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ChapterFour
RAVEN
I walk quickly pastthe queue still patiently waiting to get in. There is a line of taxis looking for custom. A couple of the drivers call out to me, but I shake my head and keep on walking.
I just need to be alone for a bit. To calm myselfdown.
Seeing Star again after all these years hurt me. The past repeats in my mind. I see her face: accusing, tears running down her cheeks as she sobs, “I trusted you like you were my sister. How could you do that to me, Raven?”
Other memories crowd in as I walk into the night, unseeing. Lost.
I am brought back to the present with ajolt.
Three men are coming towards me. Suddenly the past disappears, my nerve endings become super sensitive, and my wits kick into gear. Oh, god, I must have turned a corner without realizing it because I am no longer on the main road, but on a deserted side street. All the business premises are closed, and there is not a soul around except me and the approaching threemen.
What the hell was I thinking?
This is Elephant and Castle, not the safest place in the world to be loitering about at this time in the morning. I’m still wearing Cindy’s expensive jewelry. The man in the middle is bald and bulky. He is wearing a black leather jacket and blue jeans. The other two have their hoods pulled up over their heads, making them seem sinister.
For a second I consider running back where I came from. I wouldn’t get far in my new high heels if they do give chase. The temptation to cross the road is strong, but I realize that action is not going to make me any safer, in fact it may even serve to provokethem.
No, the best bet is to take my chances headon.
I swallow my apprehension, pulling my coat tighter around me so my necklace is hidden. I carry on walking forward. Instinctively, I know showing fear will only make the situation worse. As I get closer I let my gaze slide down. Not right to the ground, but low enough that there will be no eye contact.
My heart races as I get closer and closer tothem.
Three feet away my gaze rises up and collides with that of the bald man. Shit. He is staring at me with an ugly expression. I instantly drop my eyes and keep on walking. My heart is thudding so hard I can hearit.
Relief pours through my veins when they walk pastme.
I exhale the breath I was holding. Thank god. Thank god. It was pure paranoia, but even so. I’m still so frightened by my close call. I don’t dare look back. Instead I swivel my eyes around desperately for the sight of a passing taxi. The road is completely desolate.
As I walk hastily past an alley, still debating whether I should just retrace my steps back to the club, a meaty hand suddenly reaches out from nowhere, grabs my hair, and yanks me into the alleyway.
“Gotcha,” a man’s voicesays.
I scream with terror.
A big hand clamps down over my mouth and the other slams me against his bulk. At that moment, something strange happens. All my life I’ve been a non-confrontational person. I’m not ballsy like Rosa. I’m not forward like Cindy. I’d rather walk away than stand my ground. When Star accused me, I just slunk away, as if I was guilty when I wasnot.
But now … another part of my brain takes over. This part has 360 degree vision and misses nothing. Everything is crystal clear.
I feel the hard calluses on his palm. I smell the nicotine and taste the smoke on his fingers. He has splashed strong cologne on his neck and clothes, but underneath it, his armpits stink of stale sweat. On his breath is the reek of greasy burgers and chips. I feel the buckle of his belt dig into my back and the rough material of his jeans against my barelegs.
He is breathing hard and I know instinctively that he is one of the men who passed me by. They must have run around the block to jumpme.
“Come on, come on, quick,” one of the others urges. His voice is panicky.
I fumble with the catch of my purse. It opens and I slip my hand in and curl it around my mace. My purse falls to the ground. Cindy’s tube of deep red lipstick rolls out, making a clattering sound on the asphalt.
I clutch my mace tightly.
The man whirls me around and throws me against a wall. A jolt of pain goes through me, but I don’t let go of my mace. The wall is rough and cold. I look up at the three of them with wild eyes. Baldy is right in my face. He is twice my size. The other two have positioned themselves at either side ofhim.
Baldy comes right up to my face and stares at me. His eyes are dead. His hands grasp the lapels of my coat and yank itopen.
“Well, well, what do we have here, little rich girl?” he taunts in an East End accent.
My thoughts are strangely calm; I need to buy myself time. I need to make them understand that I am a person just like them. I need to talk to them. Like that girl on I Survived who convinced her rapist not to killher.
“I’m not rich … I have a kid, a small child,” Isay.
“You think I give a shit about your sob story?”
“The necklace is notmine.”
“Fucking hand it overnow.”
“You can’t have it. I told you. It’s not mine togive.”
His eyebrows shoot up. Violence fills his eyes. This is a man who enjoys losing his shit. Going crazy. He snarls like a wild animal. It happens so quickly I don’t even see his hand move. I hear the clasp crack, and feel the burn of the necklace scraping my skin, but I am too stunned to react … until I see the necklace in his fist. Then adrenaline and sizzling fury, like I have not known before, kickin.
“I said that necklace is not mine,” I scream, as I swing my hand up, my finger on the nozzle of the mace. Before I can depress the nozzle a huge, blond guy, much bigger than Baldy, suddenly appears behind the three men. He smiles at me and my eyes widen with astonishment. What the hell is goingon?
With snake-like reflexes, he grabs hold of Baldy’s wrist, and yanks his arm back with such force the unmistakable crack of bone breaking fills the stunned silence.
“Fuck! Motherfucker! You broke my arm,” Baldy shrieks in agony as he drops to the ground.
The blond guy turns towards the hooded men. They are frozen in shock, but one of them pulls out a big knife and points it athim.
“You want to play?” Blondie asks. He is as cool as a cucumber. His accent is very slight and difficult to place. Not Russian, but Eastern Europe.
“I’ll fucking cut you,” Hoodie threatens. Unlike the newcomer his voice is shaking with fear and confusion. He swipes the blade through the air in a wildarc.
Blondie does nothing. Simply looks at him calmly. Hoodie lunges suddenly to stab Blondie, but he’s too slow. Blondie simply side steps his attack. As Hoodie hurtles forward on his own momentum, the big, blond guy lands a lightning fast chop to his throat.
He is so unbelievably fast it’s like watching something from a martial arts movie created with special effects. The hooded man collapses to his knees spluttering and gasping for breath, his face contorted into a mask ofpain.
The big guy turns to face the last man. “Yourturn.”
He’s seen what happened to his mates. He holds his palms up. “Hey man, I’m sorry,” he wimpsout.
“Run,” Blondie tells him expressionlessly.
The second hoodie glances at his injured friends then scuttles away as fast as his legs will carry him. Blondie walks over to Baldy, who is nursing his grotesquely angled arm. Big guy puts his hand out, and Baldy, with fear in his eyes, drops my necklace into hishand.
“Go,” Blondie says pleasantly.
Baldy stands with a groan of pain. He limps over to his friend who is still gasping for breath, and they move away together without a backward glance.
“You all right?” Blondie asks stretching a hand out to help meup.
My situation is embarrassing to say the least, half squatting in a dirty alleyway, but at least I haven’t pissed myself yet. So there is that. I look at the offered hand, then up to hisface.
The light from one of the streetlamps shines on his blond hair and part of his face. Up close he has a strong, chiseled jawline and such breathtakingly beautiful eyes they make him better looking than most of the male models at the party. Drop dead gorgeous doesn’t even begin to coverhim.
I look into his beautiful eyes and realize that he is far more dangerous than the men he has so effortlessly dispatched.
I raise my shaking hand and point my mace directly at him. “Don’t come any closer.”
Something flashes in his green eyes, then it is gone. He raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Stay away. I don’t knowyou.”
“I just saved your ass,” he says incredulously.
Slowly, I start sliding up the wall. “I can take care of myself.”
His lips quirk. “Yeah it looked like that to me when I arrived,” he mocks.
“I didn’t need your help. I was about to macethem.”
“Well thankfully, we didn’t have to see how that would have workedout.”
“My necklace,” I say, putting my free palmout.
He drops it into my waiting palm and my hand closes over the stones. They are still warm from hisskin.
“None of my business, but I wouldn’t be showing something that valuable on the streets aroundhere.”
I should be thanking him profusely, but it could be the left-over fear, or the strange way I feel about him that makes me react in an uncharacteristically aggressive way. “You’re right, it is none of your business.”
He looks at me speculatively. “Nobody taught you manners, huh?”
With the necklace in my hand some of the fear and shock dissipate, and I realize a funny fact: I know this man. He had a beard then, but I recognize him. I’ve seen him in the casino. Not at my table, but playing poker two tables away. Our gazes touched once. Just once, but it was enough for me to remember him forever.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
His lips twist into an ironic smile. “Konstantin Milosevic at your service. I suppose, in this particular situation, I am … your protector.”
