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“Walk forward,” she says sharply, her voice much less pleasant now. “I have questions for you, and you’re going to answer them.”
“And then what?” I don’t bother hiding how fucking pissed I know I sound. “Are you going to stab or shoot me? Or is that something you’re going to decide on while we’re talking?”
“Shut up,” she snaps, the point of the knife digging a little more sharply into my side.
“I thought you wanted me to talk?”
The point twists, and I feel a small warm trickle down my skin. “Move,” she hisses, and I obey. I want her to think I’m going to cooperate, for now, at least.
A few feet to the doorway, if that. I don’t know what other weapons or tricks she has stashed away in the bedroom, and I’m not so sure I want to find out. But I also need a second to decide what I’m going to do.
I haven’t been caught this off guard in a very, very long time, and I’m cursing myself every step of the way as I walk slowly forward towards the doors that will lead back out into the bedroom.
“This night isn’t going exactly how you thought it would, is it?” she asks, her voice silkily taunting. “You thought you’d have your blade inmeby the end of the night. How does it feel, knowing a woman got the jump on you?”
“I’m actually quite a fan of women jumping on me,” I tell her dryly as I step through the doorway. “In fact, if you want to renegotiate—”
“Shut up.” She pushes me forward with the point of the knife against my kidney and the muzzle of the gun hard against the back of my head. I close my eyes briefly, because I know just how dangerous my next move will be. If I don’t time it perfectly, if I don’t grab her just in time, I’ll end up badly injured or dead.
She wants answers from me, but I don’t think she’ll hesitate to kill me and miss out on them if she thinks I’ll kill her instead.
I wait until we’re just outside the doors of the bathroom. And then I duck down in the same instant that I grab for her wrist holding the knife, intending to dodge the shot that I know will go off in the same moment that I keep her from driving the blade into my side.
In the moment that I move, I stop thinking. I let my body take over, moving with the quick, effortless grace of long years of training, of situations just like this, letting my survival instinct carry me through as my hand closes around her wrist and I twist around.
The shot goes off over my head, making my ears ring, but I don’t slow down. I twist her arm sideways in the same instant that I throw up my other arm to block her as she starts to aim the gun again, knocking it to the side with a sharp blow to her hand that I know makes her fingers go numb for an instant, so that the gun lands on the floor with a softthunk.
If I give her even a moment, she’ll rally. I have no doubt that she’s well-trained too. I can feel it in the way she moves, her lithe body twisting as she tries to get back the upper hand that she’s lost, but she’s too far at a disadvantage already.
I shove her backwards towards the doors to the bathroom, still wrestling with her grip on the knife. She tries to bring a knee up into my bare groin, and I’d never wished so much that I were wearing clothes for a fight.
In fact, I’m not altogether sure that I’ve ever fought naked before. If I have, I definitely don’t fucking remember it.
I manage to arch my hips backwards just in time to miss the blow to my balls, and I kick at her ankles with one swift motion, feeling the knife catch my side and score my flesh as she stumbles and starts to go down.
We’re very close to the tub. I hang onto her writhing body, hands in places I’d intended them to be in a very different way earlier, and manage to get her over the edge, bringing her wrist down hard on the side of the tub as I finally get her to drop the knife.
I grab for it instantly. My gun is with my clothes—that is to say, too far away to be useful to me right now. With it in one hand, I close my other hand around her throat, pushing her under the water as she kicks and tries to scream, scrabbling for my wrist, scratching at me.
Fuck.I don’t want to kill a woman. It’s something I’ve tried very hard to avoid doing. But I also can’t just let her go. She knows something—enough to come after me, and if it’s related to what I have Lidiya doing, it puts her in danger too.
That, I can’t have.
I pull her up out of the water after a few seconds pass, shaking her. “Who sent you?” I growl, glaring down at her. “If you cooperate, maybe we can work something out.”
She laughs, a choked, breathless sound. “Not a chance, Volkov. I’d rather you kill me than my boss.”
“Iwon’tkill you, if you cooperate. Who knows? Maybe my boss will even have a job for you,if you’re as good as I think you might be. But if you keep fighting me—“
“I’m not answering anyth—”
I push her underneath the water again, gritting my teeth. I hate every single fucking thing about this, but I can’t just let her go. If she doesn’t cooperate, I’ll have to kill her.
This night hasn’t gone at all how I’d planned.
I toss the knife aside, grabbing her with both hands as I haul her spluttering out of the water again. “You’re awfully eager to die,” I growl at her. “I just need to know how you got my name. Who sent you, and why you marked me tonight.”
“Oh, is that all?” The sarcasm in her voice is admirably thick for someone so close to the end of her life. “Just get it over with, Volkov. If you let me go, I’ll try to kill you again, but not before I try to get the answers out of you thatIneed. There’s your choice. Figure it out.”
