Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Let me tell you a story about your friends. Their pakhan is the reason I grew up without a father.”
“What?” I rub the place where he injected me. “What did you do to me?”
All friendliness has left his face. Alex looks ten years older than when I saw him last and every bit as deadly as my bratva neighbors. “It’s just a muscle relaxant,” he says, all business now. “You’ll be fine.”
“But… what are you doing?” I ask, my head already feeling too heavy for my neck. I let it loll against the backrest.
“I’m using you, Natasha. You seem important to Ravil, so I’m going to see if I can make a trade. Your life for his.”
I can’t move my legs. Can’t make my neck work. As the world spins and swoops around me all I can hear is his voice on repeat: I’m using you, Natasha.
Just like everybody else in my life.
Dima
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Right here!” I shout into the phone as I pound the pavement to the corner. I dive into the passenger side of Nikolai’s car.
“Where are they?”
“Silver Nissan, turning left,” I bark. “You see it? Up there!” I point.
“On it.” Nikolai’s foot slams down on the accelerator, and he cuts in front of the car beside us to get ahead. “What happened?”
Alarm bells shriek in my head.
“He showed up in his car and said he’d drive her home.”
Nikolai says nothing, focused on threading his way through the thick traffic of downtown Chicago.
“You think he’s taking her somewhere?”
“Blyad’— I don’t know! This might be nothing. But it feels all wrong to me.”
“He’s not headed toward our building.”
The brick I swallowed sinks to my belly. Nikolai’s right. He’s headed in the wrong direction. Everything about this is wrong.
And it is all my fault.
I made her meet with this guy. I put her in this position. I will never, ever forgive myself if she gets hurt.
“What was that?” Nikolai asks when Alex throws something out of his window. The object breaks into pieces on the pavement.
I twist to get a look at it. “Fuck!” I flick my phone up to look for the marker showing Natasha’s location. “It was her phone.”
“Definitely not taking her home, then,” Nikolai says grimly.
“Nope.” I text Ravil the update and when I look up, the silver Nissan has disappeared. “Blyad’! Where did he go?”
“I’ve got him,” Nikolai says grimly, cutting into a high-rise parking garage.
“Are you sure?” I’m out of my mind right now. “You saw him go in here?”
“I saw him.”
“What are you doing?” I shout when Nikolai slows instead of gunning it.
“You want to get made?”
“No.” I will my heart rate to slow, take deep breaths through my nose.
When we reach the next parking level, Nikolai flips a bitch and heads back down the ramp.
“What are you doing?” I crane my neck to look over my shoulder in the direction the Nissan disappeared.
“I’m going to park down here by the exit. He won’t be able to leave without me seeing him. You go on foot to find the fucker.”
Right. Thank God Nikolai is thinking better than I am. “Tell Ravil.”
“On it.” He already had his phone in his palm, his thumb tracing over the screen.
I palm my Glock and jog for the elevators. I take the floors, one by one, getting off and looking around.
On the top floor, I spot the car, parked right by the edge of the railing.
My heart stops beating for a moment, then reverses direction. What is this guy doing? Is he going to threaten to throw her off?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I check the text from Maxim to me and Nikolai.
Alex just called Ravil and told him to come to the top of a parking garage at 7th and Wood, or he’d kill Natasha.
I nearly puke. Alex is off the rails. He may be with the FBI, but this crazy operation of his isn’t sanctioned. Just like shooting Nikolai wasn’t procedure.
The guy wants Ravil and Ravil alone.
Sounds like… a vendetta.
We’re at the garage. I’m going in, I reply.
Wait for backup, Maxim orders.
I ignore it and shove the phone in my pocket. I don’t have an action plan, but I can't stand around and do nothing. Not when Natasha is in that car near the edge of a ten-story parking garage with a dangerous and possibly unhinged federal agent.
I skirt around the outer edge of the parking garage, trying to stay behind pillars and in the shadows as I get closer.
When I hear Natasha’s voice, a fresh jolt of adrenaline shoots through my veins. I jog around another pillar and—
“Drop your gun, or she’s dead.”
Natasha
I scream as Alex holds me at the railing, a gun pointed at my head. I can’t make my limbs move well enough to fight him. He clamps a hand over my mouth and spins me to face out from the terrifying ledge. My vision swims at the height, and I suck in oxygen through my nose suddenly feeling like I can’t breathe.