Chapter 5
Five
Cora
Yesterday morning I was in Heaven. Now, this is pretty much hell.
I count the heavy thudding against my hardwood flooring.
Three? No. Five sets of boots.
My wet fingers tighten around the chef's knife on the counter. The rolling pin sits on the toilet lid where I left it before I got in the shower. A quick glance tells me my gardening boots are kicked against the baseboard next to the tub, where I left them but I don’t dare make a move for them.
Not when I have more important things to cover than my feet.
I yank the towel off the rack and wrap it around myself with zero grace and all desperation. I found it on clearance sale and didn't mind that it couldn't cover my top half and my lower half at the same time.
Tonight, it’s a big issue.
What a surprise. Nothing else has gone right for me, so why should it now? I tuck the bunched up end between my breasts and shoot up a prayer that it stays put.
My feet find the boots and I shove into them, wet skin squeaking against plastic. I pause, hoping no one heard me.
Wiggling my toes, I push my heel the rest of the way into the boot. The folded paper in the right one presses into the arch.
As plans of not dying tonight goes, I have my rolling pin in my right hand and the knife in my left. Soap suds run down my neck from the shampoo I will apparently be wearing for the rest of my tragically short life.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the fogged mirror. I look like an asylum escapee. A soaking wet, towel-wrapped, boot-stomping asylum escapee armed with kitchen implements and enough fury to power a small city.
Good. Maybe I’ll scare everyone to death.
The boots squelch on tile as I press my ear to the door.
Footsteps move through my apartment, heavy and deliberate.
“Where the hell is she?”
One of the men grunt out from down the hall and in the direction of my bedroom.
“How the hell should I know, man? Keep lookin’.” Another voice barks from the living room.
“Both of you shut the fuck up and listen.”
I immediately jerk away from the door. All the air in my lungs turns solid.
I can’t inhale or exhale. I’m too scared too because that voice came from right in front of the bathroom door and he sounds wickedly huge.
If a boulder had a voice that was it. And in my limited experience with mafia men and their hitmen, there's no way he’s a manageable size.
I death grip my weapons. I got this. I came home knowing I would be facing a death squad. I should have Home-Aloned my apartment and set some traps, but hindsight and all that.
I flip the knife over in my hand and make sure I have the razor thin edge pointing outward. Maybe next time I’m up for an early grave I’ll do better, but this time around I’m going to work with what I have.
These fuckers are expecting a scared girl huddled in a closet or under a bed with her hands over her mouth.
They have not met this girl.
I fling the bathroom door open.
The first man is right there, mid-step in the hallway, his hand reaching for the bathroom handle. The door catches him in the face and I'm right behind it.
And yes. He’s the size of a fucking boulder.
He locks my gaze with a death glare. Then they drop. Fast. Straight to my chest, because apparently even hired killers lose brain function when a pair of naked boobs show up uninvited.
Shit. My towel.
But men. So damn predictable.
I swing the rolling pin with every ounce of upper body strength a florist who hauls fifty-pound soil bags for a living can generate.
Crack.
The vibrations that travel through the maple wood handle and up my forearm are profoundly satisfying. A thick, meaty thud against the side of his skull snaps his head sideways and drives his shoulder into the wall. The vibration rolls through my wrist and elbow and settles deep in my bone.
“You stupid bitch,” he slurs and that just makes me grin.
But he's not down. His hand shoots up, fast, and catches my wrist before I can release another blow.
Shit.
He wrenches hard enough to grind the bones together and the blade in my hand spins out of my grip, clattering down the hallway into the dark.
I kick with no real aim and he loses his hold long enough for me to free myself from his grip.
With all my lack of experience fighting assholes, I manage to drive a shoulder into his gut just high enough to make the air wheeze from his lungs.
I bolt past him before he can regain his composure and deliver on the death threat I see flashing across his expression.
Or that was the initial plan.
Beefy fingers wrap around my upper arm and I’m hauled back about five feet. He crushes me to him and it feels like this is the last few seconds of my life.
The soap coating my skin makes me slick enough to slide through when he tries to wrap his arms around me. Holding onto my rolling pin, I give another swing and my attacker crumbles behind me, knees buckling.
“Finally. For fuck’s sake.” With my heart doing a marathon in my chest, I grab my fallen towel and use precious time in wrapping it back around me. Moderately covered, I step over his body without looking back.
I’m so focused on Douche bag number one, I momentarily forget there are four other douches trying to check my life off their to-kill list.
Another boulder-sized man steps into the shadows at the end of the hallway that leads to my kitchen. Which happens to be the only way out of here.
“There you are. Looks like you’re gift wrapped just for me.”
He takes a heavy-footed step toward me. My stomach churns with disgust at the meaning of his words.
The grin on the man's face has goosebumps spreading over every exposed part of my body. Which is every inch of me.
He takes another step and another toward me.
“Come on, fucker,” I grit and lock every muscle in my body in preparation.
He roars and is on me in seconds.
I swing the rolling pin. He catches my arm mid-arc. Sausage fingers lock around my forearm, and his other hand grabs my waist, digging through terrycloth and into the skin beneath.
“You rotten, douche bag, yellow bellied asshole! Why don’t you fight me mano a mano?” With every ounce of my fury, I ball my fist up and lay into him, getting nothing but an infuriating chuckle in return.
“I’m going to enjoy your body after I squeeze the life out of it.” Those fingers move from my arm to my throat.
Through the muted darkness I see nothing more than a shadowed face enter my line of sight when he bends down and smiles in my face.
“Not if I have something to say about it.” Not my best comeback but I’m not exactly looking to make a good impression with my words.
Just with my rolling pin. He’s so focused on killing me, he doesn’t realize I intend on doing the same to him.
Instead of swinging wide, I take the handle of my weapon and drive it into his balls.
Score!
Fury warps his face into something that looks more monster than human. “You stupid bitch,” he hurls at me, stumbling forward. I try to move out of the way, but he recovers almost immediately and then two things happen at once.
First, I'm suddenly hurling down the length of my hallway.
Second, my towel did not make the trip with me.
I very quickly realize the glittering mess on the hardwood is not stars reflecting off my newly polished floor from the overhead skylights. My landing is going to suck hairy donkey balls.
“Shit!”
I lose the rolling pin as I brace for impact, curling my arms over my face because bare skin and broken glass are not friends.
But I never hit the floor.
A solid chest stops me cold and feels a lot like a brick wall.
Arms lock around me and swallow every ounce of momentum before my body can meet the glass-covered hardwood.
The air punches out of my lungs on a grunt and my bare, damp skin presses flush against expensive material… and the warm wall of muscle beneath it.
Ice-blue meets startled violet.
My brain catches up three seconds late. I'm not bleeding and I'm not on the floor. But I am pinned against a man I can't fully see. His arms clamp tight enough around me that my feet dangle six inches off the ground.
My brain screams danger and my hands, elbows and feet get the memo to fight instantly.
Using everything I have left in the tank, I drive my elbows backward and the heel of my gardening boot cracks into a shin.
I'm soaped up and still wet enough that I’m slippery.
Hands grab at me and the brute who caught me harrumphs a few times when I catch his jaw and ribs with a good crack of my elbow.
He says something in Russian and then he’s back to catching my flailing arms and legs.
“Hold the fuck still.”
Another string of Russian.
“Fat chance of me making this easy on you, buddy!” With more of my wannabe fighting abilities, I rear back and land my knuckles against his jaw.
Pain flashes up the length of my arm and I know I’ll feel the aftereffects of that for days.
Fuck it. I swing again and land a left hook this time.
He, on the other hand, doesn’t look fazed.
Damn.
My back shoots straight up and the whip of fear slashing me locks my knees.
“I said be good or so help me—”
"Let go of me! Let go!" I cut him off.
"Be still, little girl." A Russian accent curls underneath the English like smoke through a cracked window.
Energy of a thousand pissed-off female warriors surges through my veins and then everything fast forwards.
“Screw you!” My veins burn with fury. “Little girl, my ass!” I repeat through clenched teeth and make sure every syllable I utter drips with my rage.
“Da. Exactly. Little girl.”
A swift hand comes down on my bare ass.
My right foot connects with hard muscle. “Smack me again and I’ll kick you again.” I get a grunt of pain from my captor and then another firm hand on my ass.
“Kick me again and you’ll get the same, only harder. I can smack that ass all night.”
Dark and twisted emotions spiral through me. Fear mostly. And heat. But I don’t focus on that and make sure the goosebump skittering across my skin is all about the fear I’m feeling and nothing else.