Page 144 of For a Price

There’s not a second to waste. I must annihilate the pakhan and then everything else can go to shit.

The bastard has been sabotaging me. He has hurt Katerina. He killed my father.

I’m a predator prowling the halls of the Midnight Society. My boots pound on the wooden flooring one after another as I prove my hulkish size doesn’t slow me down. I’m barreling down the hall toward the last door where he must’ve disappeared inside.

I wrench it open, expecting to enter a room full of the pakhan’ssoldiers.

I’m half right. There’re two more of them that immediately open fire on me. I dive back behind the wall in the hall. We trade bullets as they shoot at me and I pop out long enough to shoot at them.

A bullet burns through my shoulder. I grunt at the immediate flame of pain that engulfs me. But it’ll take more than a bullet to the shoulder to bring me down. I’ve been shot six times before and carried on during a fight like this.

I get my revenge with the next pull of my trigger.

The jackass who shot me ends up taking one of my bullets to the neck.

One more to go…

“Run now or be prepared to die!” I roar over the whip-like crack of our gunfire. “You are willing to die for him but he doesn’t give a fuck about you!”

The last henchman goes down like I’ve predicted he would. Using some of my last bullets, I hit him first in the kneecap and then between the eyes.

I’m slicked with sweat stepping out from behind the wall. I enter the room heaving ragged breaths, teeth clenched and hate burning in my gaze.

At last the pakhan and I have been reunited.

He’s standing calmly in wait for me.

… with Katerina.

His guards may be gone, but he’s found a new form of protection. Doing what all pussy bitches do and hiding behind an innocent woman or child.

My woman.

A million questions rush my mind, like how the fuck she’s even here in the first place, and what could’ve gone wrong for her to be in his clutches?

“Ya dolzhen byl znat’, chto ty eto sdelayesh’. Ty trus?*,” I spit out.

He smirks condescendingly. “Ya umnyy, Zver. Umneye tebya?*.”

He wraps an arm around Katerina’s hips and draws her closer ’til she’s pressed up against his front. I take several heavy footsteps forward with clenching fingers dying to crack his fucking skull.

But he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Uht, uht, Zver,” he says in his smooth accent. “Stay where you are… or she will suffer the consequences.”

Katerina’s trembling in his hold.

Try as she might to keep calm, there’re tears misted in her dark eyes and her chin quivers every few seconds. She’s a nervous wreck, once again in the arms of the man who bought her like a possession.

It’s enough to make me feral. Turn me into an animal. The very fucking beast I’m named after.

“Let her go,” I say in a low growl. “Get your fucking hands off her.”

“But why?” he asks. He nuzzles the side of her face, nipping at her ear. His smirk grows even more arrogant and taunting. “She remembers so well what it feels like for me to touch her.”

A howl of anger vibrates out of me and I break into a fast stride toward them. I’ll crush every bone in his body. I’ll crack his skull open and bash in his brains. His blood will be the sweetest fucking victory of my life.

The pakhan stumbles several paces back, taking Katerina with him. He points the gun he has at her head and clicks his tongue all over again.

“Uht, uht. You decide how this goes. Take one more step, Zver. Such a beautiful woman. Such a pity for me to kill her.”

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