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Why would she want to hurt Arabella? With everything that’s happened with Freddie, I get why she might hate me, but Bella?
“Chop chop!” Lucy pushes the muzzle between my shoulder blades.
Using it as a way of guiding me up another set of stripped wooden stairs, she takes me into the bathroom. The entire place looks like it’s been ripped apart for renovation. The damp smell becomes more prominent as we get deeper into the room. The window ahead of us is boarded up, making it dim. There’s a large shower tray with a full-width showerhead hanging from the ceiling. A small toilet sits opposite with a sink beside it that’s set to collapse if the stick propping it up gives.
“Now strip,” she barks at me, pushing my shoulder to spin me to face her.
“What?”
“Clothes. Off.”
“Why?”
“You’re not in a position to ask the questions here,” she tells me as footsteps sound from behind her. When I don’t do as she’s asked, she fires a shot right next to my feet. My legs are so shaky that I don’t even jump at the startling sound. “I’m trying to be nice, George, but if you don’t work with me…well.” Lucy shakes her head, eyes widening in warning. “Well, I’ll aim at those twinkle-toes, and I’ll work my way up until you have more holes than a fucking sieve.”
An older man approaches, tall and broad, stopping in the open doorway. In the dim light, it’s hard to make out his features, but his hair is dark and the suit he’s wearing is obviously tailored to his bulk.
“Petrushka,” he murmurs in a sing-song tone as he comes to a stop beside her, his hand stroking the top of her head as if she’s his beloved pet.
A slurry of soft curse-like whispers trail from his lips as he continues petting her and watching me with a muted sneer. I can’t tell whether he wants her to hurt me or kill me. My gut is telling me both as he comes closer. And she looks on at us while I try to clear the residue of my haze with deep breaths.
“Dimitry,” she warns as he stands behind me and trails his hand from my nape to the curve of my back.
Her tone and his actions are at complete odds. He treats her like a pet, but she talks to him like an equal.
“Shhh, kukla…” he murmurs, holding my chin while he continues lower, hand squeezing my arse as he inhales deeply at my hair, telling me, “You smell like new doll.”
I’m going through everything Casper has ever taught me to defend myself. There’s a desperate need to strike as he continues groping me, but I remind myself of the most important factor in all this—I’m only going to get one chance. One fucking shot at fighting back, and right now, I’m outweighed and outnumbered. Even if I strike him, she’ll get me, and if I make a play for her, it’s obvious that he’ll finish what she started.
“Your sister killed my son,” he states. There’s no emotion in his voice, but pain flickers across Lucy’s face. The kind of pain stemming from heartbreak—I know all about that. I can see it a mile off, and on her, I can smell it. That sickly sweet, rotting scent that Christopher warned me about.
It’s only then that Lucy’s words make sense. Blood for blood. A life for a life.
“Now we have to balance things. Make it even. They kill my son and take my whore, now I kill your sister and make you new shlyukha. Eto chestno, nyet?”
With a dark chuckle, he steps behind me before the pipes above me sputter to life with a high-pitched whinge. Before I can make heads or tails, I’m being doused in ice-cold water, so cold that it clogs my throat with my own scream, suffocating me as I try to move. I watch as he walks back to Lucy.
The water runs colder and colder. Every time I think that I’m getting used to it, that my body begins to adjust, it cools that fraction more so that it continues slicing through me like hot knives. Suddenly the spray cuts off, and the air feels so hot that it burns over me as shivers rack through my body.
“Get the other bitch before I make you pay her price,” he spits at her, making a point of nudging past her.
It happens so fast that my heart lurches into my throat. The sound of the gunshot reverberating around us as his body comes down like a skyscraper falling from the sky, shaking our surroundings.
“It’s the last time you threaten me, old man.” The remark is as blasé as his statement earlier was impassive while she stands over him and shoots again.
The guy from the party runs inside the room, taking stock of the situation before he starts yelling at her, hands going as crazy as he sounds, and while they’re arguing, I tug the tie around my dress loose, winding it around my fingers as I take a step to the side.
The instant I move, she looks up at me, and as though it’s all his fault, she aims right at his head.
“Get back.”
It’s all the warning he needs to back away, hands in the air while he shuffles out of the room, not taking his eyes away from her. Sunlight hits the side of his face, and there isn’t a single warning. It’s a blur as his head pulls his entire body in the opposite direction. With a dragged stumble, he collapses to the side of the doorway, a small dribble of blood running from the neat hole to his temple. A shard of relief shatters inside me.
Casper. And if he’s here, then so is Freddie. He’s come for me.
“Fuck!” she yells, anger sharpening her curse as her eyes narrow on me.
My heart hammers violently as Lucy takes a run at me. I can barely move with my dress tangling heavily around my legs, but before she can get to me, I slide to the side. There’s enough momentum in her that she slips on the wet patches of water from my cold shower, smacking into the boarded window.
