Page 58 of Sexting the Silverfox

“Anton,” Vitaly tries to shut him up, but Arkady waves his concerns away with the flick of his hand, smiling in a most unsettling way.

“Now, now, he’s entitled to his opinion,” he says. “I haven’t exactly abandoned my original plan. A man’s weakness can be found in his children. And I figured I’d make the best out of a bad situation when Audrey slipped through my fingers. It was only a matter of time before I’d get all three of you in the same room.”

“What are you talking about?” Vitaly asks, understandably confused.

The words leave my lips before I can process them. “It’s a ruse,” I whisper.

“A what?” Anton asks.

“I just needed the old fucker out of the house, so to speak,” Arkady replies and takes out a small gun from his jacket pocket.

I scream.

He shoots Vitaly first.

My scream pierces the restaurant’s heavy silence, echoing across the room.

Anton reaches for his gun, but Arkady fires his next shot. My brothers are both down, each injured and bleeding on the floor, their eyes wide with shock as Arkady points the gun at me. I cannot move. I cannot breathe. Fear grips my senses, and my survival instincts tell me that I need to be still.

“The trouble with Grigori is that his men don’t respect him as much as they used to, and since his sons are still under his thumb, they haven’t made themselves worthy of such respect, either,” Arkady casually remarks. “Do you have any idea how little it cost me to bring twenty of your men into my fold, Audrey?”

“What?”

I follow his amused gaze somewhere beyond the glass doors and realize that our security detail are all still there, quiet and unmoving, watching as Arkady commands the room.

They betrayed us.

Arkady bought them off, and they let him walk in here with a gun. I don’t know if the people we have upstairs are also on his side, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. He’s got me.

“It was a matter of when, not if,” he says.

I glance down at my brothers. “Vitaly,” I cry out and try to reach him, but Arkady pulls me away, squeezing my arm so tightly it hurts. “Anton!”

“They’ll be fine. I didn’t nick any arteries; relax,” Arkady replies.

“You son of a bitch!” I scream.

He smacks me hard with the back of his hand. “I won’t tolerate disrespect,” he says, suddenly transforming into a cold, ruthless bastard. He raises his hand to hit me again.

“No! I’m pregnant!” I blurt out, wincing as half of my face is stinging from the smack.

“Oh,” Arkady stills, hand still in the air, eyebrows arched with genuine surprise. “Oh, that’s interesting. It doubles your value, sweetheart.”

The pain spreads through my jaw as I struggle to keep a clear vision. Arkady grabs me by the back of the neck as I steal one last glance at my brothers. They’re alive but severely injured, and if they don’t get medical help soon, they could die. Oh, God, this can’t be happening.

“Come on, we’ve got places to be,” Arkady snarls as he drags me out of the restaurant.

“Do something!” I scream at the treacherous bodyguards who stay behind, watching us leave with sour looks on their faces. “Call for help!”

Anton reaches out for me. I can see him, albeit briefly, on the restaurant floor just before I’m dragged out into the lobby. I cannot help him. I cannot even help myself. The one thing I feared has come to pass—Arkady will use me against my father.

Chapter 23

Audrey

I’m in a dark room with shuttered windows. Through the cracks, I can hear the occasional traffic outside. I’m guessing it’s early morning. I believe I’m somewhere on an upper floor, but I don’t know much else since I was too scared and in shock to pay attention to the details. I’m still in the city; that much seems clear, though I’m not sure where exactly.

Judging by the grime on the walls, the dank smell hanging heavily in the air, and the layers of dust meeting my fingers whenever I touch a table or a windowsill, it’s an abandoned building, probably an old, condemned apartment building.

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