His hand comes back so fast I don’t have time to duck. A brutal backhand cracks across my face and snaps my head sideways sending me crashing into the edge of the counter before I hit the floor hard enough to jar my teeth.
Pain bursts white behind my eyes. For a second all I can hear is ringing.
I taste blood.
Above me, Gabriel’s voice cuts through it, sharp and disgusted. “That was the wrong answer.”
I push up on one elbow, breath sawing in and out of me, cheek already throbbing, vision swimming just enough to make the room tilt.
Emir unzips the bag.
I freeze.
No.
No,no—
His hand disappears inside. Comes back out with one of the ledgers then the second.
He glances at Gabriel. “She got them.”
Gabriel looks down at me. There’s no satisfaction in his face. No relief.
Just contempt.
“So you’re a liar too”
My stomach drops.
He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me upright so hard a cry tears out of me before I can stop it.
“Get up.”
I stumble on my feet for half a second, one hand clawing at his wrist, but he’s already dragging me across the kitchen by my hair like I weigh nothing. My boots skid uselessly against the floor.
The kitchen chair scrapes loud against the tile when he kicks it out.
He shoves me into it hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
“Emir,” he says, not even looking away from me. “Rope.”
Only then do I see it.
A coil of rope sitting on my kitchen counter like it belongs there.
My blood goes cold. They came expecting this.
My heart stutters.
Did Maksim send him?
Emir sighs once through his nose, like I’m making his night inconvenient, then reaches for it and brings it over.
Gabriel’s hand leaves my hair only to force my arms behind the back of the chair.
I jerk once on instinct.
Useless.
