Page 86 of Savage Bratva King

“Where to?”

“We follow the mole.”

Here’s the thing about moles: they spend their lives digging underground, but they always surface eventually, and when this one does, I’ll be waiting for him. Xander Amory will not put his own neck on the line for Sergei, even if he did orchestrate the attack on my property to kidnap Gianna. Sergei will have served his purpose. He is expendable.

What I don’t understand is why he betrayed me.

What did Xander promise him? Money? An escape route from this way of life? Or does their alliance go way deeper than anyone else realizes?

Marco takes the back routes through the city, avoiding the screaming sirens of the emergency services, to the suburbs where Xander Amory lives with his family.

I should’ve ended the mole’s life sooner, and this is something that I will have to live with. But Xander Amory will not get away with sneaking into my home and taking the woman I love.

No matter what it takes.

27

GIANNA

“Let me go!”

I’ve waited too long. Stunned by the gunfire and Sergei’s unexpected reaction to the attack, I follow him in a daze and don’t jolt back to reality until it’s too late. Until I realize what’s happening. Until I spot Xander with a weapon in his hand.

But Sergei is gripping me so tightly I’m afraid he’ll break my arm if I try to wrench it free.

“Keep moving,” he growls.

Blood is seeping from a bullet hole in his shoulder, black and thick as oil in the fading light. His blood must be on my face. Ivana shot him. She tried to stop him from getting me out of here, and she shot one of her own men.

I feel like I’m watching a movie scene, and I’m the person in the audience yelling at the main character to turn around and go back. “Not that way! That way is dangerous!” Days ago, I’d have given anything to escape from Leo’s house; I didn’t hesitate when Tamara took me to the woods lining the edge of his land.

But now… Everything has changed.

Leonid Ivanov asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

I’m wearing his grandmother’s ring on my finger and discussing rose petals with the gardener.

I could no more leave him now than I could stop breathing or loving dogs or wanting to make a difference in this cruel world.

“Sergei, let me go!” I dig in my heels and throw my weight backwards to knock him off-balance.

Where is Ivana when I need her? Where is Leo? Where is Tamara with her sly comments about wonderful-fucking-Elena like the woman was some kind of goddess?

But Sergei is still dragging me along, and instinct keeps me moving so that I don’t fall flat on my face. I claw at his fist with my free hand. My chest is heaving with the exertion of keeping up with him and fear that I’ll never see Leo again.

“I’m not going. You can’t make me leave.You’re hurting me!”

Tears sting my eyes as he drags me further and further away from Leo. From the man I fell in love with, probably the first moment I set eyes on him in his immaculate dining room.

I can see the armed men surrounding the property. How did they get in? Did Sergei open the door wide and stand back to let them pass through? Or was it Tamara?

Panic hurtles through my veins and bounces around inside my chest.

If I go with Xander, I’m never coming back. It’s all I can think about. Never sharing his bed again, never feeling his lips pressed against mine, never playing with Lucky and Marvel in the garden.

Bullets are still flying around us, but I know that I would rather take one right here while trying to stay with Leo than run away from him to save my own life. So, I choose the only option I have left: I allow my body to become a dead weight. I land on my knees, dirt and gravel scraping my skin through my pants, but I ignore the pain. Sergei stumbles over me as I drop to the ground, but the man’s fist is still like a metal vice around my wrist.

I roll over as he crashes on top of me, ball my right hand into a fist and aim a blow at his diaphragm. He doesn’t even groan out loud as he lands heavily on his knees. He’s back on his feet in an instant, and I wish I had a gun to finish what Ivana started.

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