Chapter 25 Sergei
SERGEI
Ipulled up to the address Jenson had given me and parked the car.
I don’t know how he’d done it. Maybe he’d traced the car across city cameras or dug through every property tied to Korolenko and his rats, but he said this was the place.
I didn’t question him. I trusted his instincts more than anyone’s.
If he said this was the place, then this was it.
I killed the engine and scanned the surroundings.
I quietly eased the door open, and as soon as I got out of the car, I spotted Sidorov and Vasiliev, the two bottom-feeding assholes who’d shown up at the casino with their bullshit offer.
They were standing guard in front of the hedges lining the driveway and began heading my way.
As soon as they were close enough to realize it was me, their hands went for the guns, but mine was already drawn. They fired, and I immediately fired back.
The assholes weren’t exactly quick on their feet, and it cost them. I got Sidorov right between the eyes, but Vasiliev wasn’t as clean. I hit him in the throat. It was a brutal shot and had to be painful as hell, but he had that shit coming. They both did.
Blood had just started to pool around them both when I spotted movement by the hedges over by the side gate. There were at least three more. Each of them was hiding in the shadows as they took their shots. They thought they could hide from me, but they were wrong.
I put them down, one by one, and never broke my stride.
Nothing was going to keep me from getting to Lina.
Nothing.
I continued toward the front door. My pulse was steady, almost too steady, but there was a slight tremor in my pinky finger.
That was the taste of weakness creeping in.
I knew I was getting closer to Lina, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to find when I stepped through that door. But I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
Zadora would do whatever it took to get under my skin, and he would use her to do it. I paused at the door, taking a moment to steady myself before I turned the knob and stepped inside. I thought I was ready for whatever he was going to throw at me, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
As soon as I walked through the door, I spotted Lina in the living room, and my blood started to boil with rage.
She was standing on some kind of stage, wearing nothing but my white button-down and a pair of heels.
Her arms were bound over her head like a fucking puppet, and when she realized it was me standing at the door, tears filled her eyes.
I was about to go to her when I saw him.
He was at her back in an instant. His arm moved in front of her, and he placed the blade of his knife at her throat. His cold gray eyes lit up as he purred, “You made it just in time.”
“Let her down.”
“You’re in no position to make orders, my friend.” His voice was calm. Too calm. “This is my show. You will play by my rules.”
Rage rolled through me like wildfire, and I wanted to rip the asshole in half. “You’re a fool if you think you’re going to walk away from this. I’m going to kill you. Let her go, and I’ll consider making it quick.”
“Pfft. He thinks he’s in control,” he scoffed. “He thinks this is about her, and maybe it is.”
He dragged the blade lightly across the side of her neck. It wasn’t deep, but it broke the skin, and a thin line of blood began to trickle from the wound. She flinched, but she didn’t cry. Her eyes locked on mine, and my pulse quickened.
“Yes, there it is,” he snickered. “He’s weak for her, just like I knew he would be.”
He shifted the knife and drew it slowly along her bicep.
It was another shallow cut, but it was enough to make her bleed—again.
The sick fuck was toying with me, and I was playing right into his game.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all.
I was too focused on getting to her to calculate a way to effectively end this thing without getting killed in the process.
That’s what he wanted.
“You want her back so badly?” Zadora brought the knife up to her bare breast and held it there as he ran his tongue along the crook of her neck. “Come take her.”
“Motherfucker.” I took a step forward, and he pressed the blade harder to her ribs and sliced her again. She gasped this time, and my stomach turned to fire. “Touch her again, and I’ll carve your eyes out while you’re still breathing.”
“Talk. Talk. Talk.” He lowered his free hand down between her legs, cupping her as he snarled, “That’s all you do. That’s all you can do, because one wrong move and I’ll gut this pretty, young thing and make a lamp out of her after I fuck her senseless.”
That did it.
Lina must’ve felt the shift in the air, because she moved before I could.
She lifted her foot and drove her heel into the top of his foot with everything she had.
He grunted and shifted his step. It was slight, but it was enough.
I closed the distance, and I was about to pull the trigger when I thought better of it.
I couldn’t take a chance of hurting Lina, so I charged him.
I was a breath away from tackling him to the ground when he recovered faster than I’d expected.
He turned, and his blade snapped out of his hand and into his other one.
He pierced his blade into my side as I lunged at him.
This wasn’t a graze or quick slice. This was deep, and it hurt like hell.
I lost my grip on my gun, but I didn’t let that slow me down.
I slammed my forearm into his throat and drove him back against the wall and away from Lina. That was my main thought. I had to get him away from her and keep him away from her. When she saw the blood at my side, Lina screamed my name.
It was the first time I’d heard it from her mouth in terror, and I never wanted to hear it again.
Zadora struck again, but this time, it wasn’t as deep.
I answered by slamming my forehead into his, splitting his brow.
Blood poured from his eye, but that didn’t stop him from coming at me again.
He swung wide, and I blocked with my injured side and felt something tear.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t slow me down.
If anything, it fueled me on. I slammed his wrist against the wall again and again until the knife fell to the ground.
He kept fighting, and I was growing tired of the bullshit.
I reached down, grabbed my own knife from its holster, and buried it under his sternum.
His breath hitched, and I gave it a firm twist. His knees gave way, and he slumped to a puddle on the floor. When he dropped, I went with him. Blood soaked my waist and chest. Lina tugged at her restraints as she called out to me, “Sergei! Sergei, please! Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m here… I’m okay.”
I tried to get up, and my hand slipped on something wet. I don’t know if it was his or mine. It didn’t matter. Zadora was dead, and Lina was still breathing. I dragged myself over to her, leaving a smear across the stage. She whispered my name, but I couldn’t respond.
I heard footsteps and tried to muster the strength to reach for my gun, but I didn’t have it with me. The door blew open, and Creed’s voice was the first I heard, “Jesus Christ…”
He was followed by Grim, Skid, and Goose, and I had no doubt that the others were close behind.
Skid was the first to go to Lina. He was Grim’s kid, and he was a good one.
He didn’t rush to take her down. First, he buttoned her shirt, making sure she was covered, and then he and Goose got to work on releasing her from her restraints.
Even with everything that was happening, Lina never took her eyes off me.
She was muttering for them to help me, but I knew it was too late.
I was losing too much blood. I was as good as gone.
Preacher knew it, too. I could see it in his eyes when he knelt down beside me. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I got to her.”
“Yeah, you did, but you bout got yourself killed in the process.”
“Had to.” I started to feel cold, and my eyelids were getting heavy. “I love her, Preach.”
“I know you do, son.” He looked over to Grim and said, “We need to get him to the hospital, and we need to do it now.”
Grim nodded, and together, they lifted me off the ground. When they started for the door, I rolled my head toward Preacher and muttered, “Lina.”
“We got her,” he assured me. “You just hold on. Stay here with us. You hear me? You stay here with us.”
He was right there, but his voice sounded so far away. Lina’s did, too. I could hear her crying as she called out to me, but her words seemed to fade off in the distance.
The world tilted sideways.
Then everything went dark.