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He pulls his head back and laughs, his voice echoing around the bathroom like a bad horror movie. When he looks back at me, I can see the insanity in his eyes. The desperation of being backed into a corner with no way out.
“It doesn’t have to end like this for you,” I warn. “We can work something out.”
“You really expect me to believe that?” he asks, shaking his head. “Oh lord, no, Pasha. I know who you really are, youmotherfucker. You abandoned me and took the whole Bratva for yourself. I had to beg for scraps until I could build something of my own, something I could finally be proud of. But you couldn’t stand to see me succeed, so you tried tocrush me.”
“You know that’s not true,” I say, holding my ground. “Dad left the Bratva to me because he didn’t trust you, and I was nice enough to spare your life. I could’ve ended it all there.”
“Then end it!”
I shake my head. “Anatoly, brother… I don’t want to kill you.”
He chuckles. “Yes, because you would kill your little plaything, too. Is she really that important to you?”
I know better than to answer that question. If he knew that she was pregnant with my baby, he would kill her immediately. I wouldn’t even get the chance to negotiate with him.
“I think everyone here just wants to make it out alive, so why don’t you let her go and we can work something out,” I say, trying to bring the conversation back to something less explosive.
“Nobody is fucking making it out of here alive, you dumb motherfucker. This place is rigged with more explosives than you can possibly imagine. Even if you shoot us both right now and jump out the window, you’ll still die,” Anatoly growls.
My stomach drops. If what he’s saying is true, I’ve come to the end of the road. I don’t even have time for regret. All I can do is get Valerie back in my arms before we’re blown into the afterlife.
But this is Anatoly I’m talking to. I’ve known him to be a liar since the day he learned to speak, and looking into his eyes now,I don’t see the truth in them. He’d be much more afraid if he knew how close he was to dying.
It’s all a bluff.
Or, at least, Ihopeit’s a bluff.
I slowly bend over, taking my rifle’s shoulder strap off from over my head. “I’m going to put this down, and you can put yours down.”
“Did you not just hear me?” he asks, pressing his gun into Valerie’s temple even harder. I see tears in her eyes, and it makes me furious.
But he will get what’s coming to him in a moment. Surrender isn’t a word in my vocabulary.
“I heard you, Anatoly, but I don’t want to end everything like this,” I say, keeping my voice soft, almost too quiet for him to hear.
He frowns, leaning forward as he’s drawn in by my words.
I lay my rifle on the floor in front of me, staying bent over so that he can’t see my hand as it drifts behind me. “We’re going to make it out of this together,” I say quietly, my eyes shifting to Valerie.
I wink at her right before I pounce.
Anatoly doesn’t seem to realize or believe that I’m coming at him until I’m practically touching him, and that’s when he turns his pistol to me. I push it out of the way as he pulls the trigger, losing grip on the one I pulled from behind my back at the same time.
Chaos ensues.
I push him and Valerie backward into the sink, knocking it to the floor and sending chunks of porcelain gliding across the smooth floor in every direction. The guns are nowhere to be found as I wrestle with Anatoly.
The fucker is stronger than he looks, but I’ve always had the upper hand.
“You fucking bastard!” he yells as I pin him against the broken sink. I can hear it crunching against his back, digging into his spine.
Valerie scrambles away out of my view. I don’t know if she’s going for the rifle or just getting out of the way, but it doesn’t matter. I have Anatoly where I want him, and I’m not going to hold back.
I slam my fist into his face, feeling his cheekbone break against the unstoppable force of my knuckles. It’s effortless for me, driven by so much adrenaline and rage that I feel like I could smash through a steel door without feeling any pain.
Anatoly flails beneath me, kicking his legs up and trying to push me off before resorting to grabbing my throat with both hands.
I punch him in the face again, feeling his hands loosen from my neck as his head bounces off the ground.
