Chapter 30
Zoya~
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but muffled voices were hitting my waking ears, and I wanted nothing more than to pass out again.
My entire body ached from head to toe, but that was nothing compared to how wounded my mother appeared.
No matter the state of our relationship right now, I didn’t want this for her, and I was certain that she felt the same about me.
“You guaranteed me that the money was here,” a voice hissed, and I was certain that it was the voice of the first guy. “We’ve checked the entire place and there is nothing here. No money.”
I cracked my eyes open as much as I could, and it was to see him on his phone, pacing the living room, and though he still had his mask on, his entire demeanor screamed in anger.
He had drug me with him to every inch of the house, and when we’d found nothing, he had beat me hard enough to knock me out, then he had dumped me on the couch, though my mother was still tied to the chair.
“There’s nothing here!” he yelled into the phone. “You lied to us!”
It could only be Marcelle on the other end of the phone, but I couldn’t prove it without the police getting involved, and hadn’t I just given Aleksei Korolev my word that I’d never bring the police to his doorstep?
Honestly, if I got out of this alive, I had no idea what to do.
The right thing to do would call the police, telling them everything that had happened here tonight, but I also knew that Kasimir would be furious if I did.
He was the type of man that would want to avenge me himself, and the last thing that he’d want would be for the police to get in his way.
“I’m telling you that there is nothing here!” he yelled again. “We’ve looked everywhere!”
Not wanting to alert him that I was awake, I closed my eyes again, focusing on what I was hearing over the pain that was consuming my entire body.
I also needed to bide myself some time to come up with any kind of plan to get out of this situation alive.
Even if I were in the position to fight these guys off, I knew that I couldn’t.
Not only were they bigger than me, but there were two of them, and they had my mother as an advantage.
“Yeah, and what are we supposed to do?” he scoffed into the phone. “Drag her down to the bank and have her make a withdrawal? You said that it’d be cash that can’t be traced back to us, so I’m not about to have her write me a goddamn check.”
“I’m not going down for this,” the second guy said. “The fuck that I’m going to jail for money that I never got.”
“Did you hear that?” the first guy snapped into the phone. “We’re not going to jail because you fucked up.”
After a few seconds of silence, the first guy said, “Fine, we’ll try again.”
It took everything in me not to cry out as he hung up the phone, knowing that he planned on picking up from where he'd left off. I wasn't sure how much more I could take, and I knew that my mother wasn’t faring any better.
However, I didn’t have a choice when I felt one of them grab a fistful of my hair again, then yank me from the couch to throw me on the floor.
My eyes snapped open to see the second guy still standing next to my mother in the chair, and the only way that I could tell them apart was by their eye color.
The first guy had light blue eyes, and the second guy had a set of dark brown ones.
Looming over me, the first guy asked, “Do you want to see your mother die?”
I frantically began shaking my head. “N...no...please-”
“Then you’ve got one last chance to tell me where the money is, Zoya,” he bit out, and that’s when I knew that he was really going to kill us. Letting me know that he knew my name hadn’t been a mistake on his part; it’d been to show me that he’d finally run out of patience.
“We don’t have any,” I repeated for the millionth time. “I haven’t been paid yet, but...but if you...if you give me a couple of days, I can go to...to Stephanie and tell her that I need my money.”
“Do you seriously think that I’m going to give you the opportunity to go to the police?” he sneered.
“No, no...” I rushed out. “I’d never go to the police. The...the auction was sponsored by the Korolevs, so I’d never call the police.”
“Man, we’ve been here too long,” the second guy stated coldly. “We need to cut our losses. I’m not trying to get caught.”
“I want the fucking money,” the first guy snarled. “And I’m not leaving here without it.”
“Fine,” the second guy spat, and my heart stopped as I watched him finally pull out a gun, then point it at my mother.
“What...what are you-”
“I’m counting to three, and if you don’t tell us where the money is, I’m shooting your mother,” he announced evenly, sounding like he had no soul.
“No!” I yelled, but he started his countdown as the first guy grabbed me by my hair, then slammed my face into the coffee table.
“One...two...three...”
The sound of gunfire stole my breath as I looked up to see blood seeping out of my mother’s chest, and when I started crawling towards her, the first guy grabbed my left ankle, then dragged me back towards the couch.
I was screaming for my mother as he said, “You should have just given us the money.”
Hot fire erupted across my chest when a second gunshot echoed throughout the house, and I’d never felt such an all-consuming pain before. I’d been shot because of Marcelle’s greed, and even bleeding on my living room floor, I could hardly believe it.
“Let’s get out of here,” the second guy rushed out. “We should have gotten silencers.”
I ignored the rustling sounds of the men fleeing the scene, and even though I’d sworn that I’d never bring the police to the Korolevs’ doorstep, I knew that my mother and I were going to die if I didn’t call 911; there was no way around it.
So, doing my best to ignore the need to get to my mother, I dragged my beaten body towards the kitchen to find my phone, and when I finally managed to get my phone, I struggled to unlock it, but when I finally did, I dialed 911 with no choice.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My...my mother and...and I have been...we’ve been shot...” I rasped, pain threatening to take me under with each breath that I took.
“Okay, you’re saying that you and your mother have been shot,” the operator echoed.
“We’re at...we’re at 2461 Singleton Street...” I went on, trying to give her as much information as I could before I passed out or died.
“Are the perpetrators still there, ma’am?”
“No...no, they le...left...”
“Is your mother alive?” she asked, and my heart froze in my chest.
“I...I don’t...don’t know...” I choked out. “Please...hurry...I...I think I’m dying...”
“I need you to stay on the line with me, okay?” she said, and even though I needed her help, her calm voice was beginning to grate on my nerves.
“I need you...you to hurry...” I tried to yell, my chest making it impossible. “We’re...we’re dying...”
“Ma’am, the police and an ambulance are already on their way-”
“We need two ambulances...” I begged. “Please, we need two of them...”
“Ma’am, they are on their way,” she repeated. “I just need you to stay on the line with me.”
“I...I need to...to get to...to my mom...” I said, desperation clawing at my throat. “They...she’s tied...tied to a chair...”
“Ma’am, do you know why you and your mother were shot?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her everything, but I knew that I couldn’t.
Even though I could play it off as a random robbery, I wasn’t the kind of person who took the police for being stupid.
Two people had been shot, and I knew that whatever detectives were assigned to our case would do their jobs.
If nothing else, just to avoid bad press.
Plus, there was a big difference between robbery and murder, and they’d shot us to leave us to die.
I also didn’t want to say too much until I spoke with my mom. I had no idea what they’d told her before I’d gotten home, and with as much as my mother hated the Korolevs, I could see her trying to blame them for everything.
So, ignoring her question, I said, “Pl...please hurry...I’m...there’s so...so much blood...”
“Ma’am the police are on their way,” she said again. “I just need you to tell me what you can.”
My vision began to go dark, and panic seized me completely. I knew that I was close to passing out, and fear paralyzed me, knowing that I might not ever wake up again. I was losing a lot of blood, and my fingers could no longer grip the phone.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you still there?”
No, I wasn’t.
Not anymore.