“ALIK!” My scream turns into a shriek of fear when the man behind me gets both hands on my waistband and starts to drag my pants down.
The guards are shouting to let me go, that I’m marked, that I can’t be touched, but their orders are meaningless as the mob around me starts to chant horrible, horrible things. I throw elbows, try to kick free, but I don’t have enough room to move. There are more men around me now, more clubgoers egging on the guy behind me, the one gripping my hip painfully as he tries to strip me.
I thrash helplessly as one of the waitresses stands just feet away, eyes trained on the ground, ignoring all my pleas for help.
I haul in a breath, ready to scream as loud as I possibly can when I hear a familiar voice shout, “Sera—duck!” It’s said with so much authority I comply instantly, going limp so my torso slumps forward just as a bullet whips over my head and lodges square in the forehead of the guy behind me.
There’s a second when everything stops, when even the music seems to go silent.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Everyone on the dance floor is screaming and pushing for the exit. The guards are waving their weapons around, trying to figure out where the shot came from as they try—and fail—to move against the current of bodies.
The hands holding me are gone, my attacker dead, his blood all over the ground. I lurch away, almost fall. Someone catches me.
Not Alik, but Dimitri. Somehow, he’s made it inside. His eyes are violent, but his voice is calm. “Can you move, Miss Sera?”
I nod.
“Do it. Now.” He tugs me forward, his body a hulking mass in front. We get to the base of the staircase just as Alik leaps down the final few steps. He lands next to me, his face locked in a terrifying expression, gun still drawn. He’s the one who shot my attacker.
The woman in the gold dress is nowhere to be seen, but two men are glaring down at us from above. Renzo and another man I’ve never seen before. When they see me, di Salvo’s expression shifts from surprised to murderous in a blink, but the other one just smiles. I didn’t think I could get more freaked out than I already am, but that smile turns my blood cold. I swear he winks just as Dimitri hauls me forward and Alik steps close behind, me sandwiched between the two Russians as they quickly move us through a door concealed in the corner.
I don’t bother trying to keep track of the twists and turns. I just keep my head down and focus on not tripping. Alik is spewing things off in Russian and Dimitri is giving one-word responses.
The escape route feels endless, but it’s probably only been a minute, maybe less, before Dimitri shoves open a heavy door, holding me and Alik back until he can clear the area in front of us.
He nods and we hustle out, and I’m relieved to see that the men with guns are at least thirty feet away instead of three.
“Run!” Alik barks in my ear, and I do. We all do, straight for the SUV that Dimitri’s driven up over a curb and left running between the buildings directly in front of us.
My feet hit the pavement, and I realize I’ve lost my shoes. Asphalt abrades my soles as Alik forces us to a crouch as we run, using his body to shield mine from the guards shooting at us. Somehow, Dimitri manages to get into the driver’s seat and whip the SUV around so that the front of the vehicle takes the brunt of the attack. Bullets ping off the armor-plated exterior as Alik and I scramble into the back seat.
I’m pressed flat to the leather, his body a heavy weight on top of mine as Dimitri throws the SUV in reverse, bullets rappelling off the windshield as we fly backwards.
We bounce across uneven ground before the SUV hits the road. Alik’s bodyweight keeps me from tumbling to the floor. He barks something at Dimitri, Dimitri barks back. I shiver beneath one very furious Russian, body temperature plummeting as the shock sets in. Outside, the angry shouts and gunfire fade into silence as we race away.
21
SERA
We’ve been driving for a while, no signs that any one is chasing us. Alik still has me flattened to the leather seats. His chest feels like hot iron and, as oddly wonderful as the weight is, I’m starting to suffocate. “Get off. Can’t breathe.”
The next instant he’s gone. My lungs grapple for oxygen and I push into a sitting position. Alik stares at me from the other side of the SUV. If it wasn’t for the distracting way his trigger finger is tapping the side of his gun, I’d say he looks oddly calm, almost detached. “Are you hurt?”
I do a mental catalogue of my body. My arms are sore from being jerked around on the dance floor, it feels like there’s bruising on my hip where that guy gripped me too tight, and my feet are scraped up, but otherwise I think I’m okay. I tell Alik as much. He grunts but still scans my body over and over as if I could’ve missed something.
The longer he studies me, the hotter I feel, even though my already flimsy PJs have been reduced to a mess of ripped and sodden fabric. I know the man doesn’t have x-ray vision, but I fold my arms over my chest anyway. No need to let him knowhow my body is reacting to his inspection and make this night even more humiliating than it’s already been.
Once Alik is convinced I’m relatively unharmed, he turns forward and stares dead ahead for the rest of the drive. The silence inside the SUV is oppressive. I’m practically crawling out of my skin by the time we reach the mansion.
Dimitri pulls up to the front entrance and Alik opens his door before we’ve come to a stop. He gets out, stows his gun, but otherwise doesn’t move, standing silently by the SUV until I slide across the seat and gingerly drop my bare feet to the gravel. No sooner am I out of the vehicle than I want back in again, back into the warm, dark space where Dimitri is a buffer between us. A buffer that vanishes when the other man drives off, leaving me with no choice but to follow an obviously enraged Alik into the house.
Inside, everything is quiet and dim. There aren’t any signs of the minions typically stationed around. No hum of conversation as they stand guard over every possible exit. Not even the housekeeper I sometimes find hovering nearby, ready to whisk away my coat before I have the chance to take it off, or pounce on a light switch so I don’t have to spend a second in the dark.
The grand foyer, the hallways that extend off it, the rooms that open out to either side—every space is empty, the lights low, the mood ominously quiet.
The click of the front door closing echoes around us. So does the tap of Alik’s shoes as he whirls and backs me against the hard surface so fast I barely have time to realize what’s happening.