But the doubt crawls in anyway.
What if she’s right? What if they got to him? What if he’s gone?
I refuse to fall apart now. Aleksei would want me fighting. He’d want me doing everything I can to survive. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“If you think I’m going to walk out of here and play bride to some half-dead mobster, you really don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know you.” Marlene steps toward me, too close, until I can smell her floral perfume, like she bathed in it to hide the stench of her rot. “But you’ll come around.”
I lift my chin. “Then I guess you’ve never seen what a woman does when she has nothing left to lose.”
Marlene’s hand twitches at her hip, and I don’t think. I launch.
My body crashes into hers, tackling her mid-reach as her fingers brush the holster under her jacket. We slam into the floor, a tangled mess of limbs, and her gun skitters across the concrete, spinning once before clattering out of reach.
But there’s no time to go after it. She’s faster than I thought. Stronger too. Her age doesn’t match the grip she has on me—fingers like claws, nails digging into my shoulder as she rolls me onto my stomach and pins me beneath her.
My breath punches out of my lungs as her knee slams into my back hard enough to make me see stars.
“I really hoped you’d be smarter than this.” Her breath is hot against my ear. “I was going to make it easier for you.”
I twist beneath her, elbow jabbing back blindly, but she grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing my head down again. Pain blooms across my cheekbone.
Clawing the ground, I search for anything I can use, and that’s when I see it: a brick, mottled and chipped, half buried in leaves, just inches from my fingertips.
Come on.
She’s dragging me, trying to flip me onto my back, but I stretch, nails scraping until I catch the edge.
“Stop fighting,” she bites out.
My fingers lock around rough stone, and I swing with every ounce of panic and fury in my body. The brick cracks against her temple with a sickening thud. She lets out a grunt, body swaying sideways, and I roll out, chest heaving, the brick still in my hand.
She’s stunned, blood trailing from her scalp, eyes wide with disbelief as she topples to the ground.
“I told you,” I rasp, shaking with rage. “You don’t know me.”
My hand quivers around the bloody brick, chest still heaving, but she doesn’t move. She lies sprawled on the concrete, head turned at a grotesque angle, blood pooling slowly beneath her.
I stare, waiting for a twitch. A breath. Anything. But there’s nothing.
I did that. I killed her. I killed someone else.
My pulse jolts with the realization, and I drop the brick, the sound of it hitting the floor drowned out by the sudden echo of footsteps pounding the hallway.
Shit.
Fingers closing around her gun, my body moves on instinct, sprinting for the nearest cover. I dive behind a half-collapsed brick wall, heart pounding in my throat, hands scraped and shaking as I press myself flat to the rough stone.
Whoever it is, I can’t let them see me. They need to think I escaped.
Boots thud closer, someone muttering in Russian.
Please, Aleksei. Please be alive. Please hurry.
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears burning hot behind them.
“Fiona!” Aleksei’s voice cuts in. “Fiona, come on. Where are you?”
