“Pakhan,” he supplies grimly.
“The Pakhan is going to be in touch with options,” I finish.
The Russian nods. “Da. Good. Andriani will be here in about four minutes, give or take a few seconds. Tell him right away.”
“I will.”
He nods and turns away from me, heading to the bedroom door with a stealth that belies his massive frame. Once there, he stops, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Oh, I almost forgot, Isla Davenport. Tell him also that there’s a bomb hidden in the Andriani family restaurant, Sergio’s. The lunch rush just started about fifteen minutes ago. He has ten until the bomb goes off. It’s not going to be pretty for anyone who doesn’t make it out in time. Don’t bother screaming or trying to escape. If anyone comes rushing in here, I’m going to have to kill them, and you don’t want that on your conscience, do you?”
Holy Jesus.
A bomb?
“Do you?” he prods.
I shake my head. “No. No, I don’t want that.”
“That’s what I thought.” He pauses, and then he gives me that wide, evilly beautiful smile again. “Until next time,malyshka.”
With that, he disappears through the open doorway, leaving me alone, handcuffed to the headboard, and terrified for the innocent people inside that restaurant. I have to tell someone about what I know, but I’m too afraid to scream and potentially bring someone else into danger.
I don’t know if he’s talking about the guards… Are they alive? Or does he mean someone else? Who even has access to this floor, aside from Alessio and his men? I can’t be sure.
As I lie here, cuffed to the bed, gripped with sheer terror, I do everything I can to keep from crying, screaming, or bringing the Russian back.
The screen on my phone, which I set to Do Not Disturb for a few hours because I was annoyed with Alessio this morning, suddenly lights up. His name comes on the screen. The phone buzzes, but I can’t reach it.
Desperate, I shimmy out of the covers and try to use my legs to my advantage, my big toe extended to answer the call. But just when I reach it, the call stops and dumps into voice mail. I try to call him back, but I lose my balance, knocking the phone onto the floor with a thud.
“Damn it,” I cry out, then bite my lip to keep the Russian from returning for me and following through on his threats.
All I can do is hope and pray that Alessio gets here as soon as he possibly can. If the intruder is to be believed, and countless innocent lives are in danger, every ticking second is taking us closer to disaster.
Saint
The secondI run into my bedroom and find Isla naked and handcuffed to my bed, I’m in kill mode.
“Who the fuck did this to you?” I demand.
My guards were groggy and incoherent when I stepped past them, clearly having been drugged. I’m sure I already know the answer, but I want to hear it from her lips before I start making war plans.
“A man I’ve never seen before,” she tells me, her voice tight with fear. “A Russian.”
I’m going to tear every motherfucking member of the Bratva apart with my bare hands, and then I’m going to set the pieces on fire and watch them burn to ash before I piss on them.
I stop at her side, running on half adrenaline, half sheer murderous rage. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” she says, tugging at the handcuffs and making them clank against my headboard. “But we don’t have any time to waste. They planted a bomb at your restaurant. The Russian who broke in here told me it’s going to go off in ten minutes, and that was about six minutes ago.”
My blood goes cold. “Jesus. You sure?”
She nods emphatically. “Yes. You have to call someone and let them know to evacuate the building immediately.”
I’ve never seen her this frantic.
I pull out my phone and call up the manager of Sergio’s, telling him to get everyone the fuck out of there, from kitchen staff to patrons, right fucking now.
