Page 111 of Brutal Vows

The guns skidded at least three feet across the floor, and the other guy is scrambling for them now, I reach for the knife at my feet and fling it, as I’ve been trained to, and hit him in the chest. It won’t kill him, but it will slow him down.

Masha manages to stand, lifting her chair beneath her, and hops two steps over to where the Russian I hit in the head is coming to. With spectacular aim, she sits down on her chair, planting one of the solid chair legs right on his face. Bones give with a satisfying crack as she pierces into an eye socket. She goes for it again and again, and I can’t watch.

The other Russian is crawling toward the gun, and I kick both away. One hand still tied to my fucking chair, I bring it down on his face.

“This is what’s in my blood,” I hiss.

I smash it down on him again, knowing a gun would be kinder, quicker, but a mindless violence courses through my body, Stephano’s rage I was always forced to contain.

The man isn’t dead yet, and in my peripheral vision, I see Milana step out of her room, gun in hand.

She closes in on us and pulls the trigger. A perfect shot. Right in his temple.

I stand back, chair all fucked up and in pieces, yet still dangling from my arm. The zip tie has cut into my wrist, and there’s blood everywhere.

“Good shot, princess,” I huff out, wiping at the sweat running down my forehead with my ruined hand before I meet her horrified gaze. “You know what we say in Il Consiglio: teamwork makes the fucking dream work.”

51

MILANA

I stare at Luca. His naked chest is smeared with blood from a cut running down his pec to his ribcage. He’s glistening with sweat, staring down at the horrific burn on his chest. It’s raw and looks more than blistered, the skin seeming to be burnt away.

My courage finally swooped in when Masha called for ‘Lana.’ I was grappling for the gun in the baby bag when the gunshot tore through the room, and then Luca cried out. I prayed I wasn’t too late. It had been so quiet the whole time, just conversation that I couldn’t really follow through the closed door, but I didn’t expect…would never have imagined that this was going on.

I drop the gun. I had no idea. Luca looks up at me, chest heaving, but focus returns to his gaze. He surveys the carnage. Deadly calm has descended in the room, a log bursting in the hearth an echo of the mind-numbing violence mere seconds ago.

I’m trembling all over, but he just shrugs it off. The Mafia madman I married. Whom I love. Who endured torture so quietly so as not to alarm me or Annushka. She’s sound asleep in the adjacent room, a little chick in the nest I made for her with my winter coat.

I step up to him, raising a hand, wanting to touch him. Blood drips from everywhere. From his hand. His leg. His wrist. From the long cut on his chest. “Luca!”

He inhales, then breaks out into a chuckle. “Fuck. We need to get the fuck out of here before the backup arrives.”

He raises his hand to touch me, and in horror, I notice his little finger, now missing a whole knuckle.

“You’re hurt! Everywhere!”

“Later,” he says, squeezing my arm. “Zoe’s okay?”

“She sleeping,” I say, grateful my daughter will never witness this brutality.

“Luca is right.”

We both turn to Masha where she’s still strapped in her chair, over the man whose face is crushed beyond recognition.

“You need to leave,” she says. “As soon as possible.”

“Who got shot?” I ask. There’s a lot of damage on Luca’s naked chest, but no bullet wound.

“It’s my shoulder,” Masha says. “Don’t worry. I’ve had worse. And it will be over soon.”

Luca tugs the knife out of the other Russian’s body and limps over to her to cut the zip ties. “Good job. You made all the difference.”

She smiles, and it contorts her burnt face even more, making her look like some hideous Frankenstein’s bride from a B-grade horror movie. Except she is real, and this is what she lives with.

“What happened?” I step up to Masha, wanting to hug her to me. “Where did it go wrong?”

“Chertnikov’s spies. The men in the vans. I didn’t think they’d dare come back here. Not after seven years, but he must have instructed them to come sit it out. Wait and see what happens, if anything. Who knows for how long.” She waves at the supplies. “They’ve been here only a few days. I didn’t think⁠—”