“I have to go. Dmitri, tie up the meeting. I want answers to the problem by the time I return. Vasya, meet me at the address I send you.”
I can feel the eyes of thevorybehind me as I all but run to the elevator. But the only thing I can think of is getting to Eva,making sure she’s safe, and punishing whoever thinks they can mount an assault against her.
If they harm a hair on her head, theywillpay. I’ll tear up the world to make sure of it.
No one is on the street outside the bookstore when I pull up. No one wants to get involved or call the cops.
My heart is pounding, and it only hammers harder when I see the door standing open and the wood around the lock splintered. It’s a reaction utterly foreign to me. I’m used to being calm, collected, my anger focused and powerful. Anxiety is not something I can afford in my world.
The worry doesn’t ease until my gaze lands on the figure I’m looking for.
Eva is pressed into a corner behind the register, holding a girl tight to shield her. She glares in defiance at the two men wrecking the bookstore, my brave wildcat.
One of the big picture windows is shattered, and through it, I can see the two men throwing furniture and ripping books. Their shouts reach my ears before the door closes behind me. One hurls a chair through a display, sending books flying.
“I fucking told you, Volkova,” the other shouts. “I fucking told you to pay up. I warned you there would be consequences.”
He starts toward Eva, and the girl, who I assume is Katie, squeals and buries her face in Eva’s chest. Eva’s eyes narrow, but I can see her naked fear, too. She hauls Katie closer and backs away until her back hits the wall. They’re trapped, and I see the menace in the guy’s movements.
I also see a fresh bruise on Eva’s cheek, black and blue blooming beneath bright red, and a streak of blood dripping down her face.
My world explodes into a red fog, narrowing my vision until all I see are the two men. Tsepov’s men.
At the edge of my vision, I see Vasya’s car pulling up, but I don’t wait for his backup. I roar a challenge as I tear into the bookstore, catching Tsepov’s goons off guard. Their eyes widen, but they have no time to move before I throw one against the wall and grab the other by the throat, driving him back into a bookshelf as my fist slams into his face and then his stomach.
Air rushes from the guy’s lungs with a satisfying grunt, and he stumbles back as I let him go, blood pouring from his broken nose.
My smile feels feral, blood and anger pounding through me, flooding me with strength.
I start for the man again, but pain blossoms in my side. The one I threw aside managed to jab me in the kidney. I spin on my heel and barely manage to block a second blow. We’re squaring up when Vasya steps in and wrenches him into a headlock.
Trusting Vasya to handle his man, I turn to find the first of Tsepov’s goons has regained his feet, and he’s lurching toward Eva and Katie, whose sobs are muffled by Eva’s sweatshirt.
He’s going to try to grab them and force my hand.
The red haze swallows my vision once more, and I’m on him again in the next breath. We struggle for a moment before I slam him back into the same bookcase with a hard hook to his jaw. He shakes his head, finds his balance, and drops low to tackle me,but I step in, my fist connecting with a solidthunkto his gut, and the air flies out of him again with awhoosh. I catch him by his collar as he falls and hurl him back into the bookcase, the back of his head hitting the solid wood with a hollow report.
“You think you can go after what’s mine?” I snarl, the quiet words even more menacing than if I had yelled them.
The man, still gasping, tries to scramble away, but I grab him again and force his head into the wood once more. When he pulls away, blood spills down his cheek from a gash on his forehead.
“The kid owes—” the man gasps.
“You think I give a fuck about that?” I lean close enough to feel the guy’s ragged breathing and see the fear in his eyes at my words and at my scars. “Leave what is mine alone, or you will beg for death by the time I’m done with you.”
Mine.
The word resonates through me, mixing with the anger and adrenaline, the throbbing pain in my side and my fists, the fury that someone threatened Eva and her family.
“Tell Tsepov to back the fuck off and stay away, or I’m coming after him myself.”
Gathering the fabric of the man’s shirt, I yank him around and throw him toward the door. He stumbles, falls, regains his footing, and sprints out the door.
The goon Vasya took down stumbles after. His eyes are glazed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and flooding from a gash over his eye. I can see the bruises around his neck as he staggers out.
“Low-level thugs,” I mutter as Vasya stands beside me. Aside from his hair falling over his forehead, he looks like he just stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine. “He should have sent something more challenging if he wanted to defy me.”
“They weren’t for you. They were for him.”
