Chapter 27
Aurora~
To say that I was angry would be a lie; I was disappointed.
I was disappointed, but not in Viktor; in myself.
Even knowing better, I had let all those private declarations live in the back of my head, but seeing him openly proposition that woman was beyond a bucket of cold water on our marriage.
When we’d said our vows, I’d been prepared to accept infidelity as a part of my life, but I hadn’t ever expected Viktor to humiliate me so publicly like that, and that was something that I couldn’t forgive.
Ever.
I also knew that there wasn’t anything that I could do about it. Short of coming clean about my activities the other night, there was nothing to do about righting this trainwreck, because there was no way that I was going to tell Viktor that I was Astaroth.
I quickly snapped out of my thoughts when the car started bouncing around, the road suddenly uneven, and that’s when I finally paid attention to the scenery to notice that we were at the docks, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at immediate attention, my gut screaming at me to get ready.
We also weren’t just at the docks, Armen was driving on the actual pier, and as I looked around, I could see that we were past the fishing docks and down where the shipping containers were harbored, cutting us off from the traffic and activity just a few streets over.
Luckily for me, just like with my luggage, all of my purses came with false bottoms, and they were large enough to hold one decent-sized knife and a small pistol.
I also didn’t care if Armen was driving this route on his own or at Viktor’s instructions.
While he’d ordered Armen to take me back to the house, for all I knew, Viktor could have decided to be done with me, texting Armen to dump my body in the river.
Yeah, not today.
So, as soon as Armen turned off the ignition, I had my gun pressed up against the back of his head as I pointed out that this wasn’t home in perfect Russian. “Eto ne dom.”
Before he could say anything, I pulled the trigger, not caring about the sound of gunfire ricocheting off the windows of the car.
While I wasn’t afraid to die, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t go out fighting with everything that I had, and being a Marchetti, I knew enough to know that Armen wasn’t acting alone.
I wasn’t sure how many people were waiting for me outside this vehicle, but I knew without a doubt that the Korolevs would know to send more than just one man after me.
Just then, both back doors to the car opened, and two men reached for me at the same time, and I had to make a split decision on who to kill first, and so I fired a kill shot at the man grabbing my feet, and while his brains exploded everywhere beautifully, the man behind me was already dragging me back, one of his hands successfully knocking the gun from my hand.
Still, it wasn’t enough to stop me. My will to live was a lot stronger than whatever this man had been paid to kill me.
Once he pulled me out of the car, I grabbed at his ankles to bring him down, and the second that he fell over me, I kicked off one of my shoes, then stabbed him in the back of his neck.
Flailing about, he didn’t die immediately, knocking me back a bit, and that’s when I felt a third man coming at me from behind.
I turned in time to meet him head on, but I hadn’t expected him to throw a knife with such precision that it’d hit its target perfectly.
Me.
Still, I’d been raised a Marchetti, and I’d been trained for this kind of stuff.
So, with the knife still protruding from my side, I went after the man, prepared to die for my efforts, but still not scared to meet my maker.
Yeah, I was probably going to go to Hell versus any chance of getting into Heaven, but I’d already made peace with that fact years ago.
Thinking that he had me against the ropes, he lunged for me, but with my survival instincts running on all cylinders, I dodged him with enough time to pull the knife from my side, then shoved it in his back.
However, without that being a kill shot, he was able to turn on me fast enough to elbow me in the face.
Though it was hard enough to make me fall back, it wasn’t enough to stop me.
So, grabbing my other heel, I was ready to stab him in his face, but the gunshot that rattled my ears flung me backwards, and I knew that I couldn’t take much more. I was already bleeding from the stab wound, and the gunshot was really the finishing touch.
“YA tebya trakhnu, prezhde chem ub'yu,” he snarled, and I was more concerned with the fact that he was Russian than him saying that he wanted to fuck me before he killed me. “Mne vso ravno, chto on skazal.”
I don’t care what he said.
That was all the confirmation that I needed.
Only Viktor would care if one of his henchmen raped me before killing me, never mind that these men were all Russian in Korolev territory.
I could also admit my disappointment, and not in the fact that my husband had ordered a hit on me.
No, I was disappointed that he’d ended up being too much of a coward to do it himself.
Viktor Korolev had turned out to be nothing like his reputation had suggested.
With time ticking away rather quickly, I grabbed my other heel, and with every ounce of strength that I could possibly possess at this point, I lunged for him, stabbing him in the eye with the pointed spear, and I didn’t stop until his blood was splattering my entire face.
Once I was satisfied that he was dead, adrenaline gave me the power to stand up, but I immediately collapsed after only two steps. I was bleeding out, and I knew this. I also knew that I needed to move fast if I didn’t want to die on this pier.
So, after managing to make my way to the car, I grabbed my purse, pulled out my phone, then called the one person that I knew would stop time to get to me before it was too late.
“Aurora, hey,” Santino greeted as soon as he answered the phone. “What’s up?”
“I’m at the Starlight Docks,” I told him, my breathing coming in labored breaths. “Four men just tried to kill me, and I’ve been shot and stabbed.”
“I’ll be right there,” he said, not wasting any time or caring that he was driving into Korolev territory uninvited.
“You need to bring Ishmael.” I told him, referring to the best doctor that we had on our payroll. “I won’t make it if he doesn’t help me as soon as possible. Oh, and bring bolt cutters.”
“Stop the bleeding as best as you can,” he instructed, though I already knew this. “I will be there before you know it.”
“O...okay,” I stammered, trying to save my energy.
“I love you, Aurora,” he said, his voice vulnerable. “I love you, sorella.”
He hung up before I could tell him that I loved him just as much, and I knew that Santino had to be a mess because he didn’t call me sister often. He only called me that when he was in his feelings, which wasn’t often, truth be told.
Needing to stop the bleeding, I wasn’t too concerned with the bullet lodged in my left arm, so much as I was worried about the bleeding from the stab wound on my side.
Luckily, he had stabbed me on my left side, and the knife had landed low enough that I was pretty sure that my spleen, pancreas, and stomach were safe, but I could be wrong.
At any rate, I dumped my purse out, and when my makeup compact fell out, I quickly opened it to smash the mirror into pieces, then used the shards to cut the bloody sleeve of my blouse.
Once it came loose, I used the hand of my good arm and my teeth to wrap it around the bullet wound on my arm, and though it hurt like a sonofabitch, I welcomed it.
As long as the body felt pain, then you were still alive, and that was all that I could hope for right now.
Next, I used that same shard of glass to cut one of my pant legs as high as I could, which wasn’t much when you considered that I was only five-foot-three, but I needed something long enough to wrap around my waist. If not, then I was surely going to bleed out before Santino got here.
With the determination of a five-star admiral, I managed to finally get that sonofabitch off my leg and wrapped around me tightly, but as soon as I was finish, I could feel exhaustion hit me like a freight train.
While this wasn’t the first time that I’d ever found myself in this type of situation, this was the first time that I’d been injured so far from home.
I was also only alive because all four men had underestimated me; I knew this.
In fact, that was something that had kept saving my life over the years.
It was also as if men were incapable of viewing any woman as a threat, but I wasn’t complaining.
If men wanted to continue to underestimate me, then I was fine with that. Actually, I welcomed it.
Knowing that I needed to rest, I sat up against the car, resting my eyes, ignoring all the carnage around me.
Yeah, I was used to cleaning up my own messes, but I wasn’t so proudful that I couldn’t accept help when I needed it, and I definitely needed it right now.
So, rather than try to dispose of the bodies myself, I chose to wait for my brother, knowing that he’d take care of everything.
I also couldn’t help but think about Viktor and how the Chinese, Romanians, and Germans didn’t even matter anymore.
There was no way that my father wasn’t going to go to war over this, and one could hardly blame him.
After all, he had offered his only daughter in good faith, and the Korolevs trying to kill me had just erased whatever good intentions were supposed to have come out of this union.