Page 128 of Violent Pawn

“Now, you’ve pissed me off,” I warn between heaving breaths, trying to catch as much of them before round two.

Vasilyev paces backwards, but he’s the least of my concern. Once nullifying the soldiers, he’ll bolt, realizing this is a lost cause. Catching up to him will be easy.

When Bucket/Knife Man lunges, I toss the chair to the side and dart for the knife, figuring it’ll cause better and longer damage. My dress, no longer shiny and new, tangles around my thighs, which adds a challenge, but I’ve fought in worse.

My fingers wrap the knife’s hilt when one of them jumps on me, his weight crushing me into the cement and thrusting breath from my lungs. My head goes weightless until he reaches for the knife, then it clears out of pure survival.

“Fuck you.”

He grips my hair, and it’s with only a half second of conscious warning that I realize what he’s about to do. I quickly shift my hand to the area beneath my face while twisting in his grip. Still, brute strength wins, and my temple slams partially into my hand and partially on cement, guaranteeing a headache to follow. White paints my vision, but I clamp on the pained groan.

“No, fuck you, Bratva filth.”

The shirtless one slams his foot down onto my hand, dislodging the knife from my grip and probably breaking a few knuckles. I grit through the pain, needing to ignore it for now. Weaponless, that round was a lost battle, but the war is far from over.

I push my palms into the cement to gain leverage while ignoring the pain, and slam my head backwards into Bucket Man’s nose, who laughs as he evades the hit. His grip in my hair clenches tighter, and this time, without the warning to protect myself, the floor rushes towards me, and he slams my face straight into the cement.

Pain of every kind blossoms, particularly in my nose and forehead. Red fills my vision—anger and blood. Blood streams from a gash on my forehead down into my eyes and some from my nose, over my lips.

Blyat! This fucking hurts!

This isn’t how my life will end. I didn’t survive this long to be taken out by two soldiers who don’t deserve to survive at the bottom of an ocean. Papa didn’t nearly destroy my will to live only to be taken out by our old enemies. That’d be depressingly ironic.

He hoists my face up to do it again. This time, I lean into the motion and bend my arm, relying on my strength to push me sideways. His grip falters enough until my leg hooks around one of his, and I flip us over, coming down on top of him and smashing a fist into his nose, hopefully paying him back.

I go to punch again when a sharp point jabs into my neck. His fucking friend, who I admittingly forgot about while my face was being slammed into cement by the ass between my legs.

My hands lift in mock submission when he demands, “Get off him.”

I obey the instruction, keeping my palms up. The one I punched scrambled to his feet too. All of us bloodied and bruised and exhausted.

“We match.”

He gestures to the floor with the knife. “Kneel.”

“The last man who ordered me to kneel choked on his intestines. I’m always up for round two.”

“I said, kneel.”

“And I said, go die.”

His arm moves, giving me the briefest warning to duck before the knife slices me. I dive, arms wrapping his knees to knock him off balance and send him crashing to the ground with a cry. I land on my side beside him, yanking the knife from his loosened hold thanks to the fall and with a bit of extra assistance from my nails in his wrist.

His shirtless friend expectantly comes barreling at me, and aware this is my opening, I flip to my knees and jam the knife straight into the heart of the one knocked down. Clean, effective, and instant.

“Only ’cause I don’t have time to make you choke on those useless intestines of yours.”

I’m yanked off the dying man and slammed onto my back, which will be another ache to add to the many. I shouldn’t be standing anymore, let alone fighting. Adrenaline has been helping me along, but it explodes when he comes down on top of me and reaches for my wrists. If he attempts the rape plan he taunted me with, there will be no saving his soul when I’m through with him.

Instead, he slams a fist into my face, guaranteeing if my nose wasn’t already broken, it is now. “Fucking bitch. That was my brother.”

Another hit, this one throwing my head to the side and rupturing my jaw. I don’t fight the pressure. An elbow to my chest kills my breath as he snags the weapon and makes the stupidest mistake by glancing across the room to his benefactor spectating the fight.

“Now?”

“Da.”

My death will not happen beneath a man. My death will not be this easy.