Page 11 of Cruel Russian King
“If you shoot, we kill the girl!” one of the masked men barked. “Drop your weapons!”
“No!” Ninel shouted. “If you want me dead, shoot me. If not, I’m not going down without a fight!”
Brave little thing. I smirked, impressed.
I gave a subtle nod to the men in front of me. I fired two quick shots above their heads and they dropped like flies.
As I spun around to face Ninel, she lunged at the man in front of her. She slashed him across his arm before slamming her heeled foot into his chest. He went down…hard.
Damn.
For a fragile thing she packed a punch.
Ninel turned to the other man but he shot at her before she could attack him. But instead of a gunshot echoing in the air a soft hiss escaped the mouth of the gun.
She gasped and her hand shot to her shoulder where a tranquilizer dart stuck out.
She yanked it free and threw it on the ground, breathing hard.
I caught her around the waist as she stumbled, then sagged into me.
She looked at me for a few moments shaking her head, trying to fight the drug that was already coursing through her veins
“Artyom…” she murmured as her eyes fluttered shut.
I tapped her cheek once, twice. “Ninel! Stay with me!”
Nothing.
I turned to my men, voice cold. “Let’s move.”
I scooped her into my arms and carried her to one of the SUVs. One of my men opened the door and I climbed into the backseat with Ninel cradled on my lap. One of my men took the wheel; another took my car.
We drove off and I looked down at Ninel.
“Checkmate, Lev,” I whispered, brushing a knuckle over her cheek. “She’s mine now.”
Chapter 4 - Ninel
My eyes shot open and I sat up abruptly, ignoring the pounding in my skull. I looked around. The room I was in had nothing but a bed. Panic surged through me as I scrambled off it, rushing to the curtains in search of a window that might tell me where I was. I yanked the fabric aside only to be met with boarded up windows. I rushed to the other two curtains and was met with the same fate.
There were two doors in the room. One led to a bathroom and the other a walk-in closet, each with narrow, high-set windows I couldn’t reach. There was also nothing in the room I could stand on.
Shit.
I didn’t have my phone to call for help and my knife was confiscated so I couldn't unlock the bedroom door. Whoever had taken us must’ve been watching either me or Artyom.
But who were they?
Someone with a vendetta against the Safin family? An enemy of the Rykovs? Or maybe the ghost enemy we hadn’t been able to put a name to yet?
I began to pace, my mind racing as fast as my heart. I was fine, shaken, but unharmed, but was he? They'd always take out the tougher opponent first to get full control.
If I were to escape this room and found Artyom, would he even be able to walk? He was bigger than I was, all muscle. And at least a foot taller than I was. There was no chance I could carry him out on my own.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. Taking both of us only meant more people would be looking,more firepower behind the search. I had to find a way to reach someone, to send a signal, anything to let them know where we were. There were no cameras that I could see, which meant I might have a shot at picking the lock.
I tore through the bathroom cabinets, rifled through the closet, desperate to find something, anything, that could help. A loose wire, a forgotten tool, even a broken hanger would have given me a chance. But I came up empty.
