Page 44 of Deception

Run. Run, run, run…My instincts scream at me.

Jumping out, the air whooshes out of my lungs at the screech of wheels on the tarmac. I’m running back the way we came when the sedan reverses, spinning to a stop right in front of me while the other car closes me in.

Motherfucker!Pulling back, I take aim and shoot as the back door swings open.

I get another shot before I get yanked back, and darkness surrounds me with the sound of heavy doors slamming shut.

This isn’t Tomasz.My gut twists with certainty, making me close my hand tighter around the firearm, making sure I don’t drop it while I try to wrangle myself free. It’s impossible though. Even without my vision, I can tell that I’m outweighed by the almost crushing hold the men have on my arms.

They must be men.Trying to force my vision to adapt to the bleakness of the van, I tug at my arms and push on the soles of my feet to leverage myself into a better position. Another pointless task that will only wear down my energy.

Women wouldn’t move the way these two do—with clump and brusqueness. Pushed and pulled around by them, I can’t tell whether I’m up or down. When they throw me into a corner of the van, my elbow hits a wheel arch, causing me to drop my weapon as the pain fizzes up my arm and muscles spasm with the aftershock.

With no idea of what they’re saying, the only thing I can be certain of it’s that they’re not speaking Russian. If my gut hadn’t already figured out that this isn’t Tomasz’s doing, the garbled rambling of the men pointing their short rifles leaves no room for doubt.

I am no longer in the hands of my dark Russian prince. For the first time since he took me, the fear I feel has nothing to do with my emotions or personal moralistic conflict and everything to do with the fact that I’ve always known I would die young.

With no one left, I’m the ghost I was always destined to be.

Nothing has changed.

I’m alone.

Inching my hand closer to the gun, I try to grab for it. My fingertips brush cool metal. Maybe I am on my own, but I can still put up a good fight. Do what it takes to stay alive one more second, even if it doesn’t matter in the end.

Edging the weapon closer, I almost have time to grab it. However, the jerk of the van sends it skittering away. I lift my foot to kick one man straight in the bollocks while the muzzle of the other’s rifle whips my head to the side. A kick to my side follows the hard hit.

The pain breaks the dam holding my tears at bay, and while the pain bursts through me, my howling sob robs me of my breath.

I never wanted to die alone.

But that’s what’s going to happen because I won’t be anyone else’s prisoner. I won’t survive what’s coming.

A terror I’ve never felt assaults me. Every muscle in my body steels with its chill. My gasps become painful and impossible to stomach as my stomach cramps and bile burns up my throat, bursting from my lips as one bastard hoists me up by my hair, dangling me like a punchbag in front of the other. Incapable of fighting back, I take every hit like a penance for all my failures. The price for all my sins.

There’s one that never flits or wades through the screaming of my thoughts. One that remains and brightens with every punch, kick, and slap. Even when I’m dropped to the floor, my body incapable of moving, it lights up my mind.

Tomasz—he is the only wrong I can’t get past. The only thought that remains in the dark.My enemy. My tormentor. The only light that refuses to die.

17

TOMASZ

What a fool.

I should’ve known that Red would’ve pulled a stunt like this. Eventually, I knew she was going to make a move outside the lines I’d set around her. Today, however, is a fucker of a day to do it.

“What’s happening?” I bark into the phone as I push the pedal to the gas on the Defender.

“There’s no sign of the girl,” Boris, Anton’s right-hand man, replies. “We’ve combed the streets around the hotel and the marketplace. Nothing.”

Anton answers his phone to another of the units he’s sent out to search the two major points of access to the town. A brow hitches as he listens intently, using his hand to signal for me to slow down. I can’t with the way my frustration is punching at my insides.

“You could wash your hands of her now,” Anton groans, bracing himself on the dashboard when I U-turn and head back towards town.

“The only thing I’ll be doing with my hands is wringing her neck,” I snap back at him.

When I screech to a halt outside the ocean club, Anton sighs. His exasperation is seeping through the cracks as he clears his throat and asks, “Are you going to keep her?”

---