Page 110 of Coveted By Cupid

“No,” she says, yanking her hand free from mine. A few tears spill over her bottom eyelids, trailing down her cheeks. “He might have control over me and what I do, but I will never belong to him, not where it matters.”

“Very poetic, but your feelings mean shit. Kirill doesn’t care about your emotions, only what’s between your legs. As long as you serve a purpose for him, Kirill will always keep you enslaved.”

“Oh? And you think he doesn’t own you?” She releases a humorless laugh as more tears track down her face. “Boden, baby. You’re as much Kirill’s slave as I am. Worst yet, you showed your cards and now he knows your weakness is your ex. He’ll use Vanessa as a pawn to get you to comply with his demands. As long as he’s alive, we’re both at his mercy.”

“I’m well aware. Yet, you refuse to take ownership of entrapping me with the Russians,” I counter bitterly, dropping her hand and lifting my binoculars back to my eyes to show her I’m done with this conversation. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll drop it.

As soon as I refocus on the alley again, I see two white cargo vans entering the narrow passage, very similar to what Kirill and Mikhail ride around when making grabs. In fact, the rear van has a dent nearly identical to our boss’s vehicle.

An uneasy sensation slithers through me. What if…no, I refuse to entertain the idea. There’s no way the Royal Bastards got to Kirill and Mikhail. That would mean the MC knew they were hiding out at my place; hence, they know I’m associated with the Russians.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Five large men exit the vans, one of them being Cupid. He strides to the rear of the last van, the one I fear may belong to Kirill. His men follow him and open the back doors. The bikers work together, pulling out a hogtied Mikhail and dropping him like a bag of flour on the asphalt. The Russian enforcer doesn’t move, out cold. They reach back into the van, yanking out a very naked and restrained Kirill. He’s alert, thrashing madly against them.

“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, panic rising in my throat.

“What is it?” Riley asks with alarm. She strips the binoculars out of my hands, gasping when she sees them. “Oh, my God! They’ve got Kirill and Mikhail.”

I snatch the binoculars back, scolding her. “Keep your voice down, will you? We don’t want anyone here freaking out on us. They would blow our cover for sure.”

Riley nods, shaking on the spot. She wrings her hands together, looking as uncomfortable as I do.

“We need to come up with a plan, some way to get them out,” I say, racking my brain for a solution.

“Get them out?” Riley scoffs. “Are you insane? There’s no way we can extract them and Vanessa. There are two of us and an entire city block full of them. ”

“What choice do we have?” I ask with a heated hiss.

Riley looks at me like I’m missing something obvious. “What choice? Are you being dense on purpose? The choice is that we don’t save Kirill and Mikhail. They deserve every bit of harm that is coming to them.”

“We need them,” I stress.

“No, we don’t.”

My opportunity to reclaim Vanessa is slipping through my fingers. “Without them, who is going to make Vanessa see reason?”

Riley straightens her shoulders, looking me dead in the eye as she says, “Boden, she’s gone.”

My jaw tightens, unwilling to believe her. “No.”

“She’s living with another man in his fortress,” Riley says, waving at the MC’s property. “Even though we know where she is right now, the property is huge. We have no clue how to access her once we get inside the compound. It would be suicidal to go in after her.”

“Then we make her come to us,” I say, my anxiety climbing.

“How? We can’t even get a hold of her. She has blocked you and me everywhere.”

I turn away from Riley, focusing on the third floor where my heart is located. This can’t be the end of the road.

“Artem is most likely dead, and Kirill and Mikhail will be dead men by morning,” Riley continues, taking my arm and turning me back toward her. She looks at me with soft eyes and hope on her face. “Don’t you see what this means? We’re free, Boden. Kirill can no longer hurt us. We can leave this place, find somewhere safe to live, and be happy together.”

I remove her hand from my arm, speaking firmly like one does to a disobedient child. “I’m. Not. Leaving. Vanessa.”

Refusing defeat, I return my attention to the bikers in the alley. Through the binoculars, I watch as they carry our boss and his henchman inside the building.

As much as it pains me to admit it, Riley is right. Kirill and Mikhail are as good as dead. There is no way we can extract them.

For months, I’ve wanted out of the Black Market Railroad. There was nothing I wanted more than to bury this part of my life and go back to my simple existence with Vanessa by my side. I like to blame Riley for getting me involved in this mess, but deep down I know I’m at fault.