Ivan collapsed limply onto the grass.
“What did you do to my husband?” Polina demanded from behind.
Drawing a tranquilizer gun from my thigh holster, I grinned as I glanced over my shoulder.
“I just let him get a whiff of my pussy.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “You bitch.”
She reached for the gun hidden under her dress.
“Don’t,” Lativia intervened, pressing a tranquilizer to Polina’s neck.
“It’s ironic,” I said coldly. “You told Ivan earlier that if he brought me here, you’d kill me.”
Her eyes widened even more. “What?”
I leveled the tranq gun at her chest. “It’s me, Claire. I’m here to kill you.”
She chuckled darkly. “You’ll never leave Russia alive.”
“Nor will you.”
I pulled the trigger and, the tranquilizer hit her chest.
Her body went limp in Latvia’s arms.
“Glacier, Pyro, we’re a go,” I announced over the earpiece while slipping a plastic glove from the seam of my dress onto my hand. Slowly, I peeled off the poisonous lip stain from my lips and stowed it inside the glove. I shoved the used glove back into the seam of my dress.
“We’re here,” Glacier confirmed, emerging from the shadows.
“Lativia, get her out of here,” Glacier ordered.
“You!” one of Ivan’s bodyguards barked, pointing directly at me.
“Time to move, boss chick.” Lativia fired her tranq gun at Ivan’s bodyguard.
Glacier and Pyro then tossed Ivan and Polina into black bags that reminded me of garment bags and dragged their bodies through the woods.
Angelo burst out the back door, slamming his fist into one of the guards’ faces, while Tony and Vix fired their tranq guns, dropping Ivan’s men like flies.
I kept glancing over my shoulder as I struggled to run in my stilettos. The largest of the guards—Boris—plunged his fist into Angelo’s jaw.
“No,” I yelled.
“Fucking keep going, baby,” I heard Angelo over the earpiece.
Suddenly, Xavier swept me into his arms, sprinting through the trees. “You’re shaking. Calm down. The rest of the team and the boss will get out of there.”
“Serigé’s men to the rescue,” one of the men in the group yelled as they ran past us toward the house.
Xavier’s shoulders relaxed. “The cavalry’s here.”
Gunfire erupted behind us, though our men weren’t using real bullets. Our team fired back with tranquilizer darts. Vino said we’d use tranquilizer guns instead to avoid additional complications leaving the country.
Safe inside the waiting SUV, I anxiously stared through the rear window, silently praying. “Come on, baby, please make it back.”
VINO