Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
KOSTYA
T he pain in my shoulder was intense.
Sharp, stabbing, burning, but it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was Marina’s safety.
I fired two shots at the man who shot me, dead man number one.
Plaster exploded around him as he ducked for cover behind the doorway.
Marina screamed again.
She was closer to them than she was to me.
She was still standing in the bedroom doorway, and I was across the living room.
“Marina,” I said, motioning for her to get behind me.
I didn’t think she even heard me.
Her eyes were wide as they went between the new bullet holes in my shoulder and the doorway where the man had shot from.
The gunman who had already hit me popped out from behind the doorframe and fired again, barely missing me .
I returned fire, but my aim was shit.
I couldn’t shoot with my right hand. My shoulder wouldn’t lift as blood soaked through my sweater. I switched to my left hand and fired again, my shots going wide.
Fuck.
I should’ve trained with both my dominant and non-dominant hands.
With soon-to-be dead man number one still firing at me, I was forced to duck for cover, hiding behind the once pristine sofa that now had several bullet holes in it. Another man ran into the room, going straight for Marina. Dead man number two.
I tried to get a shot off, but shooting with my left hand, it went wide again and he grabbed Marina by the throat, whipping her around and using her as a human shield.
Fucking coward.
The soon-to-be dead man number two held his gun to her temple as tears streamed down her face.
“Put down your weapon,” the man yelled in a heavy New York accent.
The fuckers weren’t even Russian.
Solovyov probably had to hire some local thugs that didn’t know shit about Gregor.
I bet his men were too chickenshit to dare to come into Ivanov territory armed. They knew the consequences. Even if the rumors about Gregor going soft had reached them…they would’ve still known it was a suicide mission.
“Not on your fucking life,” I yelled back .
“Drop it or she dies,” he said, pressing the barrel of the gun into her temple until she let out a pained whimper.
Marina didn’t look scared. Tears flowed from her eyes, but there was nothing but determination and fire behind them. She wasn’t scared; she was pissed.
“Do it,” the soon-to be dead man number two yelled again, ducking behind Marina, making a kill shot too risky even if I wasn’t injured.
I dropped my gun on the floor and kicked it away for good measure as I eyed the pistol sitting on the table among the stacks of rubles.
“If you so much as take a fucking step, I’m going to kill the bitch.”
“That would be rather fucking stupid, even for an American,” I said, refusing to let my emotions show, but letting my accent come out thick and heavy.
Emotions got people killed.
I needed to be cold, hard, and logical.
If I could piss off the dead men, maybe I could get the upper hand.
Her life depended on it.
“If she’s dead, there’s nothing that’s going to protect you from me. What kind of coward uses a woman as a human shield? Do American men not have enough balls to fight on their own? All this next day delivery and climate control make you weak?”
I was laying it on thick. But I knew these men probably had no idea what they’d walked into and the veins pulsing in dead man number one’s forehead told me my words hit home .
“The kind that is going to make it out of here alive,” he shot back.
“Unlikely,” Marina said, and the man squeezed her throat tighter and pressed the gun to her temple hard enough she bit back a wince.
Good girl, she wasn’t showing weakness. She knew that would only encourage them.
“Hurry the fuck up,” dead man number two said, talking to dead man number one who was still taking cover in the doorframe.
He was so far out of his league it was hardly the same fucking sport. He was a kid, barely twenty, who was probably used to stealing candy from babies, and cash out of grandmas’ purses. This was at a whole new level, and he wasn’t prepared.
He ran into the room, eyeing me warily as he tucked his gun into the back of his pants.
“You don’t want to do this,” I told him.
“Shut the fuck up,” number two yelled.
“Do you know who I am? What I am?” I asked number one, ignoring number two.
“If I don’t, they’ll kill me,” he said, glancing over to Marina, an apology in his eyes. Yeah, he did not sign up for this shit. But it was too late now.
“I am Konstantine Nikolai Ivanov,” I said, and watched the realization wash over his face.
Fear, genuine fear, painted his features.
He may not have recognized me on sight, but he knew the name.
“What do you think is going to happen when my people find you?” I asked .
“Shut the fuck up, or I will kill the bitch,” number two screamed again, and I wondered if he was on something. Powdered courage maybe? The way he was shaking and his eyes started bouncing around, I knew he was on something. That made him even more unpredictable.
Fuck.
Number one grabbed the bag and just scraped all the money and the guns into the duffel. His hands shaking so badly several of the bound stacks fell to the carpet, and he struggled to pick them up.
One of them shaking because of drugs, the other OD-ing on adrenaline. Fucking fantastic.
“Do you have it all? If we miss a single fucking thing he’s going to?—”
“You shouldn’t worry about Solovyov,” I said. “You’re never going to see him again. I’m going to kill you before you get the chance.”
Marina clenched her jaw, and I could see her shoulders tightening as she subtly moved her arm. She was getting ready to throw her elbow back into his gut and try to get away.
I met her eye and shook my head.
This was not some Hollywood movie where she could distract him long enough with one gut punch and get away from him.
Maybe if I had my gun in my hand, but even then it was too risky.
If she missed, if she hit his ribs instead of his solar plexus, or he was too high to feel it….
No, it was too risky .
Of course, I would kill them before they left the room, but I refused to jeopardize her life.
And it had absolutely nothing to do with the promise I made to her sister, and everything to do with the fact that she was mine. I wouldn’t let some two-bit gun-for-hire take what was most important to me.
Marina may have been the most infuriating, irrational, impulsive pain in my ass that I have ever had to deal with, but she was mine.
Mine to hold. Mine to protect. Mine to love. Until death do us part. But that day was not fucking today.
“You got it all?” dead man number two said, the barrel of the gun still pressed tightly to her head.
His death was going to be painful. I’d make sure of it.
“Let’s go,” dead man number one said as he zipped up the duffel and threw it over his shoulder, pulling out his gun and pointing it at me as he backed away.
Dead man number two didn’t let Marina go.
He held on to her, gripping her by the back of her neck and walking backward toward the door, using her to block any possible attack I could make.
“I hope whatever he paid you was worth it,” I said. “Because you won’t have time to use it.”
Dead man number two started firing wild shots again, forcing me to hit the floor to take cover.
The second he was out the door, I stood and grabbed my gun.
Blood was dripping down my arm. As I moved to the door, the room swam around me. I shook it off and followed .
I got to the doorway just in time to see the elevator doors start to close.
Marina’s face looked pale, as one of them whispered something in her ear.
“Don’t worry, moy zaichonok , I will get you back. I will always come for you.”
She met my gaze, her eyes hardening in a way that made my heart ache as she nodded.
She didn’t believe me.
Marina didn’t believe that I would get to her in time, that I could rescue her before those men did whatever vile things they had whispered in her ear.
She had given up. The woman so full of life, so full of determination to experience everything the world offered, had given up.
Several people poured out of their rooms at the commotion.
“Get back into your rooms, lock the doors,” I said, booming my words with authority.
“What’s going on?” some man in a velvet dressing gown said, with a woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old in red leather cowering behind him.
“NYPD,” I lied. “Everything’s under control but get back into your rooms and lock the doors. The hotel will tell you when it’s clear.”
It always amazed me how easily Americans believed anything I said if I told them I was law enforcement. No one asked for a badge, no one asked for any type of proof. They just went into their rooms and locked their doors.
Maybe it wasn’t gullibility, maybe it was some kind of sense of self-preservation? Something the men who took Marina clearly lacked.
Gun still drawn, I ran down the hall to the door with the gold sign above it indicating the stairs. Just as I reached for the handle, one of the other elevators opened, and I leveled my gun in that direction, ready to fire in case they had sent more men to deal with me.
Instead, Gregor, Mikhail, and Damien jumped out with their guns drawn.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I bit out. My left shoulder slumping down with relief as I lowered my gun.
“We knew there was trouble, so we came up to help, and then we heard shots were fired, so we thought?—”
“You’re late. They already took her. I need to—I’ve got?—”
“Go,” Gregor said. “We’ll split up. Mikhail, take the roof in case they get out of the building.”
Mikhail nodded and ran past me up the stairs, his sniper rifle strapped to his back.
I ran down the stairs, flight after flight, struggling to keep my focus and my feet straight as the stairs swirled around me. I had lost far too much blood, but it didn’t matter.
Blood could be replaced. Marina could not.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I had to stop for a moment, bracing my hand on the wall as the room spun and bile rose in my throat. I pushed it back down and headed to the lobby, straight to the banks of elevators.
The elevator car the dead men and Marina were on was on the second floor and heading to me.
Screams sounded around me as I pulled out my gun and aimed it toward the elevator, waiting for the gilded doors to slide open.
I was ready.
Two shots between the eyes and Marina would be safe.
Even if I couldn’t hold the gun steady, I could keep them trapped just long enough for Gregor and Damian to give me the backup I needed.
As soon as the doors opened, I would know that she was safe, that I had not failed her so completely.
Finally, a high-pitched ping announced the elevator’s arrival.
Gun aimed, I was ready to take action.
The doors opened to a family all wearing “I Heart New York” T-shirts, staring in horror at me.
The man, his eyes wide, didn’t move, but the woman was the one who acted. She grabbed her kids and yanked them behind her.
Fuck.
Without saying a word, I tucked my gun in my waistband and turned to the other elevator that was opening to reveal Damien and Gregor, armed and ready to fight.
They looked at me and I clenched my teeth, trying to hold back the rage threatening to break free, and let rationality take control.
“She’s gone.”