Page 84 of Solemn Vow

“Jimmy, stop. Just stop.” I wiggle in my bindings. He’s deranged, aiming a gun at his nephew?

Jimmy pulls back the slide on the gun, chambering a bullet.

Theresa screams and lunges at her brother.

Jimmy jumps away. The gun fires. Twice.

Robby hits the floor and I turn away. I can’t. I can’t see a young boy lose his life because of his deadbeat uncle.

“Ma? Ma!” Robby’s up in the next second scrambling to his mother who is fighting with Jimmy for the weapon. He doesn’t seem to be hurt.

Downstairs all hell breaks loose.

Doors slam and heavy feet pummel up the stairs.

“Marlena!” Viktor’s battle cry reaches me before he even turns the corner into the hallway.

“I’m here! Viktor, I’m here!” I scream.

Theresa gets her hands on Jimmy’s gun and scrambles up to her feet, pointing it at her little brother while he cowers with his arm over his face on the floor.

Viktor appears in the doorway, quickly assesses the scene, and steps over Jimmy to get to me. Andrei and Sergei are right behind him.

“Are you hurt?” Victor grabs my face and turns it to the side, then the other. “You have been bleeding.” His dark expression gets even more black.

“Please, just get me out of here. Please.” I tug. “The ropes hurt.”

He looks down at where the ropes have rubbed my skin raw. After grabbing the knife he keeps strapped to his ankle, he tears through the ropes on my ankles and wrists.

Immediate relief flushes through my system.

“Thank you,” I whimper. “Thank you for coming for me.”

He frowns. “You didn’t think I would?”

I have no idea how to answer him. The past several hours have been a swirling of emotions. Anger that he went to Michael without me. Fury for going back on his word. Then wanting nothing more than to be in his arms again.

“I knew you would.” I’m confident of that, I’m just not positive about his motive.

“Do you have any other injuries?” he asks, reaching to scoop me out of the chair.

“I don’t think so.” I say, then immediately realize how wrong I am when my side hits his torso. I cry out in pain and his entire body tenses.

“You’ll feel better soon,” he says.

“Viktor.” Andrei calls him as he reaches the door. Viktor turns back.

Andrei has Jimmy up against the wall, his pants soaked from his own piss. Robby is huddled with Theresa on the bed. She’s glaring at her brother while making sure her son wasn’t hurt by the bullet that grazed him.

“Not that it matters, but Michael gave the okay.” Andrei looks at Theresa. She clenches her jaw and lifts it.

“Theresa, do something. Call him!” Jimmy yells from where he’s pinned. “Call Michael!”

“You went after his daughter, Jimmy. No one can help you now.” She gets up from the bed and leads Robby out.

She stops in front of Viktor, looks up at him with so much pain and disappointment in her eyes. “Just not here,” she says, then gently nudges Robby to keep walking.

Viktor turns to the other men in the room. “Take him to the room at the docks and wait for me.” He doesn’t wait. He just turns back around and carries me down the stairs, taking each step slow so as not to jostle my ribs.

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