The one who spoke broken English broke away from the other before he could grab his arm. He unshackled my legs and unbuckled me from the contraption that kept my arms pinned back. My wrists were still bound together, but other than that, I was free.
We circled each other like two boxers. I was pretending to show off by moving my shoulders, but they were stiff as fuck, and I needed to loosen them up some.
He went to jab at me. I moved just in time to miss it. He was fast. The punch whistled in the air.
“Quick,” I said. “But not quick enough.”
I had to somehow get behind this motherfucker, getting the shackles around his head, while also preparing for the attack from the ogre behind me. I’d dealt with situations like this before, but I usually had two hands. I’d use the shackles as a weapon. I was going to choke the life out of him with them.
We continued to circle each other. I feigned like I was going to the left, and so did he. Even though he was big, he wasn’t dumb. It was almost like he’d read the intentions in my eyes and thought they were hilarious. A grin stood on his face. Same stood on the other guard’s face.
Sweat dripped into my eyes. My hair sagged into my face and stuck to my skin. If hell had a temperature, it would be measured by this place. The heat felt like it radiated from the walls and the ground.
I shook off the sweat and decided.
I charged him.
I charged him hard enough that he hit the wall and we bounced off, but before he could recover, I got around him and, lifting my hands up, brought the shackles around his head. I used the wall to brace myself, because he was fighting hard, and the other guard was trying to figure out what to do.
Which I knew meant their orders were to bring me in alive. Damaged? Okay. But alive. I was no good to them dead.
If the stunned guard would have been smart, he would have let me kill the other one and shut the door to the cell. But he was too busy trying to claw my arm away from the guard. He was shouting things in Russian. The language was as foreign to me as it sounded.
The guard who spoke broken English was still fighting. The harder he fought, the harder I pulled. Adrenaline had spiked in my veins, and even though my vision was hazy, one thing registered in my mind.
Kill or be killed.
The man gurgled one last time and then went still. I held him up, but as soon as I untangled my shackles from his neck, the other guard’s eyes widened. He went to run for the cell door, to close it, but I got him from behind and did the same thing. This time, I used all my weight to brace down, bringing us to the floor. Which was harder because he was able to fight with his hands and legs.
He was solid muscle.
Voices seemed to be chanting in my head, but I drowned them out. I was almost biting my tongue to keep my focus. The motherfucker was strong, and he was pinching my legs. Trying to pinch my skin off. His arms flailed, trying to connect with my face. Probably to gouge my eyes out. Anything to make me tap out. But he was torn between fighting my face and trying to remove the shackle from his throat. It was old metal and sharp.
My old man calling my name was the only reason I realized the only thing holding him up anymore was me. I moved out from underneath him, my mind shifting gears.
Get us the fuck out.
“Check pockets,” my old man said.
“It can’t be that easy,” I said. The first pocket I looked in—there were keys. Numbers were on them, but they were in Russian. “Fuck!”
I wasn’t sure how long we had, but I started to move. I kept the keys tight in my hands and tried to maneuver them the best I could. It was slow, because I kept dropping them, trying to get the right key into my old man’s lock. The last fucking key worked. It took even longer to get the locked popped.
Once it was, he picked up the keys and unlocked mine. I had to remove the shackles on his feet, and after, we were able to get all the men freed. Nino was unconscious, though, and Oscar refused to leave him.
Vincenzo stood at the door, listening, as we came up with a plan. We had no fucking clue where we were. We had no weapons. The men didn’t have any on them.Smart in one way. We would’ve had them if they would’ve been carrying. Reckless in another because his ego was my biggest weapon.
Movement behind me made me turn, but I was facing pitch-black darkness. All the torches had been extinguished, but I still felt breath on my neck.
What was it about fighting in the dark that these fuckers liked? And this was the third time I’d killed them with my bare hands.
I took a breath and braced myself.
Chapter34
Mia
I’d been told a story of my great-grandmother, Grazia Angeli, when I was a little girl. It wasn’t a glamorous anecdote of her acting days, or a flowery one about her wedding day, or how once upon a time, the villain (who also happened to be the prince) had come to save her.
