Page 37 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

Ilya’s voice is a low, dangerous growl against my ear.

I can’t breathe. I grip the lapels of his tuxedo, my knuckles white, my eyes wide and unseeing. "He... he’s there," I whisper, my voice cracking, my body shaking with a violent, uncontrollable tremor. "Ilya, he’s there!"

Ilya’s grip tightens, his arm crushing me against him. He doesn't look where I’m pointing. He’s looking at me, his fingers digging into my back, his presence a frantic, desperate anchor.

"Look at me," he commands, his voice sharp, vibrating with a tone I’ve never heard before. "Via, look at me! Right now!"

I try to force my head up, but my neck feels like lead. "It’s Mikhail. I saw him. He was standing there..."

"I don't care," he growls. He’s not looking at the balcony, he’s looking at me, his eyes dark with a wild, frantic intensity. He’s terrified. I’ve never seen him terrified, but he is. "Stay close. You do not move. You stay exactly where I can touch you. Do you understand me?"

I blink, the world slowly snapping back into focus. The ringing in my ears is subsiding, replaced by the pounding of my own heart against his chest. I look up at him, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

14

ILYA

The sound of the first rifle round hitting the marble head table is a sharp, supersonic crack that sends a shower of white stone dust and pulverized shrimp cocktail exploding into my face.

Viktor Russo doesn't even have time to scream before the second round catches him dead center in the throat, pinning him to the high leather back of his chair like a stuck pig.

Not Petr. The realization is a cold, instantaneous calculation in my head. Petr Denisov loves his daughter too much to risk a high-velocity caliber tearing through a room where she’s standing. This isn't an extraction. This is a liquidation. Whoever is behind those scopes up on the glass atrium doesn't give a shit whether Viallentinka breathes or bleeds.

"Get down!" I roar, my left arm swinging out like a steel beam, catching Via by the shoulder and slamming her flat against the floorboards beneath the mahogany table.

She doesn't scream. She hits the wood hard, her emerald silk dress bunching around her knees, her fingers instantly clawing into the fabric of my trousers. Her face is dead white, her eyes wide, glassy, and completely hollowed out by the sudden, deafening rhythm of the assault.

The ballroom is absolute chaos. The house music is still thumping from the lower tiers, mixed with the high-pitched shrieks of socialites and the frantic, disorganized sound of guards firing blindly into the upper galleries. Glass from the massive crystal chandeliers is raining down like ice, slicing through the air and embedding itself into the polished floor.

"Dmitri!" I shout, my right hand already pulling the Glock from its leather rig under my arm. "The doors!"

"Pinned!" Dmitri’s voice comes from behind an overturned champagne cart twenty feet away. He’s firing three-round bursts up toward the glass roof, his empty brass casings clinking sharply against the tile. "They’ve got the main exits pre-aimed! We cross the floor, we’re target practice!"

A heavy caliber slug chews through the thick mahogany over my head, showering Via’s hair in splinters. She lets out a sharp, choked gasp, her body shaking so violently, her teeth are chattering against my chest.

I have to get her out.

The hunger in my gut isn't about the ports anymore. It’s not about the alliance or the ledger. It’s a raw, animalistic need to keep this girl breathing.

"Look at me, Via," I say, my voice a flat, gravelly rasp as I lean over her, my broad shoulders completely blocking her from the glass raining down from above. "We move on three. You stay under my arm. If you trip, I drag you. Do you understand me?"

She nods frantically, her knuckles white where she’s gripping my lapels. "Ilya... the blood... there’s so much..."

"It’s not yours," I growl. "Keep your eyes on my tie."

I shift my weight, preparing to bolt toward the kitchen doors behind the banquet service line. It’s a sixty-foot sprint across an open corridor, completely exposed to the shooters on the mezzanine.

One.

Two.

Three.

I haul her to her feet in a single, violent motion, my left arm locked around her waist, lifting her high enough that her heels barely skim the slick floor. We break from the shadow of the table just as a sniper round tracks our movement, chewing a line of holes through the plaster inches behind my heels.

A sudden, white-hot iron bar slams into the back of my left shoulder.

My grip on her waist slips for a fraction of a second, my jaw clenching as the heat of a bullet graze rips through the fabric of my tuxedo jacket and tears a neat strip of flesh from my skin. A graze. Flesh wound. I don't slow down. I tighten my arm around her, pulling her so close against my side that I can feel the frantic, terrified thud of her heart beating against my ribs.