by Rie Warren
They did not comprehend how absolutely evil Oleg Kamenev was.
Hope receding like a candle going out in a draft, I hit refresh one . . . more . . . fucking . . . time. I just needed one real tip to clue me into where she might be.
The club’s outer door flew open with an unchecked bang, and that noise sure as shit pulled me up to my feet. Within a split second, my gun was in my hand and my fucking trigger finger was so itchy that I nearly shot the intruder straight through the head.
Then I saw it was Lucky Fucking O’Sullivan.
Facing me, he backpedaled to the wall with his hands in the air. “Jesus, Mary, and motherfucking Joseph.”
Kirill stomped over to me. “Let’s not kill my wife’s brother today, da?”
He forcibly pushed my rigid gun-arm down like I was a robot he needed to decode. Or a bomb to be defused.
The latter most likely.
Lucky was not a man I needed to be seeing. Maybe Sasha had just been trying to make me jealous all those times she’d flirted with him, but right now I was not feeling any let bygones be bygones vibes.
“What do you need?” Kirill approached him after defusing me.
“Is it okay if I talk to the guy who almost just blasted my head sky high?”
“Your funeral.” Kirill shrugged then stepped aside.
“Yeah. No shit. I kinda got that already.”
Standing where I was, I kept the pistol in my palm. And my finger on the trigger.
Swaggering to me, Lucky ducked his head as he ran a hand through his hair.
He peered up at me through the shadow of lowered brows. “I don’t wanna get your hopes up, but I think I’ve got something, man.”
I reached out and reeled him up to my face with a hand clenched around his shirt. “Where? When?”
Tearing away from my hold, the Irishman flicked his head at my Sig Sauer. “Wanna drop that so we can talk?”
“Stop wasting my time or I will cap you in the face.” My booming voice brought my brothers and soldiers running to intercede.
Again, Lucky warded them off.
I heard Kirill muttering, “Told him it was his funeral.”
Lucky folded his arms across his chest and met me eye for eye. “A shopkeeper that’s on our protection detail got some footage on his security camera.”
“When?” I barked.
“It’s from three nights ago, Maksim.”
The sudden rush of hope hit me, and I almost keeled over.
Swallowing the surge of feeling, I asked in a hoarse voice, “Have you seen it?”
Because if this was another fake sighting, I was going to lose it all over the place.
“Yeah.” Lucky reached into his pocket. “I’m just getting my phone, man. Not going for a gun and, PS, I’d really like to keep my head where it is on my shoulders.”
Jaw grinding, I waited.
I still felt goddamn dizzy. Blyad. Sticking to the vodka-no-sleep diet since Sasha had been taken might’ve been a mistake.
A moment later, Lucky queued up something on his phone and passed the thing to me.
The video was short and grainy, but the shape of Sasha’s body was wholly recognizable.
I blinked rapidly, continuing to watch while Oleg hauled her out of a sedan, which she must’ve been moved into after the whole van-immolation thing went down.
I couldn’t see her face because she was hooded like a prisoner headed to the gallows.
Gulping harsh breaths, I saw my Sashenka being yanked onto a sidewalk where she stumbled. Then she was disappeared into the ugly façade of a building that probably should’ve been demolished decades ago.
“Is there more?” I asked, rewinding the video to the start and playing it again.
“That’s it. The shopkeeper . . . he’s across the road. He said he’s seen one other man come and go.”
“Address.” I shoved the phone back to him and stalked away.
He followed as I figured he would.
I began gearing up with all the weapons I’d started keeping behind the bar because I hadn’t been upstairs in a couple days.
I couldn’t even sit in the apartment while Sasha was out there alone, in danger, or dead.
I knew better than to get my hopes up now.
Off to the side, I noticed Arkady and Kirill following my lead. They might not have heard what Lucky told me, but my intentions were eminently clear.
I was going hunting for blood.
Lucky rattled off the location, even stuck a pin on it and texted it to me.
My cellphone by the laptop buzzed with his incoming.
“It looks like I owe you a million dollars.” Mentioning the reward I’d promised, I looked at the black-haired man.
He drew his hands up again. “Fuck no. Didn’t do this for the cash. You think I don’t want Sasha safe too?”
His concern for Sasha hit a bad note inside of me.
My jaw tensed so hard it felt like concrete, and I bit out, “Then I will need the name of your shopkeeper for the reward.”
“Yeah. Good deal.” Lucky looked around, noticing too how everyone on the premises was arming for what looked like WWIII. “I’m coming with.”
I pointed my finger into his chest. “Nyet.”
No way. There was too much past between him and Sasha, and I did not have a handle on myself right now.
After slaking his hands through his hair, he dropped his voice. “Look, dude. I’m not out to cuck you—”
“Cuck me?”
“Jesus, you Russkies—”
That insult of his cut through any attempt at civility, which I wasn’t all that good at to begin with.
A mighty growl clawed from my throat, and I slammed my fist into his face.
Lucky went spinning, his heavy boots going thunk-thunk-thunk, arms and legs flapping around.
His pinwheeling only stopped when he hit a wall.
He straightened his body limb by limb. “Jeeeeesus. You don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“Nyet.”
He shook his head a few times like he was trying to get his brain back in place. “Guess I deserved that. But save the rest for the commie cunt.”
On that we were agreed.
I checked my ammo, my brothers and the Bratva soldiers doing the same, and Lucky kept talking like one head-rattling punch wasn’t enough.
“I mean I knew nothin’ was ever gonna go down between me and Sasha. For fuck’s sake, anyone with two eyes could see you and she were one rousing fight from fucking each other’s brains out.”
One more snarl pumped from my chest.
I was just about to lay another brutal blow on him when he shrugged.
“She’s always been yours. Shit, even my dumbass kid brother Dex knew not to tangle with that because of what you two had going on. We were all just waiting for you to make a move.”
I stared at him for a few tense moments before grudgingly saying, “You can come. But Sasha is mine to save and Oleg is mine to kill.”
“Yeah. I got that memo.”
Moments later, we were all on the move.
The convoy rolled out fast as night began shrouding Boston’s inner city. Our SUV in the lead included me and my brothers . . . and Lucky.
We followed his directions.
“Is Yury meeting us there?” The Irish asked from the backseat.
“No. He’s a loose cannon when it comes to Sasha,” I answered from the front, Arkady at the wheel.
“Like you’re not,” Lucky mumbled.
I very nearly plugged him with a bullet from my gun, but I glared back instead. I bet demon-lights pulsed from my irises because, again, the O’Sullivan boss zipped it shut and sat back beside Kirill.
I would keep a lid on the festering rage only so I could let loose all over Oleg once we got to the destination.
At which we soon arrived.
The line of dark, blacked-out vehicles halted half a block away to avoid alerting Oleg or any of his remaining army.
I scoped out the street and scanned for any potential innocent parties, but the area seemed mostly deserted. It was a wonder Lucky’s shopkeeper stayed in business in a rundown spot like this. Fortunately for him, he was going to get a great big payday care of me.
Everyone halted behind me as I stopped right in front of our informant’s shop.
Using well known gestures, I signaled the soldiers to station themselves back along the road at certain intervals and up ahead just in case Oleg made an escape.
With my brothers and Lucky hunched beside me, I looked up at that building across the street. Then I scowled. This was not a compound or estate or mansion. Like the rest of the street, the structure looked one step away from crumbling to the ground. A shithole not fit for my female.
The bottom floor had no signs of security at all, just an abandoned five-and-dime storefront. Above? The windows facing the street on the second floor of the squat structure were blacked out.
That was where she was then.
I would not go in blind. To do so would be to risk her life.
If she was still alive.
With the other three following, I slinked down an alley perpendicular to the building and around the back.
Silence threaded through the night as we crossed to the back path that lay parallel to the structure. We stopped beyond a rotting fence, and I heard the shush, shush, shush of many boots drifting over bare soil.
The windows at the backside of the second story were uncovered and blazed with light.
Bingo.
With my voice dropped to an almost inaudible level, I hissed, “You may come with me. You do not make a move or say a single word.”
I gave the orders to men who had much higher ranks than me and I did not give a shit.
On the opposite side of the alleyway, I led the way up a rusty fire escape. My boots made no sound, and I kept my feet on the far edges just in case the deteriorated metal gave way altogether.
I hit the flat-topped roof of the building, bellying up to the edge.
The rest came up one by one without a single squeak of noise. They fell in line, one on one side of me, two on the other.
No time to set up the bipod, I balanced my rifle on the roof’s ledge and pointed down.
The windless starry June night played right into my hands as I squinted through my scope and twirled the dials for the best range.
Those beside me could also see the soldiers patrolling the fenced-in dirt yard belonging to the building across the way, but no one shot blindly.
This had to be done with lethal efficiency and zero noise.
“There’s only six of ’em,” Lucky mentioned in a sound-hollow voice. “Where are the rest?”
“I fucking killed them already, at Yury’s,” I muttered just as soundlessly.
“Respect,” he whispered.
Taking a deep breath, I began firing and refocusing on the exhale. I picked the remainder of Oleg’s forces off one by one.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
See you never.
Staying vigilant, I scanned around the perimeter several more times to see if I’d set off any alarms or alerted anyone else to the fact I’d just plowed down half a dozen men in the bad side of Boston.
Nothing.
Jaw tight, I raised the rifle to those second-floor windows.
There was also nothing in the first room I swept around that looked like a multicolor nightmare of a kitchen and living area.
One scan through the second window, and my throat caught fire. My finger moved way the fuck off the trigger.
Reaching down, I swiped a sweaty palm on my thigh.
Sasha was there.
Sasha was right there!
She was not alone.
Placing my finger back on the trigger even though I’d never moved my eye from the lens, I zoomed in.
Oleg and that man—his underboss Feliks—wore identical disturbing expressions such that they looked like mirror images of ghoulish faces, the kind that could haunt and stalk through even the most horrific nightmares.
I sucked in another breath, much less steady.
And there was Sasha. Bloody. Bruised. Beaten.
“What do you see?” Arkady leaned into me without disturbing the cradle of my gun.
I saw the worst thing I could have imagined beyond death claiming Sasha.
Oleg held her against his chest as he sat on the floor, her between his legs.
She was naked below.
My woman had been denuded from the waist down, that most private part of her exposed to Feliks and Oleg.
My teeth clacked together.
I could not answer Arkady.
I would only answer the call of my gun at that point.
Zooming outward, I had a pinpoint view of something I never wanted to witness again. That crazy pizda Oleg gripped a big glass bottle in his hand. He dipped the neck between the juncture of my Sashenka’s thighs. He planned to raping her with the liquor bottle.
Muscles straining to burst into action, I blinked to clear my vision. But there was nothing to clear away the horror. It could not be washed away with a blink-blink.
Feliks the Fuck sneered as he gripped her calves to hold her legs wide.
When Sasha’s head notched to the side like she couldn’t bear to see what was going to happen next, I saw her face.
I saw in her beautiful face that which no man should ever see.
True terror.
That dread shot to me. Stabbed my heart.
Then deadly calm replaced the calamity of emotion.
I could only shoot Oleg in one precise place without endangering Sasha because he bent his head down beside hers, no doubt whispering something truly awful in her ear.
“Maksim?” Kirill asked in a voice I hardly heard.
I was all aim.
All fire.
All hellfire.
Trigger pulled.
Time stopped.
Window pierced.
Hole pumped straight through Oleg’s forearm, clean as a circle burrowed through flesh.
He flopped back off Sasha with a scream I wished I could hear.
I would. Soon.
I was up on my feet, flying down the fire escape before I even heard one of my brothers say, “Holy fuck.”
And Lucky ask, “What did he just do?”
24
Sasha
NO, NO, NO, NO, no.
This could not be happening to me.
A whimper filtered shakily from my throat, the noise one of such defeat I would’ve swallowed it back down if I could have.
Feliks had an unbreakable hold on my ankles even as I tried to claw myself away with my nails scrabbling into the dense sticky carpet.
He simply jerked me back into place, a viciously cruel smile creeping across his lips.
Oleg watched my futile struggles with nauseating attention.
They weren’t interested in what my body could do for them but rather how much harm they could inflict on my body.
Sick bastards.
Feliks dragged me all the way across that small square room to where Oleg stood, bottle in hand. The nasty-ass underboss left my shirt alone—again, breasts were of no concern to them unless of course Oleg was thinking about cutting those off too. Instead, Feliks reached up to my waist, cold hands like lizard’s skin.
I kicked at him with my bad leg then hollered as a volcano of pain erupted from the unhealed stab wound. Clammy sweat broke across my face, my breath wheezing in and out.
“She has will to live yet,” Oleg observed.
“Da. This will be fun.”
As they talked about me like I was an inanimate object, or worse, a piece of property, Feliks sat right down across my thighs.
Agony from the gash on my leg wailed through me. I writhed uselessly w
hen he trapped my wrists against the floor beneath his hard knees.
His fingers returned to the top of my cut-off shorts.
Tears almost leaked from my eyes, but I crushed my lids together to stem the tide. Once opened, those tears would flow with abandon.
I told myself getting violated by the bottle was better than the barrel of a gun. The gun could go off. Oh god. But the bottle could shatter and cause serious damage.
This was what Oleg wanted to hammer home through this one depraved act: my absolute loss of freedom and free will. I had no choice. I couldn’t say no or don’t, because those were words he wouldn’t hear and, if he did, he wouldn’t care.
Seized by anguish, I tried any way I could to claw at Feliks’s legs, to kick out toward Oleg. I hissed and cursed, terrified out of my skull when my shorts were tugged off. My panties torn away.
Bared to both men in the most intimate way, I thrashed my head back and forth in abject degradation.
“I have never liked the look of a female down there,” one of them commented with distaste evident.
“A woman’s genitals are quite . . . unseemly to say the least.”
I peeked my eyes open.
Both of them had their noses curled in disgust as if my sex repulsed them.
Finding an ounce of bitch-tude, I lifted my upper half off the floor and hissed, “Good thing you don’t have to touch me. You might get infected, you fucking wussies.”
“Good thing indeed.” Oleg’s face came into range of mine.
I bared my teeth, snapping at him.
His hand whipped out so fast, the crack of his palm against my skull was unexpected. I hoped he beat me enough to make me lose consciousness. They’d stop then. This mortifying game would lose its appeal if I wasn’t awake enough to entertain them.
No such luck.
Within moments, I found myself restrained as heavily as before. This time in the juncture of Oleg’s legs as he sat on the carpet and tugged me back with him like I was a ragdoll until he rested against a wall. He pinned my back to his chest. Feliks bent my knees up then forced my lower limbs to frog-leg open. And Oleg clamped a free hand over my forehead, driving my chin down so I was compelled to watch my own defilement.
The cold mouth of the glass bottle skidding up my inner thigh created a ghastly sensation.
Ripping my head free, I turned my face away.