Page 131 of Vicious Little Games

Uh-oh.

“Is this the men’s room? My bad. No need to get violent about it,” I joke while my mind runs a mile a minute trying to figure out how to distract the meatball long enough to pull my Ruger from my thigh holster.

He speaks in a guttural foreign language, then a hand shoots under the stall and grabs my handbag off the floor.

“They really should have purse hooks on the back of these doors. The floor in here is disgusting,” I tell them.

“Shut up,” Meatball says. He says something else in what I’m guessing is Russian to the other person in the bathroom with us and he responds in the same language.

“You’re going to call Daddy and tell him to come down here or we’re going to kill you,” he tells me in English.

Ah, this is a trap for my father. As if they’re actually going to let me go once Daddy shows up. No, they’re going to kill us both. I need to delay and distract until Cole gets here and figures out what’s going on.

Scoffing, I tell him, “I don’t think so.”

This time when he speaks in Russian, I can almost guess the translation. Probably something like, “I told you she would be difficult.” Because a second later, I hear the sound of guns cocking over my head. Great. There are more of them, one on either side of me. Two men who are apparently standing on toilet seats to point their weapons down at me. I can see them from the corner of my eyes, but I don’t take my gaze off the Meathead who is clearly in charge.

The bathroom door opens, and I hear a masculine voice say, “Cass?” My name echos around us right before Meathead turns toward the door and opens fire. In the blink of an eye, he’s pointing his gun right back at me.

Oh god.

I didn’t catch the voice enough to distinguish who it was that came looking for me. Was it Cole? Or was it Brian or Sam?

These guys, and especially Inessa, love Cole. They think he’s going to fill his grandfather’s shoes so I doubt they would shoot Cole.

Again, Meatball tells the other men something I don’t understand and there’s one less gun pointing over the stall door as the guy goes to deal with the man on the floor. More conversation that I’m not a part of and then a phone on speaker begins to ring.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” my father’s voice asks, making me squeeze my eyes shut.

“No, sweetheart, everything is not okay,” Meatball drawls loud enough for him to hear him wherever the phone is. “We’re sending you a photo of your daughter’s dead guard. She’s next unless you get your ass down to Rasputin right now. Come alone. No more guards.”

“Don’t do it, Daddy!” I yell. “They’re going to kill me anyway!”

“No, they’re not,” my father replies. I wait for him to say more, to give me some sort of words of wisdom or reassurances but there’s nothing but silence.

“Let’s go,” Meatball says. He dives into the stall, grabbing the front of my sleeveless dress to tug me forward. My heels throw me off balance as I’m jerked toward him. I reach down to my leg for my gun, but he’s faster. Reaching under my skirt, he grabs the gun and holster and rips the whole thing off. He hands it over to one of the other guys so he can grasp my arm to pull me along, out the door where I see poor Sam now lying near it in a puddle of blood, his sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling.

My breaths turn shallow, coming too fast as we take a left toward a door at the end of a hallway, instead of right back to the club full of people.

I’m fucked. So fucked.

I try to figure out how to get myself out of this before Daddy shows up and we’re all dead. Well, everyone but Cole. It’s not like they’ll let him swoop in and save me though. They hate me.

While I could try and kick all three of the men’s asses, I’m certain one will shoot me before I take them all down, so all my training is worthless.

I suddenly remember how Vanessa got six kidnappers to back off her. She blurted out her real name, telling them Yuri Petrov was her father so they wouldn’t touch her. And it worked, it bought her enough time for my dad to get there and save her.

Daddy or Cole will figure out a way to kill every one of these sons of bitches. I just need to give them time to come up with a plan.

So, as soon as the door to the club slams shut behind the four of us, sealing us in a dark warehouse that reminds me too much of our torture dungeon basement, I tell the men my truth.

Cole

My phone is buzzing in my pocket as I try and figure out what the fuck else I can to do to make Inessa believe I’m on her side.

Pulling the device out of my pocket, I look at the screen. “It’s Dante. What should I tell him?” I ask Inessa. “That if he comes down here, I’ll make sure Cass walks free?”

Her lips pinch together as if she’s opposed to that idea.

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