Page 71 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

My companion doesn’t glance around to check if I’m behind him. He has a holster strapped to his waist and tattoo sleeves covering his arms and the back of his neck. From the way the other Russians step aside for him, I’m guessing that he is either an enforcer for the Petrovs, or he’s family.

If it comes to it, he’s the one I take down first.

He has almost reached the top of the ramp when I hear screeching tires from somewhere behind us and then a crash that makes my heart skitter.

I turn around to find a vehicle with blacked-out windows embedded in the side of the truck waiting to transport the Russians’ cargo away from the port. The truck rocks, the walls shaking from the impact.

Ivana?

A whistle blows through a loudspeaker.

Loud voices fight to be heard as workers start running towards us.

Smoke is billowing from the engine of the vehicle embedded in its side, and a car alarm is setting my teeth on edge.

The Russian grabs my wrist and drags me up the ramp towards the deck, and every instinct screams at me to run as nausea rushes to the surface.

I shouldn’t be here. I would die in a heartbeat to save my sister, but the unborn child in my belly doesn’t have that choice, and I have no right to take that away from them.

“Let me go!” I slide the blade from my pocket and slice his lower arm lengthways.

The instant he releases me I reach for my gun and put a bullet through his chest.

Then I run.

The ramp shakes beneath my pounding footsteps. I hear another gunshot from the deck and leap the last few feet, landing awkwardly on a coiled rope on the quayside and rolling sideways. I see the edge of the dock speeding towards me with a steep drop on the other side between me and the moored ship.

I reach out for the cable connected to the closest electrical point and slow my momentum as my right leg drops over the edge. Shit. I don’t even know how deep the water is here, or how far down it is to the water’s surface.

Heart thudding, I lie there for a moment, listening to the chaos raging around the dock.

Footsteps thump towards me. Before I can drag myself upright, I’m hauled onto my feet by the Russian who shoved me into the container before. A gun is shoved into my lower back, and his arm wraps around my neck.

“Make a sound, and I’ll fucking shoot.”

He drags me back towards the ramp, but we’re shielded from view by other members of his organization, all dressed in black, forming a barrier around us with their wide shoulders and thick thighs.

My head barely reaches my captor’s shoulders. So, I dig my heels in and center my weight in the lower half of my body, knowing that he will pick my feet up off the floor and carry me, even if it means strangling me in the process. I have to time it right before he cuts off my air supply completely with his arm around my neck.

As predicted, he yanks me up and backwards, and I grip his forearm with both hands for leverage and headbutt him. I feel his nose crack beneath the back of my skull. He loosens his grip enough for me to slide out from underneath his arm and sink my blade into his foot, one hard kick to his shin sending him sprawling towards the narrow gap between the dock’s edge and the ship.

I’m down to my gun now, but I can’t think about that.

I don’t register the Russians retreating towards the ship they’re trying to unload. Or the lack of security stepping in to resolve the situation.

All I know is that by coming here today, alerting the Russians to my presence, and almost getting myself killed on board a Russian vessel, I’ve done exactly what Leonid wanted to avoid when he took my weapons and confined me to the house.

He was right: I am a fucking liability.

Breathing heavily, I stumble forward, straight into familiar arms that make me cry out loud. “Finn?”

“Are you hurt?” He keeps me at arm’s length, looking for blood.

I shake my head. “What are you⁠—”

I’m cut short when a bullet whistles past his head, causing us both to turn and watch the vehicle approaching us with blacked-out windows.

I recognize it instantly. Even so, it takes me a beat too long to react when it squeals to a halt and Andrej Ivanov climbs out.