Page 155 of Vicious Games

“Is she okay? What have you done to my friend? Where are you taking us?!”

“Shut up!” the first man yells, his spit landing on my cheek, before he turns around and starts the car.

“Tell me where we’re going!” I shout again, enraged.

The other man sitting in the passenger seat turns, gun raised right at my temple.

“Shut up—or I’ll make you shut up.”

Staring down the barrel, I should be terrified. But I’m not.

Instead, I lean in until my forehead touches the cold metal. “Where. Are. You. Taking us?”

He stares, nostrils flaring. “This one’s a talker.”

“Then shut her up,” the driver says, limping from what looks like a bullet wound to the leg.

I’m about to scream at him again—when the butt of the gun crashes into my temple, making my whole world go black.

Fluorescent bright light burns behind my eyes as I blink myself awake, the smell of oil and jet fuel making me nauseous.

“Get out,” snarls the man who yanked me from Stella’s car, dragging me from the back seat.

My knees hit the cold concrete, my legs too weak to hold me up, as I finally see where our captors have taken us—an airplane hangar.

“Get up,” the same man orders, bringing me to stand up by holding onto my handcuffs.

I try to pull free, but his grip is vice-tight.

“Get your filthy hands off me!”

“Just shut the fuck up,” he snaps, shaking me until my teeth rattle.

But then his attention pulls away from me and onto the gleaming under overhead lights of the sleek and obviously expensive private jet in front of us.

And then another man comes into view as he descends the stairs slowly.

Dark hair. Darker eyes. A black suit that fits him like it was tailored just for him.

Unlike his goons, this man looks dangerous just by existing.

He walks toward me with the precision of a panther, and I fall silent.

Because I know—whoever this man is, he’s the reason why Stella and I are here.

My heart pounds in my chest as the dark-eyed man stops just inches away from me. He doesn’t speak at first, just stares at me, like he’s seeing a ghost.

It’s only when I shift uncomfortably under the tight grip of his goon that something in his expression changes.

“Release her,” he says, voice low and sharp.

“Boss, this one’s a fighter,” the man grunts.

The dark man’s lips curve into something that someone might even say is a smile. “I’m sure she is. Now release her, Lev. That’s an order.”

Reluctantly, Lev, the thug, uncuffs my wrists. I rub them immediately, wincing at the angry red welts already starting to bruise.

The man—the boss, apparently—eyes the marks with visible rage. He looks like he might kill the guy just for touching me.

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