AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hours had passedand the cold made her stiff. She moved around to keep herself warm.
The door rattled, her heart suddenly jammed against her ribs, hammering frantically as fear churned through her. Fortifying herself with a deep breath, she shifted and braced herself, ready and waiting to face whoever came through the door.
She gasped softly as Anya walked through. She had expected her father. Was she here with his permission?
“So, we meet formally for the first time,” Anya said, inspecting her while Bree waited for the cold bitch to make her move. They were alone in here, and Bree was unbound, without a weapon, and Anya carried that sheathed knife.
“Where are the others? What have you done with them?” Bree wasn’t in the mood to trade niceties with the woman responsible for murdering her ambassador and his family.
“Aleksei is contemplating his answers with the help of a little drug.”
Oh, God. It reeked so much of old-world spy stuff, Bree felt surreal.Vee has vays of making you talk, filtered through her head and if she wasn’t so heavily in deep trouble, she could almost laugh. But that wasn’t an idle threat. They were going to make him talk. Not sure of what he had said, she tightened her lips. If the bitch came here for information, she was going to be severely disappointed. They were going to kill her anyway. All of them. There was no mercy from these people.
Her heavily accented English was textbook and monotone. Bree hoped her Russian was better than that.
“And your lover is at the bottom of the ocean, floating the currents, his dead, fixed eyes open and staring at nothing. I lost my brother, and you lost your man.”
Bree reeled. She couldn’t help herself. She lunged forward and punched Anya, knocking her head to the side, then sent a fist into her nose. She went backward, stumbling and landing flat on her ass on the hard metal. The shock on Anya’s face was comical and all Bree’s bag work in the gym and her workouts weren’t for nothing. Her muscles packed a whoop-ass can of beat down.
Anya screamed, her voice echoing off the walls. Then Anya rushed her, throwing her body at Bree. They tumbled to the floor. Anya straddled her chest, leaning over to grip Bree’s hair and yank her head back. She put the blade to Bree’s throat.
“Anya!” her father’s voice boomed out and she froze. Footsteps reverberated and she turned her head slightly to see his boots come to a stop above them. His hand materialized. “You can give such an enemy a fair fight, my daughter.”
Anya’s face contorted into fury, but she heeded her father and slapped the handle of the knife into his palm.
Bree wasn’t being passive through this, but pinned by the woman’s knees, she was trapped. Then she felt her ankle, her foot, and Bree grabbed onto both, throwing her legs up and propelling herself forward. The motion sent Anya backward and Bree clamped her legs around Anya’s middle.
She squeezed, put in all her strength from countless squats. Bree never missed leg day. She pressed harder and heard Anya’s breath labor. Harder still and Bree felt rib bones give under the pressure. One cracked then another and Anya screamed, pushed at her legs.
More men entered the room, but Bree never let her go. Anya gasped for air, and Bree pressed until she had none left in her lungs and the woman faded into unconsciousness. Bree released her, kicking her away and jumping to her feet. She wasn’t done. Anya regained consciousness in moments, and with both hands, Bree grabbed the woman by the shirt and dragged her to her feet. She could barely stand upright.
“Go to hell, Anya,” she said. With those words, she landed two sharp, quick jabs to her face. Cartilage folded and blood poured.
Anya’s eyes rolled, legs softening, and Bree released her. She fell, her head bouncing on the metal floor.
“It seems you are a match for both my daughter and my son,” Leonid said as he pushed off the back wall. Three men were standing next to him, their fists clenching and unclenching. They’d had to watch as she kicked Anya’s ass.
“Too damn bad.”
He gestured with his head and one of the men approached, but his focus was on Anya. “Get her to sick bay.” He stared at her for a moment and for the first time she realized there was a coil of nylon rope in his hands.
She backed up a step and he said, “Hold her down.”
The two men came at her, and Bree drew on her courage, her training, and her desire to survive. She ducked one and punched the other. He reeled away and she whirled and kicked the other guy in the stomach and when he bent over, she kneed him in the face. He fell to the deck and didn’t move.
“Get more men.”
Moments later, with five more opponents, she was immobilized. One grabbed her by the hair and the shoulder, digging his thumb into her collarbone and forcing her down to the frigid deck on her stomach.
He didn’t let up. “Cowards,” she muttered. The man dug his thumb in harder and she gasped, curling away from the pain.
All her limbs were tightly held in the four men’s grasps and the fifth mashed her cheek and head against the floor with a sadistic grin. Only then Leonid did walk to her, his eyes gleaming. He crouched down. “You killed my son. For that I want you to suffer for a long time before you die.”
He unfurled the cord, and she could see that it was nylon. “Her arms.” They were jerked behind her back and Leonid looped the cord around and started tying knots. They tightened painfully. He then looped in her ankles, and finally her throat.
Over time, your muscles will give out and you’ll lose your position, if you don’t suffocate first. Then you’ll slowly die.
Any movement and she’d choke herself to death. Where did they learn this shit? The cold made her bones ache, and she could barely breathe.
