Chapter 18 #2
“You are holding your tongue,” the Russian observes. “A wise choice. I like a woman who knows her place, even if my preferred place for every woman is on her knees.”
I can’t contain myself for another second.
“Fuck you,” I spit at him. “You sexist prick.”
He laughs again like he’s enjoying this. “Watch your tongue, malyshka. I’d hate to have to cut it out.”
He’s not joking. I can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes.
I bite my lip and don’t say anything else.
The Russian pulls out a phone, taps on the screen a few times, and then looks back to me. “Repeat what you’re telling Andriani.”
Struggling to think beyond the fear inhabiting my brain isn’t easy, but somehow, I organize my thoughts into some semblance of sense.
“I’m telling him that the Andrianis are responsible for some of your men’s arrests. And that this led to a profitable business being shut down, so now you’re going to take something in return. The pakh…pakh…”
“Pakhan,” he supplies grimly.
“The Pakhan is going to be in touch with options,” I finish.
The Russian nods. “Da. Good. Andriani will be here in about four minutes, give or take a few seconds. Tell him right away.”
“I will.”
He nods and turns away from me, heading to the bedroom door with a stealth that belies his massive frame. Once there, he stops, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Oh, I almost forgot, Isla Davenport. Tell him also that there’s a bomb hidden in the Andriani family restaurant, Sergio’s.
The lunch rush just started about fifteen minutes ago.
He has ten until the bomb goes off. It’s not going to be pretty for anyone who doesn’t make it out in time.
Don’t bother screaming or trying to escape.
If anyone comes rushing in here, I’m going to have to kill them, and you don’t want that on your conscience, do you? ”
Holy Jesus.
A bomb?
“Do you?” he prods.
I shake my head. “No. No, I don’t want that.”
“That’s what I thought.” He pauses, and then he gives me that wide, evilly beautiful smile again. “Until next time, malyshka.”
With that, he disappears through the open doorway, leaving me alone, handcuffed to the headboard, and terrified for the innocent people inside that restaurant. I have to tell someone about what I know, but I’m too afraid to scream and potentially bring someone else into danger.
I don’t know if he’s talking about the guards… Are they alive? Or does he mean someone else? Who even has access to this floor, aside from Alessio and his men? I can’t be sure.
As I lie here, cuffed to the bed, gripped with sheer terror, I do everything I can to keep from crying, screaming, or bringing the Russian back.
The screen on my phone, which I set to Do Not Disturb for a few hours because I was annoyed with Alessio this morning, suddenly lights up. His name comes on the screen. The phone buzzes, but I can’t reach it.
Desperate, I shimmy out of the covers and try to use my legs to my advantage, my big toe extended to answer the call. But just when I reach it, the call stops and dumps into voice mail. I try to call him back, but I lose my balance, knocking the phone onto the floor with a thud.
“Damn it,” I cry out, then bite my lip to keep the Russian from returning for me and following through on his threats.
All I can do is hope and pray that Alessio gets here as soon as he possibly can. If the intruder is to be believed, and countless innocent lives are in danger, every ticking second is taking us closer to disaster.
Saint
The second I run into my bedroom and find Isla naked and handcuffed to my bed, I’m in kill mode.
“Who the fuck did this to you?” I demand.
My guards were groggy and incoherent when I stepped past them, clearly having been drugged. I’m sure I already know the answer, but I want to hear it from her lips before I start making war plans.
“A man I’ve never seen before,” she tells me, her voice tight with fear. “A Russian.”
I’m going to tear every motherfucking member of the Bratva apart with my bare hands, and then I’m going to set the pieces on fire and watch them burn to ash before I piss on them.
I stop at her side, running on half adrenaline, half sheer murderous rage. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” she says, tugging at the handcuffs and making them clank against my headboard. “But we don’t have any time to waste. They planted a bomb at your restaurant. The Russian who broke in here told me it’s going to go off in ten minutes, and that was about six minutes ago.”
My blood goes cold. “Jesus. You sure?”
She nods emphatically. “Yes. You have to call someone and let them know to evacuate the building immediately.”
I’ve never seen her this frantic.
I pull out my phone and call up the manager of Sergio’s, telling him to get everyone the fuck out of there, from kitchen staff to patrons, right fucking now.
“You got it, boss,” he says, sounding panicked, before the line goes dead.
I swear and call Scorpion next.
He answers on the third ring.
“What’s up?”
“Bomb,” I bite out. “Sergio’s.”
“Christ.”
“Courtesy of your Russian friends. About to go off in less than four minutes. I called over there and told them to evacuate.”
“Fuck. I’m headed that way now.”
“Be smart and be safe.”
I end the call and then turn back to Isla, who’s still wide-eyed and naked, handcuffed to my bed. Sheer rage rockets through me again.
How dare they fucking do this to her?
“I’ll get you out of those cuffs. Hold tight.”
I backtrack through my place, pistol drawn in case I get any more unwelcome surprises today. In my office, I find what I’m looking for in my desk drawer—a paper clip. Taking it out, I start to unbend it into a makeshift tool as I rush back to my bedroom.
“Where’s Cid? Did the Russian do something to him?”
Typical. Thinking of everyone before herself. Even the cat. My only thoughts were for Isla. I rushed into the apartment, forgetting about everything else.
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, bending over the handcuffs so I can pick the lock with my paper clip.
Luckily for her, this isn’t my first rodeo.
“What are you doing? You have to look for him.”
“I’m opening these handcuffs,” I tell her, frowning as I concentrate.
“Look for Cid first,” she demands. “Then worry about me.”
I ignore her because Cid can wait. I didn’t see any signs that anything happened to him, and he’s probably hiding under a chair or a bed.
“Alessio, I mean it. If something happened to Cid…”
I feel the familiar give as I open the cuffs. “Got it. Now get some clothes on, tesoro. I’ll go look for the cat.”
She rubs her wrist, drawing my attention to the red mark marring her skin from the way she was thrashing to escape. “Thank you.”
A cauldron of rage seethes inside me, bubbling and boiling. Those fucking bastards.
“Don’t thank me,” I grind out past the fury. “This is where you were supposed to be safe. I brought you here, and now look at what’s happened.”
As incensed as I am with the Bratva men responsible for what happened to Isla and for the bomb they planted at our restaurant, I’m every bit as angry with myself for this shit happening on my watch.
“This isn’t your fault,” she tells me.
“Yes, it fucking is,” I snap. “Look, just get dressed.”
Any other time, I’d be only too happy she was naked. But I can’t bear to see her in this state, knowing how vulnerable she was.
Something occurs to me then.
“Were you naked when that bastard got here, or did he take your clothes?”
“I was already naked,” she says softly. “I was sleeping in your bed. When I woke up, he was standing over me.”
Relief mixes with the rage.
“I’ll get even with them for this. I promise you that much.”
I don’t give a fuck who I have to kill. I’ll murder Mikhail Sidorov myself if need be, and I’ll look him in the eye as I pull the trigger, watching the life leave him. One day, when the time is right.
“I don’t want you to get even,” Isla says, reaching for me like I’m a lifeline, when all I really am is death and destruction.
Violence and ruin run in my blood.
“He gave me a message for you,” she adds, her voice urgent. “He said that the Andrianis are responsible for some of their men’s arrests and one of their businesses being shut down. They said they wanted to take something in return, and that the Pakhan would be in touch with options.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. We aren’t rats, and none of us has gone to the cops with anything about the Bratva. Our alliance has been too sound. Why would we risk it? As for taking something from us, that’s going to start a war. And they’re about to fucking get one, like it or not.
“Do you know what that all means?” she asks.
Haven’t got a goddamn clue.
“Don’t worry about it and just get yourself dressed,” I tell her, and then I shrug away from her touch, turning and leaving the room.
I’m so furious I’m trembling from the force of it, hands shaking at my sides as I scour the apartment, looking for a gray-and-white furball. I find Cid under a table. His eyes are wide, reflecting my phone’s flashlight as I shine it underneath.
“Found him,” I call out to Isla.
She doesn’t answer, or if she does, the shrill ring of my phone drowns out her voice from the other room. It’s a burner number I recognize as Scorpion, so I answer immediately.
“What’s happening?” I ask instantly.
“Sergio’s is gone,” he says.
“The bomb…”
“Detonated,” he fills in the blanks for me, his voice hard with barely leashed fury. “Everyone’s out and accounted for, but the front half of the building’s demolished. It’s going to have to be torn down.”
“Fuck.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” I scrub a hand over my jaw.
It means we’re going to have the Feds crawling up our asses, but I’m not going to say that out loud.
Whoever was responsible for this is a complete idiot with a death wish.
Because not only will we get even, but a bomb going off in the middle of the city at a high-end restaurant isn’t going to go unnoticed.
We’ll be on the evening news and splashed all over the internet.
The city police department, the FBI, and the ATF are all going to have a fucking field day with this.
Which is going to mean a lot more scrutiny for the Andriani family. Eyeballs watching our every move. Warrants and wiretaps and God knows what else, none of which will be good for us. Priest is going to lose his damn mind over this.
“You good with everything there?” I ask Scorpion, still reeling.
“Good as I’m going to be.”
He doesn’t have to say anything else. He doesn’t need to.
We’re probably both still in shock. This, on top of being blindsided by Antonella rising from the dead, bringing the two half sisters we never knew we had along with her.
And Priest is on his honeymoon. It doesn’t get much more fucked up than this.
“Keep your head down,” I tell him.
“You too.”
We hang up, and I go back out to the hall to check on my guards, wondering what the hell we’re going to do next. I can’t start a war while our don is on his honeymoon. But I’ll be damned if I allow the bombing of our restaurant and terrorizing my woman to go unanswered.
It’s not until I’m with my guards that I realize I thought of Isla as my woman. In more ways than one, I’m so fucked.