Chapter 23 - Diomid
Someone laughs loudly, and I jump in fright, realizing I was woken up by the movie playing in my living room.
I run my eyes and look around for Angel, but she’s not here.
What? Why? Why would she leave like that?
Standing up, I flick the remote and the TV switches off.
“Angel?” I call into the penthouse. No reply.
My heart sinks. “Angel?” I call again, moving from room to room, until I realize she’s fetched her phone from the kitchen counter and her house keys are no longer sitting in the bowl where she left them last night. She left.
I’m standing dumbfounded in the hallway outside my bedroom, running my fingers through my hair, an intense argument racing through my mind.
She left. Leave her alone, let her go.
No, you have to fight for her this time. You never even told her how you feel.
Maybe she doesn’t want to know how you feel because it will just make things more awkward.
Bullshit. If she says no after you’ve been open and honest with her, then at least you tried. You have to try, Dio.
I move left, hesitate, then move right and dart into my room to grab a pair of jeans, my sneakers, and a shirt.
Dressing in a hurry, I’m already running out of my house, only half dressed.
I kick the elevator button with my foot, and while it carries me downstairs, I button my shirt and straighten my hair, looking at my reflection in the mirrored wall.
Why did she leave like that? It doesn’t matter. Fight for her. She’s worth it.
She can’t have gotten far. The movie was only about ten minutes in—still right at the beginning. I must have fallen asleep before it even started. Fuck, I really was tired.
The doors open and I bolt through them, straight out of the building and into the street, looking left and right, my heart racing with urgency.
What I see, though, turns my blood to ice.
She’s standing with her back to me, and the large, towering form of Bardil Popov is standing in front of her, a gun held low at his side, pointing right at her. He looks furious. They’re speaking, but I’m not close enough to hear.
Fuck sakes, I don’t even have any weapons on me.
Option one, run upstairs and grab something… not a chance. I’m not letting her out of my sight for a fucking second.
Option two, then. Get closer and wait for a chance to take him by surprise. But no matter what, he is not taking her.
Angelika is managing to keep their conversation going, and to my surprise, she looks calm, composed. But I’m sure inside she’s terrified. She’s fucking brave. The strongest woman I’ve ever met.
I move along the edge of the building, keeping my head down, then slipping into an alleyway near where he’s blocking her.
From here, I can eavesdrop on what they’re talking about.
“You can’t fix it. But you can pay for what you did. I can use you to recover some of the costs I lost. I already have a buyer,” he spits.
The tension in my body triples, and I fight the urge to run straight at him now.
“I won’t come with you. I’d rather die than end up sold to one of those men,” she snaps back fiercely. I nod, you tell him, angel. He can’t have you. You belong to me. But I’ll never let you die. And I’ll never let him take you.
“You’re going to die, alright. It’s part of the deal. I told the buyer I want you disposed of after he’s done with you. Can’t have you coming back to haunt me. But I do want to make some money out of you in the process of getting rid of you,” he hisses.
I want to kill him. I want to rip his limbs from his body and beat him with the bloodied stumps of his own arms and legs. I want to hang him and watch the life slowly drain out of him.
“I thought you were rich, Bardil. It sounds like you’re having some money problems; otherwise, why would you be so worried about the sale of one girl?” she taunts him.
“You fucked it all up, you bitch,” he snaps. “You fucked it up. After the auction, I would have had enough to get out of trouble. I was going to have enough money to close the deal, as I was supposed to. You fucked it all up, and now I’m fucked!”
I press close to the wall, edging closer to them.
“So, to fix your own mistakes, you collected a group of innocent women to sell them like pieces of property?” Her voice is shaking slightly.
“I do what I have to do,” he huffs.
She narrows her eyes, tilting her head to the side as she observes him. I can see her thoughts running, her mind coming up with a plan.
“Do you realize that you’re a monster? Or are you oblivious as to how dark your soul is?” she asks, a wildly dangerous smile on her face. She’s taking a massive risk, pissing him off like that, making him even more unpredictable.
My heart races faster. But her risk is the perfect opportunity.
Her words take him by surprise, throw his guard, shift his focus.
“What the fuck?” he snarls in disbelief at her audacity.
“It’s a genuine question. I was just wondering. Do you know you’re going to hell?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, you fucking bitch. You don’t get to judge me!”
His eyes become unfocused as agitation steers him.
This is it.
Move, now, go, Diomid!
I run like a bolt of lightning from the alley, slamming the full weight of my body into his side. He’s thrown off balance, smashing into the ground, a loud huff of air is pushed from his lungs as we collide into the hard cement together, his body taking more of the impact as I land on top of him.
The struggle starts instantly. Both of us have the same urgent thought.
I reach for the gun, knowing it’s the only chance I have of saving Angelika and myself. If I don’t get it away from him, he’ll shoot us both and leave. It’ll be over just like that.
“Diomid!” she shouts, panicked.
I can’t look at her. I can’t risk taking my eyes off him.
He wrestles me, both of us with our hands tangled around the Glock.
A bullet escapes the chamber, smacking into the pavement next to his head.
He growls, anger flaring in his eyes. “Fucking asshole,” he shouts.
“You almost killed me.” But his anger steals his focus again, and when I realize this, I decide to use it against him.
“Hey, bitch, are you sad about your ruined party? Did you cry afterward?” I mock, breathless, muscles aching as the fight grows more intense.
He blinks in disbelief, sneering, and in that moment, I lift my knee and slam it into his balls.
The sound that erupts from his mouth is almost inhumane—a guttural cry of pain in high-pitched, agonizing volumes that hurt my ears.
Using all my strength, I tug the gun from his hand and roll off him.
There is a crowd forming on the other side of the street when I push up and stand over him. I can barely breathe; my chest is heaving. My heart feels like it might burst through my ribs.
I keep the gun close to my side, not obvious, but ready if I need it, my finger on the trigger.
Not taking my eyes off him, I call out to Angelika.
“Are you ok?” I ask.
“Yes, you?” she replies.
“I’m good.”
Bardil rolls onto his knees, clutching his hand between his legs, breathing heavily. “Fucking scum,” he snarls. “Go ahead, shoot me,” he demands.
I glance across the street at the crowd of worried faces. Then quickly back at Angelika.
“Get up, asshole,” I demand.
“I said kill me,” he snaps.
“I’m not like you, Bardil.”
“Yes, you are. We’re all monsters.” He hangs his head, bitter, defeated.
“Get up,” I say, more harshly.
I think the fact that I’m not going to kill him is pissing him off even more.
But I won’t. I won’t create more of an issue for my family than I’ve already done.
Last night, there was a purpose. Those girls’ lives were at stake.
No one can argue that we made the right choices.
But gunning Bardil down in the streets, in front of innocent people—that’s something I can’t justify even after what he said to Angel.
Bardil stands, facing me with a sneer on his face and deep lines furrowed into his brow. His eyes are cold, reptilian, and dead of any emotions other than hatred.
I glance at Angel, who is standing tall next to me, glaring at Bardil, showing no fear.
“Bardil, let me make this very clear. If you ever come after her again, if you ever breathe her name or even glance in her direction, I will tear you apart. I won’t just kill you, though.
I will torture you until you’re begging to die, and even then, I won’t let you.
Your life will become a long, blurred stretch of time you can no longer track as your body slowly, painfully falls apart.
I can keep you alive while I kill you. I can make it last for years. ”
Angel takes a sharp breath next to me. I can be a monster when I need to be, when the people I love are threatened.
I reach out and wrap my hand around her waist to pull her close.
In my other hand, I tap the gun against my hip. “Leave,” I demand. “Walk away and don’t look back.”
Bardil looks at me for a long time, weighing my words, the weight of it in my eyes. He steals a glance at Angel, but only for a split second before he sneers again and turns his back on us.
He limps when he walks, groaning, rubbing his groin.
Angel and I stand dead still, not moving until he gets into his car down the street and drives away, out of sight. Even then, we wait longer, nervous to accept that he’s really gone.
Finally, the crowd across the street dissipates, and I let out a heavy breath of relief.
“Will you come back inside?” I ask, turning toward her.
She bites her lip. “I was… I should go.”
“Please, Angel. Come inside. There are some things we need to talk about. After that, you can do what you want. I’ll drive you somewhere or get you a ride. Just talk to me first.”
Angelika sighs softly, closing her eyes and nodding her head. “Alright. We can talk,” she says, letting me lead her back toward the building with my hand resting on her lower back.
It’s odd how I’m more nervous to talk to her about how I feel than I am to face a madman with a gun.
The madman with a gun is something I can understand.
I can control that situation. But how will she react to my words?
That’s an entire unknown realm in my thoughts.
And it terrifies me to think that she might turn me down and walk away.
We walk into the penthouse, and Angel sits on the edge of the sofa, her hands in her lap, her back straight. “Diomid, you um, saved me—again.”
She sighs, a soft giggle slipping from her lips as though she were nervous.
“I don’t want to talk about that right now, princess,” I say, sitting next to her, turning my body to face her, but making sure I leave enough space between us to let her feel like I’m not crowding her.
“Ok, um, what do you want to talk about? You’re making me nervous,” she giggles again, but her brows furrow with worry.
My heart flips over several times before I start talking.