Page 8 of The Enemy's Defector
Once more, his beefy hand smacked my face as he shoved my skirt up. I blinked, dizzy from the panic attack of this horrendous situation and his hits. My skin stung from the hits, almost numbing my mind.
“Have you no loyalty for your uncle?”
“No!” I screamed, bucking back so hard that he leaned forward too far over me. I recoiled, shuddering at him touching me at all despite my clothes that he hadn’t fully gotten off me yet. “I will never be loyal to him!” The idea of being loyal to the asshole who killed my father was so ludicrous that it jarred me into action. The suggestion that this brutish guard could try to touch me like Nik had spurred me into fighting back harder.
Dmitri slanted over to keep me in place, but he was so obsessed with punishing me before my uncle returned that hedidn’t realize he wasn’t only bringing his body closer to pin me. He also thrust his side toward my hand. More specifically, the holster strapped to him that held his gun.
I grabbed it, not thinking twice, and wedged my hand between us.
One shot stopped him. I aimed it at his body, not caring where I hit. Inches gapped between us and I was sure I’d get a solid hit. And I did—I sank a bullet into the center of his mass. Right in the neck, near his collarbone.
“No,” I yelled again as he slumped to the side, clutching at the blood oozing out of him. “I will never be loyal to the man who killed my father.” Gritting my teeth as I watched the realization cross over his face, I stared at him with utter defiance and shot him again, this time, right at his heart.
Another rushed exhale and grunt of pain left him. Shock took charge, though, and as he locked his bewildered gaze on me, I let it sink in that I was the one who’d end his life. That I was the woman who would stop him and tell him that he could not do as he pleased with me.
“I renounce the Kozlov name,” I growled through clenched teeth, empowered yet terrified of the fact that I’d killed someone. That I’d taken charge of my defense and shot at this horrible man.
Watching him stagger and drop to the bed as blood seeped out of him, I kept my fingers locked in a tight grip on the gun. They trembled. My arms shook, but as I stood, my knees stayed steady and I turned to face him as he lay more on the bed he’d tried to rape me on. Flatter now, as he lost the energy and blood to be upright, I trained the gun on him and narrowed my eyes, daring him to survive those hits.
“You will not punish me. You will not doanythingto me—ever again.” All the memories of him trying to paw at me, the instances where he wanted to take advantage to cop a feel, orderme to suck him off or show him myself. Those recollections filed through my mind as I stared him down. Triumph at removing such an awful man came next.
The flesh on my face where he’d hit me was still warm, tingling with the impact of his strikes, and I relied on that to keep me in the moment. I’d never killed anyone before. I’d never shot someone like this. The stunned state ofohmygodcould render me too numb and speechless, locked in panic mode, but this was no time to break down and accept the finality that I was, actually, a killer.
A sharp shriek from the hallway sounded over the panted, shallow breaths Dmitri gave as he lay on the bed. His eyes stayed open, albeit narrowed in pain, and he didn’t allow a second for me to look away from the gruesome reality that I’d shot him.
But the sound of Joann in pain or reacting in fear snapped me into action.
Stepping back from the bed but keeping the gun pointed at Dmitri, I forced the panic andohmygodsensations of shock away. I’d dwell on this later. I’d rationalize how I’d killed Anton’s favorite lackey at another time. Right now, I had to help Joann. I had to get away. And I had to clean up the evidence of what I’d done here.
When I refused to go to the Ivanov household to fulfill that old marriage arrangement my father and Grigory Ivanov made many, many years ago, I made myself a defiant traitor to Anton’s wishes.
But killing Dmitri solidified how against my uncle I was. Nothing could undo this action. It was the last straw that would make me an enemy of the Kozlov name—my own name—but I didn’t regret a second of it.
Dmitri growled, making a gurgling sound, and I worried that he could still hurt me. Without letting him have a chance to grab for another gun he might’ve had on himself, I shot him in theface, ending his life once and for all. This time, he dropped fully back onto the bed and didn’t stir again.
Go. Go. Go!
I breathed faster, unsteady and shaky as I spun and ran out to save Joann. The other guard was trying to rape her, holding her against the wall, and I didn’t have to slow down to think. I shot him, too, in the head.
Joann screamed as he pitched toward her, but before he’d fall on her, she dodged to the side. Again, and again, I emptied a few more bullets into him, ensuring he’d stay dead and would no longer be a threat. Not to me. Not to Joann. Not to anyone ever again. This asshole was finished doing my uncle’s nefarious dirty work for him. If I could, I’d kill all his men, most of which were new recruits and not at all loyal to the standards my father used to insist upon.
“Are you all right?” I asked Joann, then swallowed hard. My throat was so dry from the adrenaline rush, and I had to swallow again to hopefully make my voice less hoarse. “Are you?—”
She snapped out of her reverie with a flinch. Looking down at the guard who’d tried to hurt her and rape her, she nodded and stepped back toward me. “Are you?”
I nodded, telling her that I was the one who’d fired the gun and that Dmitri wouldn’t be coming for either of us now.
“Someone will have heard the shots,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I replied, willing my heart to slow from the trauma and fight-or-flight instinct that revved me up and emboldened me to kill the one trying to harm me. “I need…” Again, I swallowed and cleared my throat. “I need to hide them.”
“We.” She turned toward me suddenly, wrapping me in her arms. She didn’t cower at the blood splatter on me. She didn’t hesitate to offer me comfort. In her embrace, I could slow my pulse and close my eyes at the pure relief and securityshe offered me. Hugging her back for the briefest moment, I absorbed all of the love that I could.
“We need to hide them and then you must go,” she said, dropping back to the whispering level of conversations. Because she was right. Another guard would’ve heard the gunfire. More soldiers would be here soon, to investigate and then capture me for going so darkly against my uncle’s wishes.
I couldn’t be here like this.
I couldn’t linger by the evidence of my kills and the proof of my ultimate defiance.
