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“Join the club,” he laughed. “You and about a hundred other people, but that’s why I’m here. I need Ilya’s protection, and he knows I’ll do anything to stay alive. I’ll do anything for him.”
“Even take more photos and video,” Maksim rasped in my ear, his voice unexpected and unwelcome.
“Yeah, I’d do that,” Reg said, looking me up and down. “This one’s been used up, though. I have another daughter, you know. A hot little thing, have you thought about marrying her instead?”
Maksim chuckled and said, “I’m not after Everly. I’m after her fortune and her family connection. Unless you crawled up inside Ivan’s ball sack and spurted into her mother’s cunt long before she met you, then you’re not the father.”
“I wish I was. I would have married her to you years ago,” Reg grumbled.
I kept watching the fight and hating both men. I felt the knife tucked at my hip and fantasized about using it on them, but I knew I’d never make it to both of them before guards knocked me down. I’d have to choose who I killed, and I’d rather not give up my freedom with one of them walking around.
“Shit, things are getting worse,” Reg said, his attention drawn back to the fight. “Is Sergei really going down that fast?”
“This is his tactic,” Ilya crowed, listening in from where he was sitting. “He does this. He’s like the limping elk in the herd. Only when the wolves close in he turns around and kills every one of them!”
Ilya was acting like he was fighting instead of Sergei. It was pathetic as if Sergei’s performance had anything to do with the Kostin clan’s virility.
I let out a short scream as Sergei finally made his move. I’d expected it and had been waiting for it to happen, but it still horrified me.
Sergei was down on his hands and knees while Ryker punched him over and over from behind. He shuddered as if he was about to collapse, but instead, he reached around and twisted Ryker’s arm so hard I thought it was going to crack. He was using the leverage of the duct-taped hands to hurt Ryker, and I could feel it in my soul. It distressed me so much I felt hot tears springing to my eyes.
“That’s it, cry for your lover,” Reg said with delight. “Cry as Sergei destroys him.”
And all at once, Sergei leaped back up to his feet, dragging Ryker with him. And in one flash of his arm, one swift movement, he had his arm across Ryker’s throat, and Ryker’s fist twisted up behind him. Sergei pulled him closer, choking him until Ryker’s eyes bulged, and he was gasping for air, mouthing my name.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t take it.
Reg laughing, Avery snickering, Ilya screaming, and Maksim gloating in anticipation.
All of them combined to form the force that caused my next move.
I drew the knife from my waist, gripped it hard, and in one smooth motion, I leaped up, grasped the edge of the pit, and jumped inside to save my man.
If Ryker was going down, I was going down with him.
CHAPTER11
Ryker’s eyeswere bulging out of his head and filled with terror when he locked them on mine. He was clawing at the arm around his throat, desperate to breathe and desperate to end the pain.
He loosened one hand and reached for me, his savior. His guardian angel.
I believe he saw me as otherworldly like I’d already died and was coming to collect his soul to take it home to heaven with me.
He didn’t believe I was real.
But I was his avenging angel, and I came armed. I know, it was a cheese knife and nothing fantastic, but it was sharp, and it was going to be enough to get Sergei’s attention.
I ran directly at the men. Sergei’s face was twisted in confusion as he tried to make sense of the woman coming toward them, screaming like a crazy person. I was shrieking the rage and desperation that I’d been carrying for the past few days, and maybe for years. Everything that had been done to me, every slight, every time I’d been dismissed or ignored, all the taunts and outright abuse I’d suffered. All of it was contained in that scream and in the attack I was going to carry out.
Sergei had no idea who I was, and that element of surprise is what got him in the end. I jumped onto Ryker, clung to his body like I’d done so many times before in pleasure, and I lifted the knife.
I didn’t need it to be a large blade. I just needed it to be sharp and enough to his something vital.
I jabbed at Sergei’s eye and landed my mark. The knife sunk into the gelatinous inside of the eye up to the hilt. He didn’t bleed. Just a clear, thick jelly oozed out as Sergei began to scream. The louder he got, the more excited I became. I twisted the knife and gouged it in and out until he finally caught me with a massive ham fist and knocked me off of them both. I fell to the dirt floor and started to laugh maniacally.
“Leave my Kings alone, you fucker!” I shrieked and began to cut through the duct tape. I didn’t know what we were going to do about the chain, but I wanted Ryker free as Sergei dealt with the loss of his eye. Ryker stayed still, but Sergei fought against me, so I cut his arm and wrist more than a few times. His skin was slick with blood by the time I was able to tear the duct tape apart and free the men from that bondage.
I could hear Ilya bellowing above us, and I could hear the crowd but as if from a great distance. The acoustics in the pit were claustrophobic and isolating. It had been designed to keep the fighters in a fish bowl.
