evens out. I’m on a concrete slab and the voices around me echo off of what sounds like very high ceilings.
A garage? A warehouse, maybe?
I take slow, halting steps forward until another voice booms through the room. “Strip her.”
This man is speaking English, but I don’t understand what he means until hands claw at my clothes.
“Stop it!” I fling my bound wrists at the disembodied hands shredding away my t-shirt and pajama pants. “Leave me alone!”
“Shut up,” the voice commands. “Shut up and cooperate if you want to live.”
