Chapter 12
T he moment Adris kicks open the front door, bullets fly at us.
As much as I want to help, the last thing I want to do is jeopardize Adris while he eliminates person after person who fires at us.
I’m not a violent person and despite Adris’ mini lesson on how to handle a weapon, I still don’t entirely know what to do with them.
Especially the gun tucked into the belt at my back.
A bullet whizzes by my head so close that the whistling sound brushes by my ear and I yelp, tucking myself in as close to Adris’ back as I can without hindering his ability to fight.
A string of Italian curses and shuffling footsteps pounds closer. My heart beats in sync with every step. Fear has a chokehold on me and my knuckles turn white where I grip Adris’ shirt.
His manic laughter fills the space when he plucks two knives from his thigh straps, grips them by the blade, and flings them across the room.
I peek under his arm and see the moment it lands between the eyes of a man holding a gun not even twenty feet away, and he immediately slumps to the floor.
Dead. The second dagger hits another man, slicing through his Adam’s apple directly in the center of his throat.
He gurgles and stupidly pulls the knife out, and it fucking sprays. Everywhere.
I gag, but Adris’ laughter turns into a full blown cackle when it hits his mask. Some lands on my forehead, but I don’t have time to wipe it away because we’re moving again.
No rest for the deranged, indeed.
More of Santino’s guards are shouting, spewing commands in Italian, but Adris doesn’t rise to the bait.
Suddenly, a burly man with a protruding gut charges Adris like a vicious bear, but the psycho killer before me is quicker.
He makes no effort to grab for a weapon but instead uses his weight and swings his arm out, fucking clotheslining the man.
He hits the ground with a shudder and wheezes at his lack of oxygen after having the breath knocked from his lungs.
I drop when Adris drops, trying to keep myself small and look away when Adris’ fist flies so fast and hard that it knocks the guard out in one hit.
But he doesn’t stop. The muscles in his back flex with three swift punches before he reaches behind his head and grabs an arrow, driving it right into the heart of the man beneath him.
He leaves him there as he stands again, briefly checking on me over his shoulder, nodding to himself before making our way to the stairs.
The tiny device in my ear crackles.
“More movement on the second floor. Last room on the south corner. I don’t have a body count. It could be Ferrero but I can’t be sure. Eyes open,” Rune warns.
Walking by one of the dead security guards, Adris reaches down and pulls one of his blades from between the guard’s eyes. I have to bite back a gag and the heavy wave of nausea that washes over me when it makes a sickening squelching sound and more blood spurts out, staining Adris’ and my boots.
Wiping the blood and brain matter off on the guard’s uniform, he tuts. “I fucking hate when that happens. I just had these fuckers cleaned.”
“I have no words,” I whisper more to myself than anything, because how can he be so unaffected by the absolute carnage that surrounds us?
We ascend the staircase and unease has the hairs on the back of my neck rising. It’s entirely too quiet and that scares me. Santino is a coward, and I trust that Adris is crafty enough to bring him down, but a small part of me is terrified that I’ll leave here a prisoner to his cruelty again.
“ Adris —” I whisper, tugging at his shirt, but I’m cut off with a curt shh .
He turns his head but doesn’t look at me. Still, I see the command when he presses his finger to his lips, then presses the side of it to his ear, telling me to listen. I do my best to quieten my shaky, staccato breaths and strain my ears.
Then his voice registers.
I’ve heard his agitated, hushed shouts too many times to count and the familiarity of his voice causes unwanted dread to slither down my spine.
I pull at the material on Adris’ shirt hard enough to get him to look back at me, his silver eyes meeting mine.
“ It’s him .” I pull the cowl down to mouth the words.
He raises a single eyebrow as if to ask, “ You sure ?” since I can’t see his mouth. I nod in confirmation.
My cowl is pulled back up over my mouth and nose, and I’m momentarily stunned when he grips my face and presses the mouth of his mask to mine as if in a kiss.
I don’t have time to process what he just did because he’s got me reattached to his belt loop as we silently creep our way to the end of the hall.
The hushed whispers become more distinct and it hits me that there’s more than one voice coming from within the last room. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, I’m afraid even Adris can hear each thump.
“This whole thing is a fucking shitshow and it’s entirely on you, Santino,” one voice whisper-shouts behind the closed door.
“Me? I wouldn’t even be a fucking target right now if you hadn’t sold me false information about the girl!” Santino hisses.
“Oh, you’re still a target because you don’t know how to conduct business, Ferrero.
” The other voice tuts. “She was a liability and a threat to my taking over the Kuznetsov bratva. Mikhail is about to give up his decade-long search for her and hand over the title, but do you think that’s going to happen when he finds out that his fucking daughter is still alive? ”
The blood drains from my face, and Adris turns to look at me with an oddly perplexed expression marring his brow. Dawning seems to hit us both at the same time. Somebody betrayed my father in an attempt to take over as Pakhan.
The car crash wasn’t just a random, targeted attack.
My mother’s death.
My kidnapping.
It was all a part of some grand plan.
But who is working with Santino?
“You were supposed to fucking dispose of her, you goddamned?—”
Clearly Adris has heard enough, because he raises his boot and kicks in the door so hard that the hinges split and crack, his gun raised.
Before Santino can even react, his shoulder explodes in a spray of red as a bullet pierces his skin and he grips the ruined flesh, an ear-grating shriek pushing past his lips.
“Motherfucker!” he curses, reaching behind his back, but before he can grasp a weapon, Adris fires off another shot, blowing a hole straight through the center of his hand. He rushes Santino, only to kick him square in the chest.
Santino goes down hard, hitting his head along the way, rendering himself unconscious.
I realize too late that I had let go of Adris when a slow, ominous clap reverberates around the room.
My hair is grabbed a second later, my entire body screaming in pain when I’m jerked against a hard chest. A scream starts to burst free from my lungs, but is quickly halted when the cool barrel of a gun is pressed to my temple.
A deep, menacing voice vibrates me to my core and dread settles in my stomach when he speaks.
“Talk about a grand entrance. You really know how to put on quite the show,” he mocks, his tone dripping with malice. “Have I taught you nothing of stealth and silence, son ? ”
Oh, no.
My watery, horrified gaze finds Adris standing over the body of Santino, his silver eyes darkened and homed in on the man caging me.
Adris removes his mask, and a carefree smirk tugs at his lips as he tilts his head to the side, looking unperturbed by the fact that his father is a fucking traitor.
“You know damn well that subtlety isn’t my style, Father .”
His father.
My father’s second in command.
Boris Knox.
“Ah, yes.” His grip tightens on my hair and he presses the muzzle of the gun harder into my temple, causing me to gasp in pain. “How could we forget the mark of the infamous Cupid Killer?”
Adris begins to twirl one of his arrows between his fingers in a move so casual that it has unease flooding my veins. Instead of falling victim to the goading, he begins to circle us like a predator before striking his prey.
“I have to admit, I’m proud of you.”
“For…”
“For the simple fact that you’ve never once not followed through on a kill contract.
I’d banked on you taking this one.” Santino groans beneath Adris, but I keep my eyes pinned on the man before me, trying to hold myself together for him.
“I knew the lack of information would be gnawing at your brain.”
Something dangerous shifts in Adris’ eyes and he stops twirling the arrow, his body becoming rigid.
“You’re the one who sent the contract to kill Odessa?”
“I did,” he confirms, not an ounce of guilt in his tone.
“Why?” Adris’ question barks out and it sounds more like a command for an answer.
“Because she’s the final piece of the puzzle I need to take over as the next Pakhan in the Kuznetsov Bratva.”
“What is going on? You two okay?” Calix’s voice chimes quietly in my ear but I don’t dare react. I don’t think his father has noticed the earpiece, and I can’t risk drawing attention to it when it could help us get out of this situation.
“So why involve this fuckface in the grand plan?” Adris asks, pointing his arrow at my unconscious abuser.
“It was just business.” He shrugs, tightening his grip on my hair. I bite back the sting of tears. “He kills the girl, I take over after convincing Mikhail to retire, and Ferrero gets a share of the trades for doing his part.”
In a flash, I’m whipped around until I’m facing an older, more wicked version of Adris, but with dark blond hair. I don’t remember much of him, but there’s no mistaking who he is.
Boris grips my throat right over the bruises already marring my skin and squeezes until I can’t breathe. “So imagine my surprise when I find out that he didn’t keep his end of the bargain. That the daughter, the sole heir to the Kuznetsov bratva, was still alive.”