Page 162 of Marrying the Savage

Then the hand over my mouth tightens, another arm locks around my waist, and I’m dragged backward so fast my boots slide on the polished floor.

I try to scream, but the sound dies against leather. I bite down hard on the hand covering my mouth, and the man behind me curses viciously against my ear. Good. I hope he loses the finger. I hope it falls off and ruins his evening.

“Hold her,” he snaps.

A second man grabs my legs. I kick him in the stomach. He grunts, and for half a second his grip loosens enough that I almost twist free. Almost. Then the first man hauls me harder against him, crushing my back to his chest, and drags me through a side door into a narrow service passage that smells like dust, cardboard, and cleaning chemicals.

This is not Anya’s cousin. This is not part of the plan.

This is not Dmitri either.

Panic hits so hard I can barely breathe. I thrash harder, throwing my head back, elbowing anything I can reach, digging my nails into the hand clamped around my face. The man makes another furious sound when I tear skin. He deserves it. He deserves worse. I try to hook my foot around a metal shelf as they pull me past it, but the second man kicks my ankle free.

“Stop fighting,” the first man hisses.

I try to bite him again. He jerks my head back, and pain flashes down my neck, but that only makes me angrier. If I’m going to be kidnapped because of my own terrible plan, I’m not going politely.

I am going to make them regret every career choice that brought them into this corridor.

The passage tilts when they drag me into a small storage room. A rack of garment bags swings wildly as my shoulder crashes into it. I grab one, but the plastic tears in my hand. The second man swears when I kick him again, this time catching his thigh.

“She’s insane,” he snaps.

My mouth is still covered, so I can’t tell him I’ve been saying that for days.

The man holding my legs dodges. “She’s worse than Rafi said.”

Who the hell is Rafi?

I try to scream again. The arm around my waist tightens, but not enough to hurt my ribs. Just enough to stop me from throwing myself sideways into a metal shelf, which is exactly what I was about to do.

“Madam,” the man near my ear says, sounding almost pained now. “Please stop trying to injure us.”

I freeze for half a second. My brain scrambles to put that in the right place, but before it can, they haul me through another door into a basement loading area where a gray car is waiting with its engine running.

The back door opens from inside, and a man leans out.

Damir’s men look like expensive violence: dark suits, straight backs, cold eyes, everything neat enough to suggest they can murder you without wrinkling a cuff.

This man looks different. Early thirties, maybe, with dark hair, sharp features, and a relaxed posture that feels almost insulting under the circumstances. His black shirt is open at the throat, his coat is too stylish to be purely practical, and his eyes are bright with a kind of amused intelligence I don’t trust at all.

“Put her in,” he says.

I immediately start fighting again.

“No,” I snap, finally managing to wrench my mouth free. “Absolutely not. I’m not getting in a random car with random men because apparently everyone in this city thinks carrying me around is a reasonable hobby.”

The man in the car blinks. Then he laughs. “You must be Sofia.”

“I must be leaving.”

The man behind me releases my waist but stays close enough to catch me if I bolt. The second man lets go of my legs and steps back, rubbing his thigh even though I’m fairly sure I only kicked him once.

“I am Arman,” the man in the car says.

“You’re Anya’s cousin?”

“Yes.”