Page 83 of Sexting the Bratva Beast
Too late.
I hear voices I don’t recognize, muffled from behind a door. I need to move. But my body is spreading roots, and Andrej should be here to protect me from whatever is going on, and I don’t know where he is because he went to get champagne and didn’t come back.
Then someone grabs my wrist from behind. Before I can protest and try to wrench my arm free, they clamp another hand over my mouth and pull me back against them.
“Don’t make a sound.” I recognize this voice in my ear.
Ivana.
“Library. Now!”
She drags me along the hallway and releases me when we’re standing outside the door to the library. Pressing a finger to her lips, a warning to be silent, she slides a gun from her pocket, opens the door, and enters the room first, checking for danger before she gestures for me to follow. She closes the door carefully behind me.
“Ivana, what’s?—”
“Ssh.” She shuts me down, then starts moving around the room, checking behind the smaller freestanding bookcases and underneath the desk. She even pulls the cushions off the sofa and examines the frame in case someone is hiding inside.
I follow her movements, mesmerized.
She is in control. No fear. No panic. To Ivana, high alert simply means following protocol to keep safe and minimize loss of life.
When she is satisfied that we’re alone, she gestures with the gun in her hand for me to hide behind a bookcase.
I don’t argue. But before I crouch behind the shelves, I ask, “What about you? Will you stay with me?” I sound needy. Frightened. A deer facing a hunter’s bullet.
But I don’t care because that’s exactly what I am.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen to people like me. I’m the person who picks up the pieces when other people’s lives are in tatters. My life has always been simple … until now.
She holds my gaze for several beats and then nods once. “Don’t come out. No matter what happens, you stay hidden. Understand?”
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “Who?—”
“No questions.”
I crouch behind the bookcase on my knees. I feel nauseous, and I pray that I won’t be sick. Not here. Not now. I want to ask Ivana if she knows where Andrej is. I want to know who managed to compromise security and infiltrate the house; whoever they are, they must know what they’re doing. They’re professionals.
Bratva. Just like Andrej and Leonid.
The gunfire is still echoing around my brain, overwhelming the silence of the library, and my mind chooses now to picture a bullet entering Andrej’s chest and piercing his heart. Like Cupid’s arrow. Only with deadly results.
My breath hitches in my chest. Adrenaline makes my heart skittish, and my brain cells swimmy, and I sit on the floor with my head between my knees waiting for everything to settle.
Keep it together. I have to keep it together for Andrej’s sake. And Ivana’s. I can’t expect her to help me breathe through a fucking panic attack while there are people outside with guns.
When I suck in enough oxygen to see clearly again, I get back onto my knees and peer between the books on the shelves in front of me. At first, I can’t see Ivana in the unlit room. But then her head comes into focus, and I realize that she’s sitting on the sofa facing the door as if reading in the dark is a regular occurrence in her world.
She’s expecting them. Which means that they haven’t found whatever they’re looking for. They haven’t found Andrej.
My heart leaps so hard, I’m frightened I’ll have a heart attack. As long as they’re still searching the house, Andrej is still alive; we’re simply providing a distraction.
Despite Ivana’s warning to stay out of sight, I’m about to crawl out of my hiding place and tell her that I’ll give myself up if it buys Andrej some time, when the faintest sound snags my attention.
What was that?
The door handle?
My resolve is squashed by the panic coursing through my veins. I have no idea who they are. They might be the ‘shoot-first, ask-questions-later’ kind of Bratva. They might be grenade-wielding psychopaths with orders to blow the entire place to smithereens.
