Page 77 of Sergei
“Just doing my job.”
“And what exactly is your job?”
“At the moment, it’s teaching your boyfriend a lesson about making good on his word.” He reached for a cigarette and lit it as he said, “He thinks he can live by his rules and his rules alone, and I’m about to teach him that isn’t the case.”
“Is this because he helped me?”
“Oh, you think he helped you?” the man chuckled. “Sergei Volkov helps no one except himself. He was just looking to get himself an easy lay.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know him well enough to know that he will come for you, and when he does, I will kill him.” Lights flickered through the front window, and the man’s smirk widens. “Ahhh, there he is. Now, the real fun can begin.”
25
SERGEI
Ipulled up to the address Jenson had given me and parked the car. I don’t know how he’d done it. Maybe he’d traced the car across city cameras or dug through every property tied to Korolenko and his rats, but he said this was the place. I didn’t question him. I trusted his instincts more than anyone’s.
If he said this was the place, then this was it. I killed the engine and scanned the surroundings. I quietly eased the door open, and as soon as I got out of the car, I spotted Sidorov and Vasiliev, the two bottom-feeding assholes who’d shown up at the casino with their bullshit offer. They were standing guard in front of the hedges lining the driveway and began heading my way.
As soon as they were close enough to realize it was me, their hands went for the guns, but mine was already drawn. They fired, and I immediately fired back.
The assholes weren’t exactly quick on their feet, and it cost them. I got Sidorov right between the eyes, but Vasiliev wasn’t as clean. I hit him in the throat. It was a brutal shot and had to be painful as hell, but he had that shit coming. They both did.
Blood had just started to pool around them both when I spotted movement by the hedges over by the side gate. There were at least three more. Each of them was hiding in the shadows as they took their shots. They thought they could hide from me, but they were wrong.
I put them down, one by one, and never broke my stride.
Nothing was going to keep me from getting to Lina.
Nothing.
I continued toward the front door. My pulse was steady, almost too steady, but there was a slight tremor in my pinky finger. That was the taste of weakness creeping in. I knew I was getting closer to Lina, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to find when I stepped through that door. But I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
Zadora would do whatever it took to get under my skin, and he would use her to do it. I paused at the door, taking a moment to steady myself before I turned the knob and stepped inside. I thought I was ready for whatever he was going to throw at me, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
As soon as I walked through the door, I spotted Lina in the living room, and my blood started to boil with rage. She was standing on some kind of stage, wearing nothing but my white button-down and a pair of heels. Her arms were bound over her head like a fucking puppet, and when she realized it was me standing at the door, tears filled her eyes.
I was about to go to her when I saw him.
He was at her back in an instant. His arm moved in front of her, and he placed the blade of his knife at her throat. His cold gray eyes lit up as he purred, “You made it just in time.”
“Let her down.”
“You’re in no position to make orders, my friend.” His voice was calm. Too calm. “This is my show. You will play by my rules.”
Rage rolled through me like wildfire, and I wanted to rip the asshole in half. “You’re a fool if you think you’re going to walk away from this. I’m going to kill you. Let her go, and I’ll consider making it quick.”
“Pfft. He thinks he’s in control,” he scoffed. “He thinks this is about her, and maybe it is.”
He dragged the blade lightly across the side of her neck. It wasn’t deep, but it broke the skin, and a thin line of blood began to trickle from the wound. She flinched, but she didn’t cry. Her eyes locked on mine, and my pulse quickened.
“Yes, there it is,” he snickered. “He’s weak for her, just like I knew he would be.”
He shifted the knife and drew it slowly along her bicep. It was another shallow cut, but it was enough to make her bleed—again. The sick fuck was toying with me, and I was playing right into his game. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was too focused on getting to her to calculate a way to effectively end this thing without getting killed in the process.
That’s what he wanted.
