Page 111 of Wicked Vows (Suvorov Bratva 2)

I rush to her. It’s instinct at this point. The cops are down, and the usual bar sounds flush into my ears. Bad pop music. Commercials. News anchors spewing the latest crap.

I grab Liya.

She looks at me like she’s seen a monster. I quell the terrible realization that rises with that thought long enough to sweep my hands over her shoulders, her arms, her stomach.

She’s fine.

Everything is fine.

She’s not shot.

But why did she scream?

She struggles to speak with her hands over her mouth. I drag them from her lips and try to get her out of shock.

“Let’s go,” I urge. “We need to move.”

“Ja…Ja…” She points out the door. “She…”

My eyes sweep to the hallway once more. I inch toward the two bodies slumped in the doorway. One stares at the ceiling. The other is facedown. The sound of the television is much louder, much clearer in the hallway, outlining the shooting that happened on the FDR barely an hour ago.

“…police are currently on the hunt for two armed and dangerous gang members…”

My nostrils flare as I study the wreckage. The cop on the left is hugging his guts loosely, muttering something while glaring at me. His friend is motionless on the ground, his face a red ruin. It’ll be a closed casket funeral.

But there’s another body, one I didn’t see before.

Janine.

A pool of blood widens beneath her body, her face at the center of the puddle. The way it widens in a slow ooze reminds me of when I spilled a paint bucket on the roof garden.

Behind me, I hear Liya gagging. She loses the contents of her stomach in just a few short bursts. At least she’s not hurt.

A gurgle echoes from my left. The cop’s teeth chatter as he tries to speak. I ignore him as I whirl around to collect my wife from the doorway of the office. I hook my arm under her shoulders and scoop her up a bit. “We can’t stay here.”

“But Janine…”

“Is dead.”

She shakes her head while chanting, “No, no, no,no…”

I drag her up the hallway, her shoe getting caught on one of the cops. She gags and then bows forward, clutching my shirt as she dry-heaves. I don’t care if she hurls on my shoes. We’re not sticking around to wait for the entourage that these piggies most certainly called.

I bend to lift the gun from the remaining cop and aim it at his forehead. He looks up pathetically and tries to raise his hand in a plea for mercy.

I shoot.

Liya sucks air into her lungs while standing upright.

And then she starts to scream.

I smack my hand over her mouth and drag her, kicking and groaning, to a dark corner of the bar.

“Stop it,” I hiss as I pull out my phone. “You’ll draw more attention.”

Hot tears burn between my fingers, but I ignore her pain. I ignore the ache in my chest. I ignore the fact that my wife and I were fighting before the shit really hit the fan.

And I ignore the incessant nagging in the back of my mind that the last thing I said to her would have been those hurtful words.

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