“Amalia.Lamercinaria.”
CHAPTERFORTY-SIX
DEREK
Iwrenched my blade from the man’s throat with a groan, blood spraying back into my face before plunging it repeatedly into the jagged wound until he was no longer moving.
Blood dripped from my lashes and the strands of hair hanging over my forehead. The air was thick with the smell of iron. Carnage abounded. Each one deserving of a brutal death for touching what was mine. But I had yet to find her, and until I did, they’d all die begging for mercy, my face the hell they sought to be freed from.
“Derek! This way.” Kai stood beneath a narrow doorway. One moment, he was flagging me over. The next, he had his gun trained in my direction. Two shots rang above my head, and a body dropped behind me.
“Cain, you’re just going to sit there finger painting or what? Amalia and some of her girls were clearing the second floor,” Helena said as she breezed by and into the stairwell. “Let’s go get Eva. I have an early morning patient and need my eight hours.”
Kai and I followed close behind, spilling onto a dark landing where five of Belov’s men were posted up. We ducked behind a wall as gunfire tore off pieces of the flimsy wood.
“When they reload, cover me.” I’d barely gotten the words out when the men yelled as bullets riddled their bodies.
Amalia’s crew had snuck up from behind and neutralized the threat.
A tall woman with shoulder-length hair stepped over a body and addressed me with a grin. “Amalia has your girl.”
My chest suddenly expanded as if it were the first time I could breathe since I found out she had been taken… or maybe, since the night she told me she’d never forgive me.
“Where is she?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders. “We lost contact with her twenty minutes ago.”
I clenched my jaw. “Andhim?”
“No sign of boss man.”
As if I’d conjured him from the pits of hell, there he was, slumped against an adjacent doorway, holding the side of his torso while blood pooled at his feet.
In one swift motion, they all raised their weapons.
“NO!” My voice echoed within the walls of that space, and eight pairs of eyes turned to look at me with curious expressions. “He’s mine.”
“Derek, I know what you want, but just put a bullet through that fucker’s face, and let’s get Eva.”
I shook Kai’s touch from my shoulder as I stalked toward Dmitry, holstering my gun and pulling my knife. “He doesn’t deserve a quick death. That’s too easy. Find Eva and get her out of here and to a hospital.”
Leni and the other women took off without another word. Kai remained and placed a hand on my chest, holding me in place.
“Let me help you.”
“No, I got this. Get my girl, Kai. Get her out of here.”
I wasn’t sure when he left as all my attention was set on Dmitry, who flashed me a grin and disappeared into the dark room.
“Why does it feel like you know exactly who I am? And why I’m here?”
My guard was on high alert as I crossed into the dimly lit space. He sat at the edge of a small bed, the mattress stained to all hell. There was a sheared rope attached to the iron headboard and rope on the floor at the foot of the bed. Just steps away was a broken window and bloody shattered glass. And it hit me. Eva had been kept in here and tied down to that bed like a prisoner—like a goddamn animal.
My fucking girl.
I saw red and gritted my teeth, squeezing the hilt of my knife as the urge to tear his head from his body with my bare hands had them trembling.
“I know who you are, Cain. And I must admit, I’m absolutely envious of you. What I would give for a more thorough taste of that sweet little cunt.”
