AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He glowers at me. “Your father wouldn’t give a shit about leaving him out here. His only concern would be who he can screw next for cash.”
“I’m not my father!” I leap up off the ground and hurl myself at Alexi, my fists flying in every which direction. I want to cause him pain, deep, searing, scorching pain, the same type of pain I’ve lived with, and I dig my fingernails into his throat.
“Get the off me, you crazy bitch,” he says, pushing me off of him and shoving me at Remy. “You never did learn to think before you did shit. You’re about to learn that lesson now.”
Remy closes his hand over my wrist and pushes open the door. He drags me behind him, walking around the bodies sprawled on the concrete floor. Alexi presses a gun into my spine as we walk, and the nightmare continues.
Will I ever fucking wake up?
Is death what finally sets me free from this living hell?
“Viktor!” Remy bellows, his voice echoing in the halls as we walk.
Tears form behind my eyes, and I blink them back. There is no way I’m letting them escape right now. No, I need to keep my shit together right now and figure out how I’m going to get myself and Papa out of this. Alive.
Remy flings open the door to my father’s expansive office, and I swallow a sob when I see Papa tied to a chair. It looks like he’s been beaten within an inch of his life, but when he sees me, tears pool in his blue eyes…eyes that are normally so cold, they can ice over an ocean in the tropics.
“Papa…” I whisper.
“Yes.” Remy leans in close to my ear. “But Viktor isn’t the only one who’s going to suffer for his sins today.” He gently tugs on a strand of my hair, just like he used to do back when…I swallow hard…back when I didn’t know he was a psycho with a deadly vendetta against my family. Back when I thought he loved me and wasn’t plotting to murder my mother and sister. “See, people always get so fucking greedy. They don’t care who they hurt to get what they want. They betray confidences when they’ve promised loyalty.” He shakes his head. “And we don’t like that. People who pull that shit need to pay, too.” He straightens up. “Xiomar!”
The side door of the office swings open, and I swallow hard when Rocco’s dark eyes meet mine.
“Where’s the girl?” Remy demands. “You said you had his sister!”
“Don’t worry,” Alexi grunts. “He’ll suffer plenty when he sees this one gutted like a fucking fish.” He nudges me, and I struggle against his beefy body with absolutely zero luck.
Remy yells something in Russian. Xiomar and his men exchange confused looks. “What the hell are you saying?”
He grits his teeth. “Did you get him to wire the fucking money?”
Xiomar glares at Remy. “You give a lot of fucking orders, you know that? I don’t see you doing anything right now. You show up late, leaving a goddamn mess behind you. Fucking asshole,” he mutters under his breath, grabbing a laptop.
Remy lets go of me and stomps across the room, shoving Xiomar away from the laptop. “Good for nothing guinea. I should have known you’d screw this up somehow. You beat him so hard, he can barely move. How the hell was this gonna work if you’d have killed him?” He stabs at some keys and drops it in Papa’s lap. “Do it,” he snarls right in his face. “Just hit the big red button and then we can move on.”
Alexi presses the gun deeper into my back and my fingers twitch at my sides. “Payment,” he hisses. “For the lives he stole. Lucky for us, you couldn’t leave well enough alone. Always looking for the last word.” He twists me around to face him. “You could say this is all your fault, Kat. If you’d have listened to your old man, this wouldn’t be happening, and we’d have kept bleeding you dry a few drops at a time instead of blowing off all your heads at once.” He grins. “But I like it better this way. We’ve been waiting a long time for this, and you helped us get it. Sister,” he hisses.
“Don’t you dare call me that!” A strangled cry escapes my lips, and I lash out, my fingernails dragging down the side of Alexi’s face. My body is powered by pure adrenaline, and I don’t stop for one second to think about what I’m doing. “You fucking monster!” I drive my knee into his balls with all of the force I can muster, sending him to the ground in a blubbering heap. His gun skitters across the floor and I lunge for it, closing my hand tight around the handle.
Crack!
One of Xiomar’s men drops to the floor in front of me, and I point and pull the trigger, firing off two more quick shots. A loud crash registers amid all of the screaming in different languages as the laptop shatters on the floor. I point the gun to it and fire off another shot, watching the computer explode into thousands of tiny shards of glass and plastic.
“Kat! Get the hell out of here!” Rocco turns around and launches his arm backward, his fist cracking against Xiomar’s jaw while Max leaps at Remy, pummeling him to the ground.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
More shots explode into the air, and Xiomar falls to the ground with a loud thud.
Loud voices come from the front of the bar, footsteps stomping through the place like herds of cattle when sirens blare in the distance. Whoever is left scatters like cockroaches, anxious to save their own asses.
I never thought I’d actually pray for cops to arrive at a scene where I have a gun in my hand, but I guess that’s why they say never say never.
I drag myself over to Papa and fumble with the ties, my vision blurred with tears. “Papa,” I whisper. “I’m going to get you out, okay? Please just stay with me. I’ll get you out.” I look around for something to cut them off and free him from the chair, but the tears fall too fast and I can’t see anything in front of me except for blurs of color.
Red. Lots and lots of red.
“G-go,” he rasps. “Don’t save me. I-I don’t want to be saved. I d-deserve this,” he chokes, his voice garbled.
