Chapter Thirty Seven
Ciara
My stomach knotted; my throat dry. I could scream. Someone in the room above or beside me would hear me. But would they do anything? And if they did, could they do anything? It would take seconds for him to cut my throat and then mere seconds for me to bleed out on the floor of my own bedsit. And if someone got to me in time, then what? They’d take one look at the four men crammed into my room with the formidable haircuts and the tattoos on their necks and turn around and walk right away. Who wouldn’t?
“Please,” I started. Humanise yourself. I was sure that’s what they taught in hostage 101. “I’m really sorry about your hand. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t my fault.”
Mistake number one.
“It fucking was your fault, you stupid slut. You sold me out to the O’Sullivans, bitch. And I never really got the chance to thank you.”
I was going to be sick. Right on his feet. My stomach tensed, another flood of nausea rushing through me. There had to be a way out of this. One that I was willing to take.
“He made me lure you back there. I didn’t have a choice.” It was a lie. There was a couple of tons of money in it for me. I should have made a better choice.
“There’s always a choice. Maybe I’ll be nice and give you one?” Nowak glanced down at his mangled right hand, then up at the men in the room. “We can stay here, and I’ll carve some pretty patterns in that face of yours, and then I’ll start slicing off body parts. Maybe I’ll start with those lovely tits. Or,” he paused, looking round at the men before his eyes came back to me. “We can put those tits of yours to good use. If we all agree that you’re worth the fuck, you can come work for me. I know just where to put you.”
None of those were options. I opened my mouth. There was a crash behind me, splintering wood, and a whoosh of air. Nowak’s eyes widened.
“Ciara! Get down.” I knew that voice. It filled my heart and my head. “Now!” he roared again.
I dropped to my haunches, Demon jumping over the top of me, his arm driving into the face of Nowak’s man to his right. He didn’t stop, punching repeatedly, holding the man with his left hand. The other men closed around him, and I watched on in terror from the floor. He turned quickly, taking a heavy blow to the left of his face, but his head barely moved and suddenly he was whirling and kicking, punching and blocking. If this hadn’t been the fight of our lives, for our lives, and it wasn’t the Polish mob baying for retribution, I would have sat back and watched his skills.
But this was life and death.
A man staggered backwards, regaining his balance, and then reaching down for something tucked in his boot. A knife.
“Demon!” His back was towards me, his arms grabbing Nowak lifting him up to the ceiling.
Dashing forward, I yanked at the iron bottomed frying pan that sat on my portable stove, and then, with all my strength, I swung. The man with the knife when down like a bag of lead, hitting the floor with a heavy thump. In front of me, Demon still tussled with the Polish number two, their arms swinging in the air haphazardly. The shot rang out; the noise filling the room, and I dropped to the floor again, my hands over my ears.
Demon took a hand from Nowak’s gun arm, hammering his fist into the face of the mafia underboss, till he was covered in blood and shouting something in Polish that I couldn’t understand. On the floor, two bodies slumped. In front of me, Nowak and Demon fought. But there was another. There’d been three plus Nowak. I grabbed the frying pan handle just as something tightened in my hair.
Pricks of pain bit my scalp, tiny, intense searing pain as someone yanked me to my feet, something cold against my throat, pushing against the sensitive flesh. Oh God.
“Call your boyfriend off my boss,” the accented voice growled in my ear.
“Demon!” He didn’t hear at first, another fist flying into the face of the Polish mobster and then into his ribs as he yelped in pain. “Demon!” I screamed now, shrill and loud.
He paused, glancing over his shoulder, hesitating. Nowak swung his arm, the black handgun connecting with the side of Demon’s face with a dunk, knocking him sideways. When he regained his balance, he spat something onto the floor.
Nowak stepped around him, coming to my side where the last remaining henchman held a knife to my throat, and pointing his gun at Demon’s forehead.
“Now that was fun. But we came here for something,” his accent filled the room, the only other sounds Demon’s heavy breaths.
Demon glanced at me; his eyes were so dark that they didn’t look like his. There wasn’t the hint of fear at the gun he stared down, only rage. I could see the tension on his face. He started forward, stepping over a limp body that was bleeding all over my carpet. Thread bare or not, I wasn’t getting that deposit back.
“Get your hands off her.” His voice was steady, controlled, but I could see the strain of that control in his eyes.
“I’m about to shoot you in the head, you stupid fuck. Don’t think you’re in any position to be giving us orders.”
“That’s not gonna happen, mate. But I’ll tell you what is.”
“Come on then. I feel like some light entertainment before I blow what little brains you have all over this shithole, and then fuck your girl on top of your dead body.”
Demon smirked. Had he gone entirely crazy? There was a gun pointing between his eyes, for fuck’s sake.
“Leave him, Nowak. Your argument is with me.”
His stump came out of nowhere, thudding heavily across my face like a baton, my lip popping with a fuzzy painful warmth. I cried out. From in front of me, I was sure Demon growled. He moved forward towards the Polish mobster, his face contorted. Whatever control he’d had, now gone. Nowak smiled, and I saw his finger clench on the trigger. A second shot. Louder. Filling the room. I screamed, my legs turning to jelly, falling to the floor.
“No! No! No!”