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“Exactly. I don’t care how possessive he is; there’s no way he would risk his life a second time just to get her back.”
“By the time his wounds are healed, the brat will be long gone.”
“Yeah, we have plenty of time. Don’t worry about it. We’ll play with our new toy later.”
They all snickered and began rocking the trailer again. Annika curled up tight on the floor and closed her eyes. Between the traditional Armenian music pumping through the speakers, the men jeering outside, and the creak of the trailer back and forth, Annika almost didn’t hear the rumble of a vehicle engine in the distance. But when the clear crack of gunfire split the air, she sat up with a gasp.
“Fuck!”
“What the hell?”
The men released the trailer and began running away. Annika stumbled over to the window and peeled the shutter back to watch the dangerous scene unfolding outside.
CHAPTER11
MIKHAIL
LosingAnnika the first time had been an inconvenience.
Losing her the second time was a nightmare.
The moment the Armenians had surrounded Mikhail’s car on that desolate stretch of highway in the middle of the desert, he had not known a moment of peace. It was strange how his memories of the incident were a jumbled-up combination of searingly vivid and frustratingly vague. He could remember every second of their desperate backwards thrust down the road. He recalled the way Annika looked so small and dainty as she gripped the edges of her seat. She was beautiful as ever, but her pretty face was twisted with fear. Her wide-eyed, pale countenance hovered bright in his mind’s eye. He hated to see her like that.
He'd been admiring her in tiny, subtle, stolen glances as they rode together back from Katja’s Cathouse. Mikhail was pleased with the easy assignment well done at the brothel. Mikhail always loved visiting the brothels—the women there fawned over him. Good looks and ruthless power were a natural magnet for the ladies. It was simple enough to go in and threaten the low-ranking made man, scare the living daylights out of him, and make sure he wouldn’t try to use Obschak as loan shark money again. It was even better going to see Katja, who was an old friend he knew he could rely on. His mother, Irina, and Katja had always been friends, too, and the older madam became a maternal figure for him after his mother died. Watching Katja behave like a mother or mentor to Annika stirred up tender feelings inside of him he hadn’t expected. It was like spending time with family, although the links between each member were definitely nontraditional.
Distracted on the ride back to Vegas, he hadn’t realized the jeeps were not behind him as backup. Foolish rookie mistake.
Instead, he’d watched the sun set across Annika’s face. He remembered the sense of inner peace he felt looking at her. It wasn’t like Mikhail was a terribly turbulent person on the inside; on the contrary, he felt little remorse about the life he had to lead. He was used to it, and he was good at it. He didn’t lie awake at night agonizing over his actions. He lived on the edge and regretted nothing. Bloodshed didn’t ruffle him. Death was a common occurrence in his line of work.
But still, Mikhail felt a little lighter when Annika was with him. Even when they bickered. Even when she pouted and defied him. She brought out something different in him, and filled his dangerous, black and white world with vivid color. Mikhail’s spirits were high heading back from the brothel.
So when he noticed the dark hulking shapes of vans emerging from the desert, his good mood evaporated in an instant. That light, airy feeling in his chest sank. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. His jaw clenched, his hands gripping the wheel harder. He was bracing for a battle, and that was exactly what he got.
But it was different this time. He wasn’t alone. Mikhail had Annika to worry about. That worry multiplied exponentially when it became clear that their attackers weren’t interested in him; they only wanted her. And these guys were willing to risk life and limb to get her. Mikhail still felt the gut-punch of negative G-force as he slammed the car into reverse. He could still hear the engine roaring and smell the acrid odor of burning rubber. He could hear Annika whimpering as the vans bore down on them, gaining quickly now that Mikhail’s car was slipping around going backward.
There was a knot in his throat when he realized it was no use. He was outnumbered, but there was no other option; he had to get out of the car and defend Annika with his weapon. His first impulse was to use his own much larger body as a shield for her dainty frame. After all, he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his muscle t-shirt and jacket, whereas Annika was unarmed and unprotected. He threw himself on the hood of the car, gun raised to fire. He planned to gun each of them down, one by one, as they tried to advance on him.
But the Armenians weren’t interested in getting too close. Mikhail had barely begun to fight back when he felt several bullets strike his body. It was like the force of an eighteen-wheeler slamming into him, only split into five separate stinging wounds. Three bullets struck his shoulder and two hit him directly in the chest. Mikhail had taken a bullet before—with and without a vest. But this was too much for him. The vest may have kept the bullets from ripping through his flesh, but the sheer force of the shots had knocked the wind from his lungs. Even his heart seemed to stutter over the next several beats as Mikhail’s body went limp across the dusty windshield. His blue eyes bugged, his mouth gasping for breath as he recovered from the momentary shock. The Armenians shined their headlights directly at him, disorienting him even more as men swept in to snatch Annika.
Mikhail could only watch in dizzy horror as they dragged her away. She screamed out for Mikhail, and every shriek pierced him like another bullet. The fiery young woman was kicking and flailing, doing everything she could to escape them. But she was too small, the Armenians too strong. They had come with the express purpose of capturing her and they wasted no time knocking her out and tossing her in the back of a van. The caravan peeled out and left Mikhail in the dark. It was just a matter of seconds, and Annika was gone.
Mikhail regained his strength just as the vans disappeared on the horizon. The very last thing he saw before they cut their lights was the caravan making a left turn off the highway, like they were going to drive across the shrubby desert. Every instinct urged him to track Annika down by whatever means necessary and not stop until every one of the Armenian mafiosos was bleeding out on the ground. But it was nearing midnight, and Mikhail knew it would be foolish to chase them down on his own.
It took all his restraint to take the extra time to call in backup, but he knew better than to rush an imperative mission and risk Annika’s life in the process. Mikhail got back into his car. He called his cousin Andrei and three of his most loyal, competent, fearless men and gave them the same command.
“Drop whatever you’re doing right now and meet me in the desert. The Armenians have borrowed something of ours, and it’s time to get it back—with interest,” he growled.
He airdropped his location with coordinates and waited for backup to arrive. Three of the men were in the midst of a mission, and the third was dead asleep at home. They all dutifully jumped into action. It was grueling for Mikhail, just sitting in the car in the dark while the Armenians did God only knew what to his fiancé. His backup team arrived within the next few hours. The men had come armed to the teeth and wearing their own bulletproof vests. These men were full of blistering energy and blind devotion to their Pakhan. They set up camp for a while just off the highway, plotting their rescue mission by moonlight. They compiled the information they had on the Armenians. They hashed out the potential risk, the layout of their camp, the method of extraction.
“I’ve been keeping intel on the Armenians’ movements over the past six months. They make regular trips into town for supplies, but then they always drive back out to the desert. I think they have a whole camp out there, off-grid,” explained Andrei.
“Any ideas on coordinates?” Mikhail questioned.
“I can help with that, sir,” said Vadim, the one who’d been woken up from a dead sleep. “Remember the run-in we had with those fuckers at the restaurant by Red Rock a few months back? Well, my partner and I managed to hijack one of their shitty old vans. They don’t drive it very often since we put all those bullet holes in their trunk. But they’ve taken it for a spin enough times for us to triangulate a starting location.”
“You’ve been sitting on this info for how long?” asked Luka, who still had faint blood smudges on his shirt from the mission he’d been carrying out.
“Not long. It’s not like I could just stroll into their camp on my own anyway. The Armenians may not be very organized, but they still pack heat,” answered the second man fiercely. “I would never compromise the organization on a half-baked vanity mission.”
