“Sit with me here, Joanne. Let me get to know you.” He uncapped the bottle and took a long pull, patting his finely tailored, genuine-Armani lap.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said, as he took a second swing, each pull at least a full shot of vodka. He didn’t seem the worse for it. I backed up to the bed and sat down, patting the spot next to me. “You come here.”
The first thing you learn about unarmed combat is to control the situation. Put your opponent where you want them and then execute a takedown move as soon as possible to end things. Don’t get fancy and don’t get cocky.
Not that I thought it was going to take much to put Grigorii out. He wasn’t a big guy, by any stretch. I was more worried about what happened after. The camera would see whatever I did.
“I like this,” Grigorii said as I tilted my head coquettishly. “Come and have a drink with me. It would make me happy.” His English was getting better with each drink, not worse.
Struck with an idea, I got up on my knees and ran my hands over my body. Grigorii perked up, but he didn’t move.
“I dance,” I said. “You drink. I like that idea the best.”
He grinned, lips thin and bloodless, and downed more of the booze. We were at half a bottle. This guy must have a liver made out of titanium. “Very well, Joanne. Dance for me.”
I got off the bed and started a slow hip shimmy, fighting to stay calm and look sexy. What I really wanted to do was bolt. “If you finish that bottle by the time I’m done, big man, I’ll give you a little present.”
“You can be sure of it,” he slurred, missing his mouth and dumping a few droplets down his front. Finally.
“Oh,” I said, dancing closer, hands running up and down my body. “Careful there, sweetie pie.”
“I’m very careful,” Grigorii muttered. Utilizing more focus than most people would to launch a bulls-eye at a dart board, he upended the bottle and dumped the remainder down his gullet. “There. Now, then, my present,” he commanded.
“Soon,” I assured him. “Stand up. Dance with me.”
Grigorii came to his feet when I beckoned, and came to me, grabbing my waist and yanking me against him. His body was hard under his suit, and I felt a gun in a holster in his left armpit. I met his eyes, and saw amusement, not intoxication, flickering in their depths.
“Not working out the way you planned?” he inquired, one hand skating down to my ass while the other drifted up and caught my cheek.
“You’re not drunk,” I blurted.
Grigorii let out a laugh. “Of course not.” He ran his thumb over my cheekbone and I felt the pop of magick.
“I’m drunk, or I am not drunk, as I see fit. Very freeing. My body is my magick, and I look after it.”
His gentle caress became a hard squeeze, and he held me by the back of the neck, his expression furious. “Is that your plan? To make every man who chooses you a drunken fool and escape their attention? Do you think I am a fool?”
“No,” I said honestly, softly. “I don’t think you’re a fool.”
Grigorii’s jaw twitched and he gave me a shake. “The right answer, much too late.”
He shoved me away from him, onto the bed, and got on top of me, flipping me on my stomach. He knotted a hand in my hair and pushed my dress up, his cold touch raising goose flesh on my skin. “My sister told me you were going to be a problem, and as usual, she was not wrong.” He wound his hand tighter in my hair and I groaned, pain lancing my scalp. “Fortunately, I specialize in problems. I’m the—what’s the English?”
Grigorii leaned close to my ear, his lips touching the outer edge. “I’m the troubleshooter.”
One good thing about macho assholes is that they don’t expect you to fight back, so awed will you be by their manly speech and manly beatings. Grigorii’s free hand reached for the elastic of my panties and my own hand lashed out and grabbed the cheap clock radio from the bedstand. I whipped my arm back and slammed the thing into his head, plastic case breaking into pieces.
Grigorii groaned, falling off of me and off of the bed entirely. A second later, he started to snore. He may be a witch, but he wasn’t invulnerable. For the first time in weeks, things were going my way.
I climbed off the bed, pulling the dress right, and went into the hall. Ekaterina obviously didn’t expect anyone to misbehave once they’d come this far. She was in for a serious fucking surprise from me, that was for sure. I just had to be fast enough to get out of here before the underlings came to shoot me.
The hallway with the girls’ suites was devoid of anything helpful, so I went the other way, past the stairs to the parlor and back toward the hidden part of the building; more apartments, these in disrepair like the suite bathroom had been. Voices spilled out from behind closed doors, a tinny laugh track and a familiar theme song. The Facts of Life dubbed into Ukrainian. Funny stuff.
I stuck my head around an open doorway, just enough to give me a sightline, and saw Mikel and Peter sitting on a battered sleeper sofa, sharing French fries out of a fast food bag and laughing at the TV like a couple of normal guys.
The urge to storm in, grab Mikel’s best friend the Kalashnikov, and open fire on them both was almost overwhelming. Those two men had been responsible for my suffering, for the suffering of the other four girls, and they deserved to die for us and who knew how many others before.
And
