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Sawyer shrugged. “Just interested in getting to know you better.”
“Why?” I asked. The last time someone had said something similar to me, John Rome had let me know that he knew my true name.
I looked over at Sawyer, and the look on his face made me stop. For a moment I looked around and realized that we were on a side street. It was still busy, but there weren’t enough people to keep me from being uneasy.
I sighed. I wanted to get away from Sawyer and go about my day. “What is it that you want?” I snapped. “If you are trying to get information on Ezra, you’ve come to the wrong person.”
Sawyer laughed. “I think I’ve come to the right person. After all, he would be out of money if it weren’t for you.”
I cursed under my breath. I didn’t know how Sawyer knew that I was the reason that Ezra was now getting money from the state kingmaker. “I don’t know why that matters to you,” I said. “Your uncle is doing very well.”
Sawyer winced slightly. “As much as it pains me to admit this, we both know that my uncle is only doing well because Ezra’s been non-competitive.”
“Well,” I said, cockily. “That’s all about to change.”
There was a sympathetic look on Sawyer’s face that gave me a moment of pause. “That’s what we are worried about.”
My brow furrowed at the admission, and then, I stiffened as I felt someone behind me. I went to turn but stopped when I felt the cold butt of a gun against my back. “What are you doing?” I asked, my panic rising. We were in the middle of a busy enough city street, and someone was pressing a gun to my back.
“Unfortunately, we need an insurance policy,” Sawyer said. His eyes were sympathetic as he looked at me, and I wanted to scratch his eyes out. He’d targeted me. He’d followed me and targeted me.
And I’d let him. Clearly, I hadn’t learned anything from growing up in the mafia. “You have no idea what you are doing.” I spit out. For a moment I wondered if I should tell Sawyer that he wasn’t just taking Ezra’s girlfriend, he was kidnapping the daughter of the Pakhan.
But the feeling of the gun reminded me that I needed to just comply, for now, at least. “Just cooperate and everything will be fine.”
I bared my teeth as Sawyer took my arm and led me to a car. “You’re going to regret this,” I promised.
Sawyer wasn’t worried, but I was sure that by the end of this he would.
* * *
“Sawyer told me that you were beautiful, but I think he undersold just how much,” Patrick O’Connor said, as he sauntered into the room I’d been thrown into.
The moment that I allowed myself to be led to the van, the treatment had immediately become rough. They’d slapped a piece of tape over my mouth and tied my hands together with rough rope that had chaffed my skin. Immediately, my anger had turned to fear.
Patty reached out and ripped the duct tape off of my mouth. I gasped as my lips were freed and winced in pain as the skin was irritated. “Apologies for all of this,” he said, congenially. “We couldn’t have you drawing any attention to yourself. The whole city is watching of course.”
“What is it that you want?” I asked. I was trying to be cool. I kept telling myself that if I just kept my wits about me, I’d be fine. I’d survived the Petrovs, and I was sure that I survived the O’Connors. This wasn’t a mob hit. It was political. And politicians didn’t just murder women – right?
“I thought Sawyer explained it to you?”
I didn’t know if he was serious or not. Patty O’Connor was the current head of the O’Connor family. He appeared to be a caricature of a gangster. He was so bulbous that he nearly busted out of his expensive pinstripe suit, and a thick cigar hung out of the side of his mouth.
“Ezra isn’t going to cancel his campaign because you took me. It’s just going to reaffirm his need to beat you.” I wasn’t actually sure if that was the case. Ezra seemed to feel that his campaign was dead in the water. Hell, he hadn’t even mentioned the donations that Rome had clearly given him.
A slow smile unfurled on Patty’s face. The way that he was looking at me reminded me of Katarina Petrov, and I felt a shiver go down my spine. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pocketknife. A bead of sweat slid down my back as my heart started beating twice as fast.
He came closer to me, flicking the knife open with a flourish that stiffened all of my limbs. “I think he might change his mind once I send him a small gift.” Before I could move, Patty reached out and swiped the knife through my earlobe.
A white, hot pain shot through me, and I screamed—in both pain and shock.
Patty held up a sliver of my earlobe, and I nearly fainted at the sight of my bloody skin. “Ezra is a good boy. He’ll see reason,” he said.
I sobbed in shocked pain as I watched Patty’s meaty fingers close around my severed earlobe. “And if not, I’ll remind him that I’ll happily send you back to him piece…” he paused for dramatic effect. “...by piece.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
I felt a weird sense of dread come over me as I sat alone in my house waiting for Maximoff Ivanov to enter my home. Never in a million years did I think that I would be reaching out to a man who represented everything that I despised.
