Page 131 of Destined for the Devil
"No, man, with a feather." I couldn't stop the sarcasm spilling out of me. "Yes, with a whip. Are you also fucking stupid, besides being violent and aggressive?"
Once again, annoyance and anger settled on his face. "Fuck, you really are a fucking brat, aren't you?" Sergei spat back with irritation. He huffed and turned away, choosing to ignore my existence. I put on my sweater and jacket and slumped into a seat, finally feeling some semblance of warmth.
I sat silently and merely waited, staring at nothing. Where was Roman? What was happening to him? He could already be dead for all we knew, and this was just us all walking to our deaths.
Time ticked by, and dusk began to settle on the surrounding Italian landscape. After hours of silence, I noticed a few cars pull up outside the jet and spoke up. "Who are these people?"
"Rental cars.” Sergei didn’t look up from his phone. “There are ten guys coming; we're going to have to get there somehow. I take it you're not really a military mastermind." Every chance he got, he tried to put me down, but the joke was on him because I didn’t give a fuck how he felt.
"How did you figure out his name was Giovanni?" I remembered he called him that out of nowhere. He looked up for a brief second but didn’t answer. "Who told you?"
"No one told me. I knew who he was before Roman ordered a hit on your dad, I just didn't tell him.” Of course he didn’t. What a piece of shit. “I also didn't fucking know you were Dave's daughter until like a week ago. And then it hit me—who he was."
Sergei’s answer made my blood boil, and it threw me back into a flashback that had nothing to do with the situation we found ourselves in. "Did you call those girls to Roman's apartment when we were dating? In August?"
Sergei was silent for a mere few seconds before he confirmed it with a laugh. "Yeah!" My face flushed red at his lighthearted answer.
"Why would you do that? What were you trying to achieve?" The memory still made me angry as fuck—the way they barged in, touched Roman’s arm, and treated me like garbage.
Once again, Sergei’s response was accompanied by a chuckle. "I dunno.” He shrugged without any interest. “Just thought it would be funny. Were you shocked when they came?"
What a sick and twisted psycho. But the sound of an airplane engine somewhere nearby broke through all my anger.
“Let’s go.” Sergei motioned for me to follow him, and we stepped out into the brisk March evening.
The cold air nipped away at my cheeks as we both stood on the pavement and watched absolute giants exit the private jet. Dressed in black, they looked like they were ready for combat. Automatic weapons hung off their shoulders, their heavy boots pounding the pavement with every step.
Sergei approached one of them, and they shook hands, greeting each other in Russian while the others looked at me curiously, like I was some weird zoo attraction.
The man Sergei was speaking with tilted his head and jutted his chin out at me, asking Sergei something in Russian. Miraculously, I understood the two words.Kto ona?Who is she?
Sergei launched into an explanation, but the man shook his head,responding with what I guessed were words of discouragement about me coming along.
I didn't even wait for Sergei to translate. "I'm coming with;thatis non-negotiable." I threw Sergei's words back at him as soon as he turned to me. He rolled his eyes and waved me off, continuing his conversation with the man who looked me over in contemplation.
"We don't have all fucking night. Let'sgo." I was losing all patience, but the unknown Russian man turned to me, gracing me with the thickest Russian accent I’d ever heard.
"When you hurry, you only make people laugh. You have that expression?" he asked me, amused, but I was fucking done with everyone's bullshit.
"No,” I deadpanned. “We have another expression—time is money. Ever heard of that one? You want to get paid?Let's fucking go."
That shut both of them up, but then Sergei grabbed my arm and quickly led me away to a waiting car. "You need to shut your big fucking mouth, you hear me?" He threw a warning my way, oblivious to the fact that his words meant nothing to me.
I yanked my arm out of his hand and finally stood up to him. "Don't fucking talk to me like that.” I got right in his face, ready to punch him again. “Why are you delaying? Are you fucking scared? Then fucking grow a pair. I have bigger balls than you. We're getting Roman out, and we haveno more time to wait. I'll stay away, just like you told me." I finished sweetly, and before he could serve me a comeback, I swung the passenger seat door open and hopped inside.
Huffing and puffing, he rounded the car and climbed into the driver’s seat just as all the other men made their way to the other vehicles. We picked up two heavyweights from the plane and set off.
Fuck. I had no clue what the fuck we were supposed to do. Storm a house? A villa? A hotel room? Were we even sure John brought Romanto the same place I had been at?
"How do we even know where they are?" I asked, my voice sounding a lot less confident than before.
"I placed a tracker in his phone and in the heel of his shoe because I had a sneaky suspicion you were going to be a complete fucking nightmare and make me risk my life for him.” Sergei sped down an almost pitch-black road toward the unknown. “It wasn’t easy. We had a big argument about him wearing those specific shoes before we left. Like a married couple,” he explained, full of vitriol.
Wow. Maybe he wasn’t rotten to the core.
Panic surged through me with every passing minute until Sergei pulled into a small town, navigating through narrow streets and past beautiful homes. He drove further until the properties became larger and the lights scarcer. Finally, he turned off the headlights of the car and stopped in what looked like a courtyard of an old church.
We all sat motionless for a few seconds until he turned to me and spoke seriously, all of his previous anger gone. "We probably have about five minutes before someone hears the commotion and calls the police. The cops will arrive in another ten. That’s fifteen minutes. In that timeframe, we have to disarm him and his men, find Roman and get him out, and not get blown up. That’s a lot of shit, and we’re going in blind.” He nodded, and I did too. “Your job is to turn this car around and sit here andwait.”He leaned in and enunciated that word, staring right into my eyes. “If I'm alive, I will bring Roman, and you will drive us all off. Understand?"
