AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The other doors slam as Petyr gets in behind the wheel and we pull away with screeching tires. I try to keep track of the turns. Right, left, left, right. But we drive for a long time. Long enough that I start cramping in the middle of the journey and lose all the feeling in my legs.
By the time the car comes to a stop, I’m numb from the neck down. I don’t think I could move if I wanted to, but no one asks me to, anyway. The Tiger just grabs hold of my legs and hauls me out of the car feet-first. Then he hoists me back into his arms.
We emerge into a small, dark space. A garage, I think. But by the time I’m able to compute what I’m seeing, a door opens and dingy light blinds me from within.
The air in here is musty and damp. Paint is peeling from the walls. Mouse droppings litter the counters and black mold dots the drop ceiling.
The Tiger carries me from empty room to empty room, revealing a sprawling, crumbling mansion. Broken banisters, cracked paneling, fungi in every corner. In the hallway, I notice bullet holes in the wall and rusty red stains splattered across the wallpaper like an abstract painting.
I bite back a whimper and look away.
Finally, he carries me into what must have once been a formal living room. The fireplace is overgrown with vines and a doorless doorway yawns open like a dark mouth. The yard beyond the windows is densely weeded, with looming hedges blotting out the night sky.
In the middle of the space is a rickety wooden chair.
The Tiger stands me next to it. I tremble on shaky legs, but I force myself to stay upright as Petyr walks into the room after us.
“Take off her bindings,” he orders. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are gaunt. He looks like a man who’s been drained of life.
The Tiger slices off my zip ties, then rips the tape from my lips. I barely register the pain of either thing.
I glance up at the beefy man with scars on his face. “I know who you are. What you’re doing here is wrong. You have a code you stick to. A code you’resupposedto stick to.”
A vein in his forehead is bulging. He says nothing.
“Misha paid you for help,” I continue. “You’re breaking your word. You have no honor.”
“That’s enough out of you,” Petyr snaps. “I made the man a better offer. It’s as simple as that.”
I keep my eyes locked on The Tiger. “So you’re just a common mercenary, then? A man without principles or ethics. Someone who can be bought. A whore.”
I’m so focused on The Tiger that I don’t even see Petyr coming. His hand cracks across my face, and I cry out at the unexpected pain.
I’m not at all surprised that Petyr is capable of hitting a woman.
Iamsurprised by The Tiger’s reaction to it.
The assassin steps in front of me, putting himself between me and Petyr, and utters his first words of the evening. “You will not do that again.”
Petyr looks just as floored as I feel. “Excuse me?”
He points at my stomach. “She is a woman. A pregnant woman. You will not do that again.”
I think hauling me out of my home unwillingly, taping my mouth and hands, and shoving me into a car is already crossing the line insofar as violence goes. But as long as he’s willing to stop Petyr from hurting me and my children, I’ll stay quiet.
Petyr laughs cruelly as The Tiger glowers. “You’ve already broken one cardinal rule. What’s one more? Your job is done here. Just stand back and let me do mine.”
“You paid me for the death of Misha Orlov,” The Tiger hisses. “Not for the death of his pregnant wife.”
Petyr’s eyes narrow. “I’ve already told you what you stand to gain—freedom from the oath you swore and more money than you can spend in a lifetime. But for that to happen, I need this bitch as collateral.”
“The man is dead,” The Tiger intones. “You no longer need collateral.”
The man is dead?He seems so sure, but I spoke to Misha only seconds before the two of them grabbed me. They couldn’t have killed him in that time frame.
Could they?
Could they?
