32. Valentina
VALENTINA
My fist slams into the side of his head so hard that pain lances up my forearm and settles in my elbow.
His head snaps back, eyes wide and jaw slack from shock that he’s been sucker punched while enjoying the fruits of his victory at the bar.
As he tips back on his stool, he reaches out and grabs the arm of the man beside him.
While it stops him from falling, it does cause the other man to stumble and spill his drink.
Alcohol splashes over the arm of a woman who screeches in alarm, which triggers a furious yell from the man next to her.
He surges up and punches the man with the spilled drink, sending him back into the bar and then onto the arm of another man who reacts just as violently.
Only, when he throws a drunken punch, it misses his target and collides with yet another innocent person.
From there, the entire bar descends into chaos, with yells and screams, glass smashing and alcohol raining down from the ceiling.
I ignore all of it.
Grabbing the collar of the bounty hunter, I drag him off his stool while he’s attempting to steady himself and I punch him again.
His nose squishes under my fist and blood spurts down against my wrist while he cries and twists.
In his anger, he raises his glass and attempts to smash it against the side of my head, but I duck, grab his shoulder with my other hand, and slam my knee hard into his crotch.
“Valentina!” Bradley’s voice drifts through the chaos, but he’s somewhere behind me and no longer my current concern.
“What the fuck!” The bounty hunter squeaks in pain, torn between blocking my neck punch and clutching his crown jewels that likely ended up in his throat after my blow. “Fucking crazy bitch!”
“Crazy?” I snarl, twisting my torso and slamming my elbow into his jaw. “I’m so sick of people acting like I’m crazy when they’re the ones who have pulled some shit!”
He reels back against the bar, gasping for air through a bloodied nose and a split lip. “It’s ‘cause you are fucking crazy!”
“Where is he?!” I yell, surging forward against him and fisting my hold into his shirt. “You took him and I need to know where the hell you took him!”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
“Yes, you do! You’re a bounty hunter and you just took a massive fucking payday by handing over Diego, so you tell me where the fuck you took him!”
In an instant, his face changes. Gone is the man surprised that he’s getting beaten up in a bar while trying to enjoy a quiet drink. The face of the bounty hunter, the one who likely faced down Diego while carting him off to God knows where, appears with a sneer.
“So that’s what this is about.” He wipes his lip on the back of his hand. “I ain’t tellin’ you shit. The amount they paid me? That’s hush money, bitch. Unless you wanna pay me more?”
I would. I’d give him everything I have to get Diego back, but I’ve no idea how much money I have to my name, if any at all. Bradley never really spoke about whether we get paid or not, and it’s too late to think about it now.
The bounty hunter surges forward suddenly and his fist glances off my jaw. The blow forces my head to the side, but I follow the momentum and turn, throwing my elbow back into the soft part of his gut. He grunts and doubles over while I keep turning and slam my other fist into the side of his head.
The furious crowd surges around us as drunken men and women pour their misplaced anger into strangers with no clear reason as to why they’re even fighting. The surge forces me against the bounty hunter and he gets one hand around my neck while the other sinks into my hair.
I lift my hand to grab his wrist, intent on twisting to break free, but he suddenly sidesteps and uses all his strength to slam my head down onto the bar.
My ears ring and my teeth shudder in my gums. He drags me up by the hair and slams his meaty fist into my gut, then suddenly, I’m in the air and his fist vanishes from my hair along with several painful strands.
Someone else has grabbed me and, in an attempt to use me, has lifted me into the air with a grunt, but the drunken idiot doesn’t have the balance to maintain the lift. He stumbles backward, then falls completely when the bounty hunter yells and slams his foot into his knee.
He falls and I’m launched across the bar, past the beer pumps and over the ducking barmaid. My body crashes into all the shelves behind the bar with my head snapping back and cracking so hard against a shelf that my entire vision bursts white.
I fall, hitting the ground hard enough to drag all the air out of my lungs.
There’s enough sense left in me to cover my head as all the bottles above are knocked free from impact and rain down on me like gigantic glass hailstones.
Bottles smash over me and around me, shards of glass ping and fly in all directions, with some embedding in my arms as I protect my head, and alcohol of all kinds soaks into my clothes and coats the floor around me.
It’s hell, not that many others in the bar have even noticed. They’re all still locked in a brawl trying to kill one another for no real reason.
I tighten my arms around my head, but the cold slices of glass cutting into my skin and the chill splash of liquid around me suddenly fade to the background as the pain at the back of my skull swells.
It’s as if someone has that part of my head caught in their clenched fist and they’re squeezing for all their worth. The pain is blinding and I curl in on myself, lost in a sea of glass and alcohol.
But there’s something else.
It ignites after the first burst of pain fades and my next breath feels like the first real breath I’ve taken in weeks.
I remember.
I remember everything. My name. Where I came from.
The look on my father’s face when I told him I had no intention of carrying on his legacy after he passed.
Back then, I thought that look was utter disappointment, but now it’s in my mind clear as day and he almost looks relieved.
Like me, straying from the family business was somehow what he wanted.
I remember meeting Bradley and the rest of the Suit as they handed in their resignations, far too old to continue doing what needed to be done.
I remember Cassian being far too gentle for a world like this, yet somehow, he’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever met.
Raven and her aversion to everything public, yet killing it in hand-to-hand combat.
Ruslan and his cocky attitude acting like he was bigger and better than everyone, only to grow and turn into a really decent man after meeting Ivy.
It all comes back in a hot rush.
The plane crash. Ruslan disappearing to assassinate Ivy after she supposedly messed up a deal between two families that nearly ignited a war in the city.
His instant connection with her kept Ivy alive while the rest of us were fighting to keep the peace.
Then the truth and Ruslan’s impossibly smug two weeks that followed our decision that he was right.
Then Bradley was gunned down by a woman forced to steal from the Mafia by her twisted ex and her brother.
I thought I knew fear until I got the call that Bradley was in the hospital after being shot twice and dumped in the river.
He ended up saving her life and Bradley’s never been happier.
And now Diego. Poor Diego dragged into this mess because I escaped from—
My rampant explosion of thoughts halts when heavy boots thud next to me, crunching glass and more underfoot, then warm, strong hands grab at my arms.
“Valentina!” Bradley’s over me with a worried grunt, gingerly helping me to my feet while brushing glass and more out of my messy, alcohol-soaked hair. “Oh, thank God. You went down and didn’t get back up. Are you alright? Can you stand?”
Bradley’s always been a mountain of a man, but as he stands before me, one hand on my shoulder and the other cupping my chin to examine me, he looks smaller than I remember.
As if the weeks of worry have made him waste away into what he is now.
The worry lines around his eyes are deeper and the concern buried in his eyes is enough to take my breath away.
“I’m okay,” I croak slowly, blinking through the blinding pain that remains throbbing through my skull. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod while swiping my tongue around my bloodied teeth, then I spit a mouthful onto the mess of alcohol at our feet.
“We need to get you looked at,” he murmurs. “You’re cut to shit.”
“The bounty hunter—”
“Ruslan has him,” Bradley cuts in. “You first.”
“No,” I say firmly. “Let me talk to him. Where the fuck is he?” The demand leaves me just as I glimpse the bounty hunter attempting to throw a punch at Ruslan, who is dragging him through the crowd toward the door.
“Valentina, stop. We need to get you looked at, you’re bleeding!”
Everything else he has to say becomes irrelevant when the bounty hunter manages to slip from Ruslan’s grasp and dart back into the crowd.
Ruslan yells after him. I leap up onto the bar, then drop down onto the other side.
Being smaller than Ruslan makes it easier for me to dart through the crowd trailing the fleeing hunter.
He makes it to the back exit and crashes through the fire door just as I reach him.
Throwing myself into him is my only option and he yells, losing his footing on the steps and toppling out into the alley below.
As he lands hard on the ground, I land hard on top of him and quickly roll him over before he has time to orientate himself.
Two sharp punches to the face leave him gasping for air and my knuckles smarting from pain.
“I don’t want to ask you again,” I growl, grabbing his collar with both hands while planting my knee firmly on his crotch. “But I’m running out of patience and in case you didn’t notice, I’m covered in alcohol. One spark and we go up like fucking embers, and I will absolutely take you with me.”
“You’re insane!” he gasps, fighting to shove me off. As he balls up his fist, the door behind me clatters and the man suddenly cries out in pain. To my right, Bradley’s boot lands on the man’s fist, pinning him to the ground.
“In the interest of time,” I snarl, bringing my face close to his, “I’ll ask you again.
You had Diego. You handed him in. If you want even a day to enjoy the money you made off handing him over, then you'd better tell me where the fuck you delivered him, or I’ll spend the rest of my life prying every joint and seam in your body apart, starting with your balls, while my friend here entertains his love of matches.
Do you think we’ll burn to death before I get a chance to cut off your dick? ”
“You’re insane,” the man squeaks. “Actually fucking insane!”
“No, I’m just very fucking tired and very pissed off.” My teeth clack together and I lift him an inch from the ground, then slam him back down. “Tell me!”
“Alright!” The bounty hunter gurgles and shudders as his eyes roll. “Fucking hell, alright! I’ll tell you! Just don’t kill me!”
He reels off an address and after Bradley confirms that it’s a real address on his phone, I slowly climb off the bounty hunter and stalk away from him toward the mouth of the alley.
Ruslan joins Bradley a second later, and I leave them to deal with the bounty hunter while I dig my phone out of my soaked jeans.
“Raven?”
“Valentina?” Raven’s soft tones flood my ears as soon as she answers. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, listen. That little girl, Tabitha. Can you run a search on her and the park she was taken from and cross-reference it with everything we have on any Armenians who entered the county in the past six months?”
“Armenians?” Raven asks, though from the faint clack of her keyboard, she’s already on it. “Anything else?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can find.”
“Thanks.” As I hang up, the skies open and rain pours down hard and fast as if someone’s flicked a switch. Each cold droplet of rain suddenly alerts me to the numerous open scratches and cuts over my bare arms and I wince.
“Armenians.” Bradley appears beside me, phone in hand. “You remembered something?”
Ruslan joins him, wearing the same hopeful look that Bradley has on his own face.
“I remember everything,” I reply, and my heart squeezes at the utter delight that crosses their faces. “But there’s no time for that right now. We have to get to Diego.”