Page 20 of Hunter's Trial

Tears pinprick my eyes as I try to kick and run away from him but he grabs me by the ankle, pulling me back toward him and kicks me for good measure, knocking the wind right out of me.

“I just have to teach you a lesson, baby girl, for leaving me…and then we can be a family again. You made a mistake, I understand that. It’s going to be okay once you apologize.” Billy says as he advances closer to me, looming over me.

I’m trapped. Helpless. Again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

NIKOLAI

Flashback - The day before the pleading.

Try as I might to stay awake, I just can’t seem to manage it.

My nerves feel like raw live wires.

Every time that my eyes start to drift closed the panic only intensifies.

It feels like this stay here in prison is breaking down the man that I know myself to be and I’m not entirely certain that I’m going to recognize the man that comes out on the other side. Assuming that I make it out of here at all.

Word spread quickly that my court date got moved up to tomorrow and now those who are out for my blood are out of time. The sheer number of threats that were made against my life over the course of dinner should break some sort of record. I know better than to sleep tonight. The weeks of barely catnapping and living on edge are catching up to me. One more night. I just have to stay awake for one more night and then it will all be over. Win or lose, it will all be over tomorrow.

I can stay awake.

I can.

Next thing I know - my lungs are on fire. I awake from a startle reflex as my limbs splay out wildly around me, grasping for an attack that I didn’t see coming. While sleep still clings to me, my mind doesn’t want to piece together what’s actually happening. Yet, somehow, I already know who is the one who managed to bribe the guards to get access to me. The Camorra. It can be no other. He would have ensured that nobody else could move against me but him. His ego simply wouldn’t allow it. Rough hands grasp my ankles and wrists, attempting to pull my hands away from the plastic bag that’s over my head, cutting off my air supply.

There’s no time to panic.

It doesn’t stop the rush of adrenaline coursing through my body the second I register that I’m dying, almost dead. My lungs are on fire. I grasp at the plastic around my mouth, reaching to puncture it with my nail as best as I can. There’s got to be at least four of them holding me down, or trying to. I kick at them, but they manage to dodge.

There - a slight snag in the bag and it’s enough. Sweet oxygen rushes into my lungs but I keep gasping for air like a fish.

It’s enough.

Now that my hands aren’t needed to breathe, I can use my hand to fight off those around me. It takes all of my strength to throw them off of me. I hear at least one of them howl in pain as their body collides with their metal bunk bed. Must just be my cellmates. But the opening is enough. I yank the plastic bag off my head and toss it aside. It’s too torn to be of any further use to me. One lunges for me, and I put him in an easy sleeper hold. They know that with me on my feet, they don’t stand a chance. It would be absolutely pointless for me to call out for help and they know it. Nobody is coming to save me. Nobody is going to help me here. I have no choice but to fight until the morning hours… or kill them.

If I kill them, my whole case is ruined.

The one in my arms falls to the ground in a slump, unconscious. The two that had been holding down my feet come at me next. It’s a smart strategy on their part to attempt to take me all at once. No doubt they think that I’m going to be a far easier target if they double up on their strength. The joke’s on them, that’s been one of the acts that used to make me the most money back in my fighting days. They loved nothing more than to toss me into the fighting rings with two men much larger on me. For a time, they bet on me being slaughtered - then as they realized just how good I truly am, so they started betting on how much blood I could get on my fists.

These two men won’t know what’s coming. I just can’t hit them anywhere that’s going to leave too big of a mark or that’s going to go against me. I can’t let them ruin my case tomorrow. I just have to keep tossing them off of me until we come to a standstill.

I was an easy target while I was asleep. Not so much when I’m awake.

There’s no other option than for all of us to reach an impasse until morning.

It’s going to be a hell of a night.

After tomorrow’s case - this will all be over, at least I have to hope so. The Camorra can’t still have any men on the outside. I took them all down. Didn’t I?

Guess I’m going to find out.

Present Day

I didn’t think that leaving was going to be quite this hard.

If you had asked me a handful of months ago if it would have been a struggle in the slightest to pack up my life and move to another part of the country, or hell, even go back to the motherland, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

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