AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If I had a gun in my hand, I’d have pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.
Church be damned.
Bagpipes had a point—it really wasn’t the sanctuary it used to be.
Shoulders straightening, I twisted around to face him. The sight of his wobbling jowls, those beady eyes, and the mutton-chop sideburns were enough to inspire ridicule, but this man was dangerous. Laughing at him would come at one’s own peril.
What was even more dangerous?
The dozen men who were waiting on us, and the lack of a crowd which told me they’d headed in for the service, leaving the Bratva footsoldiers behind.
We were surrounded by them. Encircled.
Bagpipes had been wrong, after all. The threat wasn’t external, butinternal.
Throat tight, I rasped, “I didn’t think you were a believer, Denis.”
“Oh, it’s funny what death and grieving will do to a man. The Pakhan’s loss has affected us all in many ways. For me, I’ve made it my solemn duty to ensure the people responsible for his death pay for their sins.” His lips twisted into a snarl. “Contain them.”
Two words.
That was it.
The Bratva were an army, after all. They didn’t care that we were the ex-Pakhan’s daughters as they rushed us, especially as, from the Sovietnik’s words, he believed we’d helped the Irish kill Father and he’d brainwashed theseboyeviksinto believing that too.
With four men to each of us, I knew the odds of escape were impossible, but we had to try.Ihad to try. In some things, I might be passive, but where my sisters’ physical security was concerned, I sure as hell wasn’t.
Theboyevikswere some of the largest I’d seen and I didn’t recognize a single one of them. Father had been pulling men in from Moscow to make up for the losses in the war against theFamiglia, so a lack of recognition came as no surprise, but even if wehadknown them, they wouldn’t have helped us.
They had their orders.
I kicked out at the four footsoldiers who surged into my perimeter like a quartet of sharks, a shriek escaping me as one hauled me around the abdomen, trying to lift me in the air like I was a bag of potatoes. I raised my legs high, swinging them up before I let them drop, my feet colliding with his knees which buckled.
As he went down, I did too, but someone else was there, waiting to grab me. I elbowed him in the stomach, screaming bloody murder in the hopes that the guards Bagpipes said were in here for our protection would come running, but no one did.
Victoria shrieked and squealed as the men started hauling her away, toward the temple itself and not the foyer, and her screams for help had me twisting and bucking in theboyevik’shold.
My hands snapped out, aiming for anything and everything I could. Punching. Pinching. Slapping. Smacking. The men growled, their faces turning bright pink as they loomed over me, exertion making them more aggressive.
When one slapped me, I felt it to my bones. Felt my teeth shake in my mouth, rattling as if they were M&Ms in the wrapper.
Dazed, they dragged me back, but I heard Abramovicz roaring at the men to hurry up, just as I saw Inessa knee one guard in the balls. He went down as she reached out and grabbed another’s dick, squeezing hard enough to turn him into a soprano. Her fire gave me energy, and I renewed my efforts even though my ears were ringing.
With two of her attackers down, I knew she had a chance at escaping, so I didn’t kick out at the men who were hauling me away. Arms banded around my stomach again, lifted high off the ground against one of their chests, I kicked at theboyeviknearest to me who was on Inessa.
It was luck, maybe I’d been blessed with some of that now I was Irish by marriage, but my heel glanced off one guard’s neck. Scraping a long line down his nape which had him twisting around, his hand clapping to cover the scratch.
“RUN!” I screamed, watching as Inessa, like the wildcat she was, managed to dart out of the way of her final guard. As she fled for the entrance, the top steps that led to the sidewalk, two from my group rushed after her.
With a final glance at me, apology and fear etched into her expression, she sped up.
An elbow to the temple stopped me from knowing if she made it. If she escaped. I didn’t even have a chance to pray to the God I didn’t believe in anymore that she made it out safe.
