AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hear footsteps again. By now, I’ve decided it’s best to lay low. Whoever this guy is, and maybe it’s Konstantin himself, he can’t exactly search the entire house, can he? Not before someone comes in, not before Aleks returns. Then again, a closet isn’t the most original hiding place in the world, is it?
I grimace. Now, I’m second guessing myself. And I swear, my fear must be like a beacon. Because those footsteps are getting nearer and nearer, and I hold my breath, fighting the reflexiveurge to scoot back deeper into the old coats and linens hung up in here. I know they won’t offer much cover, but somehow it seems preferable to be sat back among the coats than looking my would-be killer in the face the minute he potentially throws open this door.
Don’t move don’t move,I tell myself, sliding my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing.Don’t panic, he’s not going to stop. He’s not going to look in here, did you even hear him open a single door upstairs? No. He’s not—
The footsteps draw closer, and stop. My heart does the same. I wait, wait, wait. Hear the shuffle of clothing, the slow catch of breathing, the soft weight of a hand lowering onto the knob…
This is it. What are you prepared to do, Kat? To save your own life? To save your son? What are you prepared to become?
I move with pure silence. I level my pistol with the door. I glide my fingertip over the trigger.
Just then, a door opens nearby. My ears prick, a surge of adrenaline coursing through me so hard it nearly knocks me to my knees.Aleks? Yuri?But the voice that comes is not familiar, and speaks in Russian. The voice that talks back, from just in front of the door—is Konstantin’s.
Oh, my God.I was right. My worst fear is confirmed.He is in my house. This is how close he’s gotten to me.Intertwined deeply with the terror is a sudden pulse of black anger. I feel more violated now than I did when I was captured out on my land, more violated now than I did when they were beating me, when I was on my knees, bleeding, being told to beg for my life.
The darkest voice in my heart speaks:What if I end this, myself—right now?
I have never been the courageous person I’ve wanted to be. Now is my chance to end this before it goes any further. Now is my chance to make things right, even if I’m not the one who, in the first place, made them wrong.
I can hear how close Konstantin is, probably a foot away from the closet door. And through the upturned slats, I can make out his silhouette. He’s speaking in low Russian to whoever else has entered the house—one of his men, or one of mine. After a moment, the door opens again, and closes, and I met with the clear sense that now, we are alone.
Konstantin turns back toward the closet. I grip the silencer on the end of my pistol, the one that Aleks put there, maybe for an occasion just like this one.
Konstantin’s hand is on the knob. I think I might be seeing double. I might not be seeing at all; I can’t hear, either, the funnel of adrenaline blocking out all sound, even my breath, even my heartbeat.
He opens the closet door. Our eyes lock.
I pull the trigger.
The noise of the world comes crashing back into place. Konstantin howls, throwing back his head, one hand flying up to his right shoulder—huh, funny, right where one of his men managed to get Aleks—and then he reaches for his sidearm.
I’m quicker. I leap, throwing my arms around Konstantin’s waist and taking him to the floor. I hear the impact of it blow through him, a hard expulsion of breath:whoomp!And then his gun flies free from his grip, clattering across the floorboards. I didn’t shoot to kill, and maybe I should have. But now that I’m on top of him, now that the fear has been channeled into pure adrenaline and action—I’m ready. I swing my Glock around to his ribs.
But I should have expected Konstantin to be as strong as he is. He flips me onto my back using just his knees and thighs, locked like a vice onto my sides. I gasp as my back slams onto the hard floor, and he goes for my gun. We wrestle, straining;will he shoot me if he gets his hands on it? Does he want me dead?Orwould that be too soon, a waste, somehow, of his precious little play toy?
He grunts, and I can see from the ungodly white of his face that he’s in pain. The shot is taking its toll. Still, he’s physically stronger than I am, and bigger and heavier, and my straining does little but deter him. A hard jerk of his good arm, and I lose my grip on my Glock—but so does he, and it springs away from us, striking the floor and clattering away, spinning to a stop somewhere beneath the coffee table.
“Little cunt,” snarls Konstantin. When I surge forward, kicking my legs to get out from underneath him, he catches my neck with one hand and then the other. One is bloody, sticky, stinking of the stuff. I gag, even as he begins to squeeze my neck. “I admit, I didn’t think I bargained for quite so much fight out of you. A meeker girl might have been easier. Although,” he adds, with a wicked grin, which stands out, starkly white in the dark. He leans close, his breath against my ear, “That might have been a bit less fun, hm?”
I wriggle, shift onto one hip, and manage to work my knee between his legs. It’s not an especially hard blow, but it does make him hiss in a grip. He has to reposition, and his hands on my neck loosen, if just a little, just enough for me to duck my chin and tilt my head, and get the meaty curve of his hand, just beneath his thumb, between my teeth.
I sink them in, working both of my jaws, and feel his skin split like rubber. He roars, but I don’t let go, the weight of him still on my body, the grip of his hands still around my neck. Instead, I bite harder. Tendon slips and wriggles beneath my teeth, and I push my front ones in, the sharpest and thinnest, until I can’t hear his screaming, until his hand is suddenly in my hair and the weight of his body is off of me. It’s in that last instant before he rips his hand free, that I feel my teeth touch bone.
A sick surf of pleasure crests inside of me as Konstantin stands and staggers back, his breath ragged, he’s half-moaning in pain and maybe bewilderment—and that’s when headlights cut across the room through the front window, faint through the blinds, and both of us hear the telltale sound of gravel crunching beneath heavy tires, and the sounds of car doors opening and closing, and then the shouting of the men as the alarm is sounded.
I look sharply to Konstantin, flipping onto my hands and knees, bent and spry, ready to spring. Our gazes are locked, and I can see he’s calculating—doing the math. Should he kill me now? He doesn’t have his gun on him, or time to grab it. Should he try to drag me with him? He’s bleeding, heavily, his arm cradled to his chest and a dark pool spilling wider at his feet with every moment. And, with the fight I just put up—do I seem likely, to him, to let him just take me away?
“Enjoy the evening,” he says bitterly, backing away. “Give your boyfriend my regards.”
“If he doesn’t kill you,” I say, as Konstantin reaches the back door, stopping with his back to me, shoulders stiff. A trail of blood has followed him across the floor, every drop like an accusation, an arrow pointing straight at him. “If for some reason, somehow, Aleks doesn’t kill you, Konstantin—I will.”
And he must believe me, because when he opens the door and vanishes into the night, he doesn’t so much as look back.
I hear a door open, shouting, the swinging and clatter of guns and boots stampeding into the house. Lights cut across the living room and hall where I am, illuminating fragments of the scene Konstantin left behind. There are hands on me, all over me, and shouting Russian voices. I’m told to look into eyes, to count the fingers on this hand, and to tell them: who was there? Are you hurt? Which way did he go?
It’s almost immediate that Aleks finds me. He’s dismissing his men, me having numbly given my answers, rattling each off like a soldier or tired prisoner—and I’m not sure which of those is more accurate, but right now, both feel like they fit—and quickly, they’re disbanding, scattering throughout the house and the grounds. And Aleks is pulling me into his arms.
“I can walk,” I tell him, even though I’m grateful beyond words for him right now, his heat, his presence, his familiar smell, and his arms around me. “Really, I’m steady. I can walk.”
