“Who is this?Where’s Dmitri?”he demanded, but he sounded different.Scared.Agitated.Anxious.
“Like I said… He’s unavailable.Permanently.”
“W-who are you?”
“I’m the man who’s going to destroy you.”My tone was casual, as if discussing the weather, not threatening him.“When I’m done, it’ll make what I did to your associates look like child’s play.For every time you laid your hands on your wife without her permission, every time you made her bleed, every time you made her feel worthless, I’ll make you suffer.You’ll beg for death.And I won’t give it to you.Not until I’ve had the pleasure of slowly draining every last ounce of life from your pathetic body.”
I ended the call and tossed the phone aside.
Then I gathered Ariana in my arms, her head falling against my chest, and carried her out of the hangar.
ChapterThree
Ariana
Something rumbled beneath me, deep and constant, like the growl of a caged animal.It pressed into my spine, vibrating through my bones.I shifted, but even the smallest movement sent a flare of pain ricocheting through my body.
Air hissed somewhere nearby, mechanical and steady, underscored by the faint metallic tang of fuel.The scent of it clung to the back of my throat, acrid and bitter, mingling with the coppery taste of blood on my tongue.
I forced my eyelids open, but the light that seared through my lashes was blinding, bright and harsh.It stabbed straight into my skull, making the pounding behind my eyes throb even harder.My vision blurred and doubled, then blurred again.Shapes shifted in and out of focus, swimming like shadows on water.
Two figures stood a few feet away.Both tall.Both shadowed.But they were too unfocused to make out details, their outlines jagged and wavering like heat mirages.They spoke in low tones, muffled at first, like sound underwater.I fought to tune in, every sense straining past the roar of the engine and the hiss of air.
One voice cut through.Unfamiliar.Urgent.
Hope flared so brightly it hurt.Maybe I’d been rescued.Maybe whoever had pulled me out of the Jeep was some stranger with a conscience.Someone who’d seen the wreckage and chose to act.To help.
I clung to that fragile thought, to the promise of salvation.
Right now, it was all I had.
But just as quickly, that small flicker of hope was extinguished when I heard him.
Henry.
The sound of his voice slid through the air like a blade.Deep.Rough.Familiar in a way that made bile rise in my throat.
A memory came rushing back.The stacks of cash filling his duffel bag.The burner phone buried beneath them.The string of texts.The photo of me, bound and gagged, as proof of a job completed.Henry had been paid to abduct me for the Bratva.I drugged him so I could escape.I thought I was free.
But I wasn’t.
He’d found me.
I tried to focus, shake off the fog that clung to me, weighing me down.And then I heard it.Something about my mother.
My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything else.Panic clawed at me.I had to move.Had to fight.Had to survive.If not for my sake, for my mother’s.
I started to sit up, but pain detonated in my ribs, white-hot and blinding.My head split down the middle, nausea churning so hard I thought I’d vomit.My knee burned as if someone had driven a knife straight through it.But I needed to push through the pain.I refused to give up.Not now that it seemed my mother had found her way into Henry’s crosshairs.
He could sell me to the Bratva.
I refused to let him target my mother, as well.
I drew in a ragged breath, bracing myself for the pain I knew would come.Then I forced myself upright.The world tilted sideways, my vision exploding with sparks of white and purple.Pain speared through me, intense enough to steal my breath, my knee buckling as I attempted to stand.
The voices cut off, and footsteps pounded toward me, sharp against the low drone of the engines.
“Stay away from her.”My plea cracked on my lips, weak and broken.
