Page 66 of Tattooed Heart

That’s when I strike.

With a scream ripped straight from the pit of my lungs, I lunge, swinging the broken mattress spring in a wide arc. The jaggedend slashes across his face, from cheek to jaw, splitting skin like butter. He roars in pain, stumbling backward, blood gushing in dark rivers down his neck.

“You bitch!” he thunders, clutching his face. “You fucking bitch!”

He charges, one hand raised, the other still pressed to the wound. But he doesn’t make it.

The crack of a gunshot is deafening in the tiny cell. The man jerks mid-stride, eyes wide before crumpling to the floor in a boneless heap.

Behind him, in the doorway, stands Morozov. Smoke curls from the end of the gun in his hand. He steps forward, the look in his eyes as dead as the man bleeding out at my feet.

“I apologize,” Morozov says calmly as if we are discussing dinner reservations. “He was warned not to touch what belongs to me.”

My stomach turns. The casual way he executed his own man chills me to the bone. This is not a person who values human life.

He steps over the body like it’s a rug and approaches me. I back away until I hit the wall, breathing hard, the spring still clenched in my fist. Blood drips from its point, mixing with my own.

“You are insane,” I hiss. “You are fucking insane.”

“Insane?” He chuckles, setting the gun down on the small table in the corner. “No, sweetheart. I’m focused and I know exactly what I want.” His eyes drop to my belly. “And what I will take.”

He reaches for me, brushing the blood-spattered sleeve of my T-shirt. I slap his hand away. Hard.

He doesn’t flinch. If anything, it excites him.

“I like a woman with fire. But you will learn,” he murmurs, seizing my jaw in one hand and yanking my face up to his. “The only person who touches you is me. You can fight. You can bleed. But in the end, you are mine.”

He crushes his lips against mine, and the taste that meets my tongue is rot and corruption, like kissing something already dead. I sink my teeth into him without hesitation, biting down until the copper tang of his blood floods my mouth.

With a roar, he backhands me across the face. I hit the floor, cheek stinging, mouth already swelling. The baby moves inside me, responding to the surge of adrenaline flooding my system.

“You fucking little whore,” he growls, looming over me. “You think this is pain? You think you have seen suffering? You have not even scratched the surface.”

He crouches beside me, seizing my wrist and twisting until a cry rips from my throat. Before I can catch my breath, his hand tangles in my hair and yanks me to my feet, only to send me crashing back with another savage backhand.

I hit the mattress hard, copper flooding my mouth. Blood spills from my lips and splatters onto the floor.

“I was going to kill that bastard’s brat,” he snarls, looming over me like a demon. “But now? I’ll wait. Let you carry it to term and then rip it from your womb with my bare hands.”

A choked gasp escapes as I curl protectively around my belly, instinct eclipsing fear.

He leans down, fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my face to his. Without thinking, I rake my nails across his cheek, shoving him away.

“Blyat! You bitch!” he howls, stumbling back, staring at the blood smeared across his fingertips like it shocks him more than the pain.

Rage twists his face. With a snarl, he rears back and drives his boot into my ribs. Agony explodes through my side, stealing the breath from my lungs as I collapse, gasping and writhing on the cold, blood-slick floor.

He adjusts his suit, his breath still ragged. “Enjoy the time you have left with your baby, Sandy. Because the moment it is born...” His voice turns to ice. “It is gone.”

Then he turns and walks out, leaving me trembling on the floor. Alone with the body of the man he killed.

The cell feels smaller now, its walls closing in as my situation sinks deeper into my mind. Blood trickles from the corner of my mouth, metallic and warm against my tongue. I press my fingertips to my swollen lip, wincing as pain radiates through my face. My ribs ache, but it is the terror for my unborn child that twists like a knife in my chest.

Time seems to stand still as I lay curled on the concrete floor, one arm wrapped protectively around my belly, the other still clutching the blood-slick spring that gave me a moment's victory before everything went so horribly wrong. The baby shifts inside me, a gentle roll that brings tears to my eyes.

“I know, little one,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “I know you're scared, too.”

The dead man's eyes stare at the ceiling, already glazed and vacant. Blood pools beneath his head, inching across the concrete floor in a slow, crimson tide. I force myself to look away as bile rises in my throat. I’ve seen violence before andeven caused it moments ago with my makeshift weapon. Still, the casual brutality with which Morozov executed his own man sends a bolt of terror through me.

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