Page 83 of Brazen King

Then her fingers are lacing with mine, and I realize Killian’s man Lance is serving as her shield.

“We have to go. Now!” Killian shouts over the panicking crowd.

Then he steers us toward the exit, allowing the mob to carry us part of the way.

But rather than getting swept up in the general mayhem that could easily end up with us trampled, he and Lance haul us toward the lesser-known emergency stairs toward the back of the building.

Intense gratitude floods my chest as Killian takes charge because I’m so numb from the agonizing loss of my parents that I can’t quite see straight, let alone think in a straight line.

Vaguely, I catch the sound of someone sobbing inconsolably, and I look to Tatiana, worried that she might be falling apart.

But to my astonishment, aside from being as pale as a ghost, she’s not crying.

Instead, her blue eyes are filled with such intense concern that it overrides her unbearable grief.

“Breathe, Natasha,” she says softly, giving my frigid fingers a firm squeeze.

Then it hits me—I’m the one making that awful noise.

My lungs burn as I realize I’m hyperventilating, and horrible tremors rack my body.

“I’ve got you, love,” Killian murmurs, his strong arms holding me in one piece when otherwise I would surely fall apart completely.

Lance shoves the metal stairwell door open with a bang, and he leads the charge down the stairs, raising a gun he shouldn’t have possession of at an event like this because we insist on disarming everyone.

Tatiana follows close behind him with me and Killian bringing up the rear.

But as we reach the first landing, everyone stops short.

We’re cut off by no less than five of Lucian’s men. All armed.

36

KILLIAN

My anxiety over Natasha’s mental state quickly takes a back seat.

Because the wall of men below us just turned into the hard place, as four more men enter the stairwell from above us, and their sharp steps clatter against the cement as they rush toward us—serving as the rock that will crush us.

Normally, I would consider Natasha more of an asset in this situation than a liability. But with her broken sobs ripping my heart to shreds, I don’t know that she has the wherewithal to face the danger she’s in.

And it would appear that her sister, Tatiana, isn’t nearly the same lethal asset as Natasha. Because she stands with wide-eyed fear beside Lance, frozen in place as if she doesn’t know the first thing about self-defense.

Vaguely, I recall Natasha mentioning that her sister is more of a strategist than a fighter. They serve very different purposes in their family business. Which means that it’s just me and Lance against nine armed and deadly Italian mafia men.

“Hand the girls over, and we’ll let you go,” one man says to me—one of the men who came down the stairs after us. He’swatching me with dark eyes, assessing just what move I might try to make now that we’re trapped between a rock and a hard place.

No doubt Lucian sent him after us with orders to retrieve the Sokolov sisters.

And my meeting with the Italian don rings in my ears like a prophetic death knell.

I shouldn’t have called Lucian crazy. Because, clearly, he is—he’s crazy enough to have killed Boris Sokolov in cold blood—in the middle of a charity event, no less. And if our meeting is any indication of what motivated such a rash decision, he likely did it with the intent of taking Tatiana as his wife. And claiming the entire Sokolov empire for himself.

He all but said as much in our meeting. If only I’d taken him seriously enough to listen.

I wonder if I could have stopped this from ever coming to fruition.

I was such a fool. Because I didn’t take him seriously like I should have.

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