Page 47 of Deception

This is why trust is overrated.

“I would have spared your daughter, but now, you’ll die knowing that she will spend her life whoring for your sins.”

“Plea—” The bullet to the head silences his plea before he slumps forward onto the desk with his wife’s screams filling the air.

The buzz that normally follows a kill never comes. My thoughts are all a whir of all the ways Sergi will hurt Red.My Red.The notion that he would go through her to get to me roars my rage into an inferno that blazes through my veins.

“You’ll start a war,” Anton tells me as I wipe the gun clean and plant it close to Hasim’s open hand on the desk. The words bring back Emin’s remark the night I took a bullet for her—Wars have been spurred over lesser things.

I’ll start it and I’ll finish it with the Sarapovs’ heads off their shoulders. The way it should’ve been from the beginning. Deals are for weaklings.

Walking out of the office, I pull my suit jacket closed over the blood spattered on my shirt.

“Call your men,” I tell Anton.

This isn’t war—it’s carnage. I’m going to annihilate the Sarapov name from this earth once and for all.

18

LUCY

After the beating in the van, my head is hazy. The aches and pains aren’t the worst. I’m relieved that they’re not more debilitating. I can move my limbs well enough to know I don’t have any broken bones. It means I can fight back, and with that realisation, my heart skips a beat as adrenaline floods my entire system.

In the bleakness, a promise hums, gradually becoming louder as my blood pumps faster to the frenetic rhythm of my heartbeat.

I’ll always find you.

Tears fill my eyes as the silent whispers become muted yells. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to push them out of my mind, I can’t. It’s as if Tomasz really is inside me, like he said, repeating all those promises that fill me with hope. Bastarding hope that will only end in disappointment, just like all the other times I trusted a man to save me.

You’re mine…he continues, and in order to contain the fury and sadness percolating through me, I must give in to the lull of his voice. I have no choice but to let his words reign over me so that I don’t fall apart.

No one can take you away from me.

Malyshka… Red… I’ll always find you.

Drawing a deep breath, I steel myself for what’s coming. At least this time I know that I’m the only one that can save me. If I have any hope left, it’s on me to push through and put up a fight.

The scuttle in darkness has me squinting to find the source. Wherever they’ve taken me, it’s cooler, and the smell of damp earth cloys in my lungs. The dank combination ices my bones as I shuffle forward onto my hands and knees, crawling towards the whimpers on the other side of the space.

“Hello?” I whisper hoarsely at the curled-up figure.

A loud sob bursts from the girl as I edge closer and blink, trying to adjust my sight to get my bearings. The chequered floor comes into focus slowly, even though the strain makes my eyes feel grainy. When my eyes have adjusted, I search around us for an escape.

“How long have you been here?” I ask her, trying to silence her heavy coughs that are worsened by her cries.

The shivers wracking through her make me all too aware of the draught. The light maxi dress, or what’s left of it, does nothing to soothe the chill. But if there’s a draught, there’s a way out. No matter how dank and dark this place is, there’s an escape.

Just like that, my senses light up. Following the sound of the dripping water, I edge around the room. It’s vast enough that the echoes of the girl’s sobs become lower the further I crawl from her.

There’s a thunderous crack that shakes the entire place. Rubble crumbles around me, and although my first instinct is to get to my feet and find a way out quicker, the girl’s scream has me stumbling back to her. My bare feet are sore, and my healing toes are throbbing. Still, I push past the pain when I spot the sliver of muted light, and the sound of open fire bleeds into the darkened room.

Adrenaline ignites deep in my belly with a strength that takes me by surprise. Until this point, I’ve been keeping myself alive for people that fed me to the sharks with no intention of saving me. Now, I want to live because I want to save myself. No matter what I have to do.

“Can you understand me?” I ask the girl sobbing in the corner while I try to bring her to her feet. “If you want to get out of here, you have to get up!”

Yanking her up, I practically drag her with me back in the direction of the light. There’s no mistaking that she’s scared, but we’re in a do-or-die situation right now, and if she’s going to continue holding me back?—

“I will leave you here if you don’t stop your fucking whining.” My scream echoes around us with the unmistakable shake of the ground beneath us.

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