“Budimir will be thrilled,” the man continues in slightly accented English. “He assumed you’d escaped us. A smart woman wouldn’t have chosen to stay with Artem. He’s a dead man walking.”
I flinch back at his words, but I can’t move. I can see the gun in his hand, too. He’s probably a hell of a lot more skilled with it than I am.
“He’s going to kill you all,” I snap.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“No.”
“Why did you stay with him?” he asks.
The way he speaks to me strikes me as odd. It’s as though we’re old friends and he’s resuming a conversation we left half completed.
“He’s my husband,” I reply, chin held high.
He raises his eyebrows. “Is it possible that you actually care for him? That he cares for you?”
The shock is evident in his tone, but I bite down on my tongue. He’s going to use me as leverage, as bait… and I’ve just offered myself up on a silver fucking platter.
He takes my silence as an answer. Whistles softly in surprise.
“Well, that’s going to make this a lot harder for him, isn’t it?”
That gets my attention. “What are you talking about?” I demand, unable to keep the fear from my voice.
He drops the “old friends” voice and lets the real underlying venom glisten through.
“I’m talking about the fact that I’m claiming you for my own,” he hisses, a dark smile playing across his face. “Then I’m going to drag you to Artem and he can watch as my seed slips out of you.”
A shiver of fear of runs down my spine, but I’ll be damned if I let him see that.
This son of a bitch is confident he can overpower me. Like it or not, the odds are definitely in his favor.
Bu I’m not about to go down without a fight.
I’m stronger than I look, motherfucker.
4
Artem
I stare at the man I used to think of as a second father.
Budimir’s face is familiar, and yet completely unrecognizable to me. Is it possible I used to think of him as kindly? Is it possible I used to think of him as loyal?
Everything I thought I knew about him confronts me as he stares me down, his beady eyes gleeful and triumphant.
“I must admit,” Budimir remarks, “this is the last place I expected to find you.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I retort.
I look around at the men that surround me. I recognize only two of them. What happened to the other men of the Bratva, the men I served and bled with, the men who were once loyal to me?
Did they turn their backs on the true don?
Or did Budimir have them killed?
“I can see the wheels in your head spinning, nephew,” Budimir says, taking a step forward. “Do you have nothing you want to say to me?”
“I have many fucking things I would like to say to you,” I snarl.
Budimir chuckles as he looks around at his men. “What did I tell you, boys?” he asks. “My nephew is nothing more than a wild animal without discipline or intelligence.”
“Is that what you think of me?” I ask evenly.
“Come now, Artem,” he says. “It’s not an insult if it’s true.”
I take a step forward, but at the slightest motion, half a dozen guns cock in my direction.
Gritting my teeth, I freeze. Attacking now would not only be stupid and short sighted—it would also be proving the bastard right.
“Really, Artem,” Budimir sighs, “I had hoped to have a long-awaited chat with you. I can’t do that if you look so damn aggressive.”
“The time for conversation is done,” I snap.
Budimir glances at the man to his right and nods once. Five soldiers begin to creep toward me from different angles.
I don’t bother with my gun. The moment I open fire, they would cut me down in a hail of bullets.
But they’ve all holstered their weapons, too. They’re closing down the distance to where I stand in the middle of the clearing one slow step at a time. Hands empty.
Let us fucking brawl, then.
The moment the first man comes within punching distance of me, I clench my fist and send my knuckles straight to his face.
He tries to block at the last minute, but he’s too late and he ends up with a mouthful of blood and dirt.
I turn fast, ready with my second punch. But then I feel something snake around my legs.
Is that a fucking lasso?
Before I can do anything else, my ankles are yanked from under me. I hit the ground hard, facedown in the muck. The wind whooshes painfully out of my lungs.
The rest of them are on me instantly. A flurry of kicks and nightsticks to the ribs, the back, the legs.
It’s over as soon as it starts. I’m tugged upright onto my knees and someone secures my hands behind my back and lashes my ankles together.
I spit blood onto the earth in front of me. I can’t move unless I want to topple over. Trussed up like a fucking pig.
“Ah,” Budimir says approvingly, as he moves closer, “you’ve finally learned your place, nephew. On your knees in front of me.”
I snarl up at him. “The man you force on his knees will rise again, stronger and more vicious than before.”
It’s something Father used to say. Something I never paid much mind to when he was still alive.
Budimir just laughs. “If he can get up at all. Which you definitely won’t be able to do when I’m done with you.”
“So then do it,” I growl. “Kill me and be done with it.”
Budimir’s eyes flash for a moment and I detect a note of surprise. “Oh, I will,” Budimir nods. “But not just yet.”
I roll my eyes. “You always had a flare for drama, didn’t you?”
“This coming from the man who drank his weight in alcohol for months after losing his whore.”
“She
