Page 47 of Stolen By the Bratva

And that was where his wrath would end. I demanded it. His interference would stop now.

I met him head-on, fists slamming into him as he breathed ragged, hard heaves of air and tried to beat me to a pulp. In a frenzy of action, I stayed on him, determined to make him pay once and for all for getting in my way.

I’d be damned if he tried to foil me, but pure rage was driving him. Like a beast, not a man, he launched himself at me. Each time I got the upper hand with a strong hit or block, he’d double back against all odds and damn near change the tide.

One look at Mila was my downfall. I glanced at her, checking that she wasn’t near the realm of danger as we fought, but that mere glimpse was all the opportunity he needed to knock me to my ass.

I skidded back, slamming my shoulder into the floor so hard that it pushed all the air out of my lungs.

By the time I slowed in the drop, grunting through the pain, he’d turned and reached for his gun. I hadn’t understood why he didn’t use it on me, but I realized too late that maybe he’d welcomed the fury of the fight. For the first time, he’d wanted his hands dirty—with my blood.

In slow motion, my world blurred. All my senses tripped into a smear of panic, and I felt trapped, paralyzed in place as I watched him twist and aim his gun at Mila.

She hadn’t run. She stood there, creeping closer to Maxim and the priest. As soon as she spotted the real and present danger pointed her way, she went still, staring wide-eyed at Andrey snarling at her with a malicious grin.

“No.” She didn’t beg it weakly. It came out as a firm but too-quiet order.

“Fucking whore.” He lifted his arm, and I scrambled to stand. Time stopped. My heart thundered faster with utter terror as he prepared to kill her himself.

I lurched in front of her just in time, hissing at the pain exploding in my side as I reached her.

“Alek! No!” She reached for me, her hands grabbing at my jacket as I slid right back down to the floor, landing harder than I had the first time.

20

MILA

Alek slammed against me, knocking us to the ground. My ears rang with the blast of the gun fired so close, and I sucked in a quick breath and held it. Terror held me in its grip, and I did my best to break Alek’s fall.

He was too large to buffer his drop to the ground. Combined with his tackle, the force of his taking the bullet Andrey had aimed at me, and the sketchy stance I’d stood with as I tried to shrink out of my former fiancé’s sight, I was on my ass. Flat on my ass, stunned by the juddering impact of being brought down.

My life had flashed before my eyes. The second Andrey pointed his gun at me, I swore I felt my essence slipping away. My soul faded and my vision blurred with extreme horror. This was it, the moment I would be done with my time in this life.

But Alek had other plans. He dove in front of me, taking the hit of the bullet, and I scrambled to keep up with the frantic change of events. My mind lagged. My senses were sluggish. I felt as though I looked through tunnel vision, vaguely able to know what was what. My reaction time was delayed, hence my rough fall, but the throbbing hit of crashing to the floor jolted me. It jarred me to wake the fuck up, to move, to be smart and help this big, strong man who’d been my hero more than he’d proven to be an enemy.

“Alek,” I repeated as I panicked and felt over his body. He replied in a groan, twisting on my lap, but he couldn’t get up. A warm flood of blood from his shoulder and back reached my dress, and I groped and felt around to try to stem the bleeding.

“You think you can trade up?” Andrey sneered at me. “Or down?” He laughed, brutish and loud as he watched Alek moan in agony.

“Fuck off,” the other man shouted.

Maxim? I couldn’t recall which of Alek’s brothers was supposed to meet us here. Which one Alek had spoken with on the phone. He resembled the wounded man on my lap, though, and I knew he was trying to help.

I doubted he could do anything from that weak position against the chair. My heart hammered as I did inventory, rushing to make sense of what was most urgent. Alek was breathing harshly on my lap. He lived, for now, but with how heavy he was on me, I was trapped on the floor and unable to move him to access his wound.

Maxim wasn’t much better off. Red stains littered his white shirt, and he dragged in air with rough, ragged inhales as he tried to stand with the chair’s assistance.

And the priest… I checked a glance at him as well, nervous when I saw that he’d ceased mumbling his prayers to himself.

The other Valkov near the door was dead, unmoving and stiff.

That summed it up to zero. I had no chance for help in here, and I’d have to rely on myself.

“You want more, huh?” Andrey stalked over to Maxim and pistol whipped him for speaking up, and Alek groaned, trying to stand as he covered my hand that I’d pressed at his wound. My legs shook from the adrenaline wiring through me, but my knees ached with the pressure of keeping his large body over me. I couldn’t tell whether he was too wounded and winded to get up, but I figured it would be smart to stay together. As one. If I could protect him half as much as he’d protected me, I would.

“You stupid fucking whore,” Andrey taunted as he returned to me, lifting his gun again. Grinning maniacally like that, he looked deranged, insane and unstable, high on the opportunity to kill these men. His words were directed at me, but I didn’t give a shit. He’d ceased mattering to me the moment Alek busted me out of that church. Andrey failed to have any meaning in my life the second Alek took my virginity.

I was no longer anything to Andrey, but it seemed like he didn’t agree.

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