Pavel chuckles and pulls a second, smaller knife from his boot.
“Don’t,” I whisper, then lock eyes with Marina. “Look at me, Marina. Only at me. I love you. You’re my best friend. We still need to have that girls’ weekend.”
She sobs behind the gag, shaking her head and trying to shrink back from Pavel, who’s spinning the small knife around and around in his thick, fat fingers.
“Stop this, Dimitri! Please! You can do whatever you want to me. Cut me, rape me, send all those terrible photos of me to the media. I don’t care. But Marina did nothing to you!” I hold up my bound hands, pleading, but he just laughs and nods at Pavel.
The tip of the knife pierces her skin just under her collarbone, and Marina’s weak scream is echoed by my own. Pavel yanks the blade from her body, and blood flows freely down her breast. Her eyes roll back in her head as Anton releases me, and I fall to my knees, desperately reaching for her, but Pavel leaps out of the boat, shoves at it, and I watch, helpless, as Marina floats away, unconscious, bound, and bleeding.
“Come here, Sophiana,” Dimitri says, his tone full of triumph. “Crawl. On your knees. Now!”
Pavel and Anton stand side by side, ready to hurt me if I don’t obey. But Dimitri’s already taken everything from me. My one chance at true happiness with Griff. My best friend. My freedom. He doesn’t get to takeanythingelse.
Bracing my hands on the rough wooden planks, I get to my knees, then to my feet. Pavel and Anton take two steps closer, and I retreat the same distance. I’m perilously close to the end of the wooden platform, but I’d rather jump into Lake Zurich and drown than let Dimitri get his hands on me again.
“I will never kneel for you again.” Marina’s dying. Griff…for all I know, he could be dead too. I’ll die before I let him take anything else away from me.
Dimitri throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, we will see about that.”
* * *
Griff
It’s dark, the stench of fertilizer and dirt surrounding me. I’m on my stomach, grass tickling my left ear. My head aches, and my arms…fuck. Stretching the fingers of my right hand as far as they’ll go, I find the hard, plastic zip tie binding my wrists.
Voices. Not too far away. Laughing. The few minutes before I passed out play on a loop. Sloane tapping my glasses. Tears in her eyes.
“Don’t fight and you’ll live. He promised.”
Volkov. He found a way to get to her.
Think!
Raising my head, even two inches, makes the world spin and tilt on its axis. My left shoulder protests the movement, sending electric sparks shooting all the way down my back. Cufflinks. Dax gave them to me because, in his words, “They’re distinctive. But also useful. Just in case.”
I need useful. But Sloane had to help me put them on. The fingers of my left hand are useless. My stump is completely numb, and that includes the rewired nerves that control my prosthetic.
The first cufflink pops off and rolls away. Goddammit. It’s too dark in here for me to see a damn thing, and even if I could…the fucking thing is somewhere behind me. Those shitstains zip tied my ankles as well, so leverage is at a premium.
One last hope. I find the other one, flip the toggle, and it lands in my palm. Thank fucking God. Pressing on the post, I breath a sigh of relief at the feel of thesnap. What’s not so pleasant? When I stab myself in the wrist sawing at the zip tie. Ignoring the pain, I tighten my grip, working the tiny pocket knife back and forth until the plastic snaps in two, and my arms fall limply to my sides.
Stifling my groan, I whisper, “Austin? Tell me you’re still listening. I’m fucked, man. Sloane’s gone. Volkov took her.”
The glasses flicker once, and the sight of text scrolling across the lenses is the second most beautiful sight in the world.
Police on their way. Ten minutes max. Have a lock on Sloane’s tracker. Marina’s went dead minutes before your glasses started transmitting.
Ten minutes? Sloane doesn’t have that long. Slowly, an inch at a time, I get to my feet, and though my left arm is still useless, I rip at my right pant leg and slide the dagger from its sheath.
I’m in some sort of gardening shed. Still on Baur au Lac property if I had to guess. And those two Russian thugs are making sure I don’t wake up and cause a scene.
They’ll have no problem killing me if I do. Hell, they’ll probably kill me anyway. Unless I get to them first.
Adjusting my grip, I creep toward the door. Asshole #1 and Asshole #2 are pointing at the bright lights inside the hotel, chuckling and making jokes about all thepretty peopleinside. How they haven’t even noticed the star of the evening vanished under their noses.
Rustling from behind me stops me in my tracks. Fuck. Not another threat. But when I turn, my eyes now adjusted to the darkness, I make out another prone form. Jacob. Dropping to one knee, I feel for his wrists and ankles and cut him loose. But he’s still barely conscious. They must have hit him a lot harder than they hit me. Or he didn’t try to play “out cold” like I did.
Five minutes.
