Now he’s a wounded, fuming bull. His fury takes over, and he no longer fights cleverly. He acts on angry instinct. Sadly predictable. When he charges, his head bent to hit me in the stomach with the full force of his body, I whack him on the back of the neck with the wrought-iron lamp base. The blow is hard enough to make his legs cave. The moment his knees hit the carpet, I tear the cord from the lamp, wind it around his neck, and twist.
He makes a nasty gurgling sound, frantically reaching for my ankles, but I’m already darting around him and jumping onto his back. He swats at me uselessly. His arms don’t reach far or effectively behind his back. He goes for my hair, but I duck back easily enough, having predicted the move. Realizing he’s not going to pry me off with his hands, he thrashes like a madman, but I’m light and hold on without much effort. Finally, he gives up and tries to wiggle his fingers under the cord. I twist three more times, enough for the cord to cut into the thick flesh of his neck.
The shooting continues, but I force myself not to think about it. I fight Dimitrov with all my might while keeping one eye on the mousy man. The strange little man is still leaning motionless on the wall like some weird sociopath.
“Admit it, Casmir,” the man says. “You’re getting beaten by a girl.”
Dimitrov slams his bloody hand on the carpet. He twists his head and lifts his eyes to the man with a plea for help. The man doesn’t move.
What’s up with the mousy man’s strange attitude? I don’t know what his stand is, but I better finish Dimitrov off quickly so I can deal with him.
Unfortunately, Dimitrov is a fighter. The bastard refuses to give up. With an inhuman burst of strength, he rolls onto his side and on top of me. I end up flat on my back, trapped under his body with him facing the ceiling. Before I can ward off the blow, he plants an elbow in my stomach.
The punch takes my breath. Wheezing, I fight for air. My grip on the cord slackens. In a wink, Dimitrov is on his feet, ripping the cord from my hand and cutting my palm with the force. The same cord I used to strangle Dimitrov is wound around my neck. I kick and get in a few punches of my own, but Dimitrov is fueled by his anger. He half-drags, half-carries me to the bed, hauling me up onto the mattress.
Pop! Pop!
The fighting next door escalates. I imagine Yan and Ilya taking shelter behind furniture and wrecking the suite as I struggle for my life. Maybe the guards are keeping them away from the door on Dimitrov’s order. Maybe Dimitrov told them my life was his. It makes sense. A man like Dimitrov won’t allow anyone else to kill a traitor with whom he has a personal vendetta. And I did deceive him in the most humiliating way, not only using his own lust as a weapon against him, but also making him look like a fool.
My vision turns hazy, but I refuse to give up.
I wrestle harder underneath Dimitrov, scratching wherever my nails find purchase, but his suit jacket hampers my efforts. I go for his face. He leans back far enough that I barely scrape his jaw.
Abandoning the cord, he folds his hands around my neck. His injured hand is functioning poorly, but even so, his force is frightening, the kind fueled by hatred and a blind will to survive. “I’ll fucking kill you slowly.”
I try to throw him off by bucking my hips, but he’s dead weight. A frantic glance at the door assures me the mousy man is still standing there, observing the spectacle with obvious glee. Does he get off on watching people getting killed?
A string of gunshots rings out from closer, maybe just behind the door, but they’re faint sounds compared to the buzzing in my ears as Dimitrov continues to choke me. My lungs protest and panic surfaces.
Calling on all my training, I stop fighting his hold, forcing myself to think.
“Not so brave now that you’re on the receiving end,” Dimitrov mutters.
He pins my neck to the bed with his injured hand while reaching for his buckle with the other, giving me just enough oxygen so I wouldn’t pass out. So I’d be conscious for what he has planned for me.
“Are you just going to stand there?” he asks the mousy man. “Or do you want a taste of the traitor’s cunt?”
“I’ll let you go first,” the man replies.
Fuck him. Fuck them.
A loud crack comes from the lounge. It’s followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Dimitrov is occupied with his frantic fumbling, pushing down his pants before wedging his hips between my legs. Blood from his broken nose drips onto my face, and drops of saliva splatter over my lips as he snarls, “I’m going to fuck every hole in your body. Then I’m going to watch my men do it. Then, before I kill you, I’m going to fuck you with that broken bottle.”
I want to spit in his face. I want to sink my teeth into his tongue and rip it from his mouth, but I tamp down the instinctive urge to fight back with anger. I suppress the impulse to go blindly into the battle. I have to fight with my brain, not my body, like Gergo taught me.
The thought of my friend calms me, and the knowledge that Yan is on the other side of that door gives me strength.
When Dimitrov’s cock falls on my thigh, I push off the wig and grip one of the hairpins keeping the net in place. Slipping the curved end around my middle finger, I secure the sharp points between my fingers and make a fist while
