“Keep her safe until we get home.”
“I will.”
He ends the call without another word.
I slip the phone into my pocket just as the warehouse door screeches open. I look up and see a familiar pompous face strolling into the room like he fucking owns it.
Nicky Burg is one of those people that’s easy to hate—with his arrogant face, cheap leather jacket and grease-slick hair. He has that stupid smile carved out of ego and stupidity. Two of his men flank him, probably to fuel his already massive ego.
The moment I see him, I know something is wrong…
He’s too confident.
Too casual.
Too sure of whatever he thinks he’s holding over us.
Alexei sits back in his chair, his expression unreadable. Dmitri simply twirls the switchblade he’s holding, the way he does right before someone ends up bleeding. I stay standing, arms crossed, gaze fixed on Nicky, already imagining how he’ll look with one fewer limb.
Nicky stops a few feet from the table.
“Well well,” he drawls. “Balshovs in the flesh. I gotta say, this meeting is a real honor.”
Alexei doesn’t blink. “You asked for it. Say what you came to say.”
Nicky’s grin widens. “I think you’ll want to hear this sitting down.”
I step forward. “Talk.”
He lifts his hands in a mock pacifying gesture. “Relax, big guy. I’m not here to start trouble.”
He says it with the smugness of a man who believes he’s already won.
My stomach goes cold.
Then Nicky speaks the sentence that confirms it:
“My boys are holding your girl,” he says lightly. “The florist.”
The world seems to tilt right at that moment. Dmitri stiffens beside me and Alexei’s jaw tightens. My heart stops completely, then slams back with a violence that shakes something loose inside me.
Nicky keeps talking, oblivious—or too stupid to realize he’s already a dead man.
“Cute little thing,” he says with a shrug. “Real sweet. You should’ve seen the way she cried when my men grabbed her. Breaks my heart.”
A roar builds in my ears. I taste blood from how hard I’m biting the inside of my cheek.
He doesn’t stop talking.
“And from what I’ve seen the last few days…” He looks right at me. “She’s important to you. Real important.”
My fingers twitch toward the gun at my hip.
Alexei leans forward, voice deceptively calm. “What do you want?”
“Simple,” Nicky says. “You hand over the Popov territory, and my guys let the girl walk away unharmed. Everybody wins.”
Silence.
