42. Roman
CHAPTER 42
Roman
I make it to the stage as the pakhan flees.
His personal guard provides cover for him, firing at anyone in the vicinity. I dodge a bullet whizzing toward me. It misses me by chance. I’ve veered just barely out of the way to escape its path.
I’m firing return shots as I do.
“ARGH!” screams one of the pakhan’s soldiers. He goes down as one of my bullets strikes him.
I leap over his body in my pursuit of the rest of them.
There’s a wide berth between us. The pakhan ’s rounded the hall by the time I’m midway through.
He can run all he likes. But he’ll never escape me.
I’ll move heaven and earth to make it to him. I’ll walk through fucking fire if it means taking him out.
He disappears up a flight of stairs that I quickly leap up, closing the distance further.
Three more of his men ambush me.
They appear from side doors and veer straight toward me. I’m quick enough on the uptake to land a shot to one of their chests. He drops to his knees and then the floor, never to get up again. The other two make it close enough to strike.
I slam the butt of my rifle into the first soldier’s gut and then smash my fist into the face of the second. The first tries to stay on his feet to counter my hits.
He stands no chance. I take him out with a two-piece combination. An uppercut and then a hook that knocks him out. He collapses with the other two minions that have gone down.
The few seconds it’s taken me to eliminate them has only added to the pakhan ’s lead. I round the next corner to find nothing but an empty hall. I dart toward each door, wrenching them open with my rifle, ready to fire.
After as many rounds as I’ve sprayed, I have to be careful. I’m likely down to my last ten or twelve bullets.
The pakhan will meet his end at the brutality of my bare hands, but in order to get to him, I’ll need to shoot my way through his men.
The doors are dead ends. Rooms with plush furnishings clearly meant for club members. Probably rooms where they’re supposed to indulge in their depravities in private. Katerina had described such a room to me—she’d said it resembled a nice bedroom where she was supposed to perform.
That thought alone ignites yet another level of anger inside me.
I charge toward the end of the hall, following the only door the pakhan could’ve gone through.
Everywhere else in the hotel, gunfire crackles. The echoes of the gunfight going down in the ballroom reach my ears. The screams and desperate thundering of footsteps are almost as loud as the assault rifles going off.
It’s the soundtrack of a massacre. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people will die here tonight.
Any moment the city police will show up and attempt to get the battle under control.
There’s not a second to waste. I must annihilate the pakhan and then everything else can go to shit.
The bastard has been sabotaging me. He has hurt Katerina. He killed my father.
I’m a predator prowling the halls of the Midnight Society. My boots pound on the wooden flooring one after another as I prove my hulkish size doesn’t slow me down. I’m barreling down the hall toward the last door where he must’ve disappeared inside.
I wrench it open, expecting to enter a room full of the pakhan ’s soldiers.
I’m half right. There’re two more of them that immediately open fire on me. I dive back behind the wall in the hall. We trade bullets as they shoot at me and I pop out long enough to shoot at them.
A bullet burns through my shoulder. I grunt at the immediate flame of pain that engulfs me. But it’ll take more than a bullet to the shoulder to bring me down. I’ve been shot six times before and carried on during a fight like this.
I get my revenge with the next pull of my trigger.
The jackass who shot me ends up taking one of my bullets to the neck.
One more to go…
“Run now or be prepared to die!” I roar over the whip-like crack of our gunfire. “You are willing to die for him but he doesn’t give a fuck about you!”
The last henchman goes down like I’ve predicted he would. Using some of my last bullets, I hit him first in the kneecap and then between the eyes.
I’m slicked with sweat stepping out from behind the wall. I enter the room heaving ragged breaths, teeth clenched and hate burning in my gaze.
At last the pakhan and I have been reunited.
He’s standing calmly in wait for me.
… with Katerina.
His guards may be gone, but he’s found a new form of protection. Doing what all pussy bitches do and hiding behind an innocent woman or child.
My woman.
A million questions rush my mind, like how the fuck she’s even here in the first place, and what could’ve gone wrong for her to be in his clutches?
“Ya dolzhen byl znat’, chto ty eto sdelayesh’. Ty trus? * ,” I spit out.
He smirks condescendingly. “Ya umnyy, Zver. Umneye tebya? * .”
He wraps an arm around Katerina’s hips and draws her closer ’til she’s pressed up against his front. I take several heavy footsteps forward with clenching fingers dying to crack his fucking skull.
But he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Uht, uht, Zver,” he says in his smooth accent. “Stay where you are… or she will suffer the consequences.”
Katerina’s trembling in his hold.
Try as she might to keep calm, there’re tears misted in her dark eyes and her chin quivers every few seconds. She’s a nervous wreck, once again in the arms of the man who bought her like a possession.
It’s enough to make me feral. Turn me into an animal. The very fucking beast I’m named after.
“Let her go,” I say in a low growl. “Get your fucking hands off her.”
“But why?” he asks. He nuzzles the side of her face, nipping at her ear. His smirk grows even more arrogant and taunting. “She remembers so well what it feels like for me to touch her.”
A howl of anger vibrates out of me and I break into a fast stride toward them. I’ll crush every bone in his body. I’ll crack his skull open and bash in his brains. His blood will be the sweetest fucking victory of my life.
The pakhan stumbles several paces back, taking Katerina with him. He points the gun he has at her head and clicks his tongue all over again.
“Uht, uht. You decide how this goes. Take one more step, Zver. Such a beautiful woman. Such a pity for me to kill her.”
* ? Ya dolzhen byl znat’, chto ty eto sdelayesh’. Ty trus - I should have known you would do this. You’re a coward.
* ? Ya umnyy, Zver. Umneye tebya - I’m smart, beast. Smarter than you.