Page 19 of The Russian Retribution

By some stroke of luck, it isn’t far to fall.

I hit some rubble with a grunt and roll as the weight around my legs drags me down an incline that’s impossible to see in the smoke. Dust and ash clog my lungs, tearing up my throat with each desperate breath as I fall and roll down into the depths of the building. By the time I come to a stop, the smoke has somewhat cleared and I taste fresh air on my tongue.

I open my eyes and scream just as a masked man scrambles up from beside me and launches himself at me.

Is this the extra weight that dragged me away from Erik?

I roll to the side, narrowly avoiding the stranger’s fist. It slams into the cement where my head was half a second earlier. All thoughts of self-defense that try to rise in my mind are smothered by the gagging, choking need to breathe through the smoke and the dirt. I cough so hard that saliva dribbles out of my mouth while I crawl on my hands and knees, desperate to get distance between myself and the stranger. I follow the cool breeze drifting over my bare arms—air means outside and outside means people—but hands close on my ankle and drag me backward.

“No!” I yell, wincing as the impact of the stranger’s hands on my back flares up the lingering pain from my freshly healed ribs. He rolls me over and punches me so hard in the face that I see stars.I’m blinking through a dark haze when hands suddenly seal around my throat and all chance of breathing is robbed from me.

My hands lock around his wrists and I plant my feet, thrusting my hips upward to try and dislodge my attacker, but he’s much heavier than me and barely moves. His thumbs crush hard against my windpipe, and a sharp pain explodes through the back of my throat. My eyes flood with tears. His grip tightens further. I desperately thrust my hand up, catching him under the chin and sending his head snapping back.

Suddenly, I’m breathing.

Crisp air drags painfully down my throat like I’ve swallowed a thousand needles. I cough harshly, and the taste of blood floods the back of my throat. Rolling over onto my side, I continue to cough violently. One blink and the tears rolling down my cheeks allow me to see the masked stranger picking himself up and shaking his head as if my blow stunned him. I scramble across the ground, and my hand closes over a broken brick near the wall.

It’s all I have.

He launches himself at me, and I swing my arm out, catching him on the side of the head with the brick. He yells in pain and falls to the side, and when he climbs back onto his feet, he’s suddenly tackled into the wall by a figure that flies in out of nowhere.

Erik!

His fist collides several times with the stranger’s face, then he throws him to the ground and pulls his gun out from where he tucked it under his singed shirt.

“Wait!” I gasp out, struggling to get my knees under me. “I want him alive!”

“What?”

“I want him alive!”

7

ERIK

“Let me look at you.”

Anastasia’s face is pinched with tension. Her brow knits close together as she sets down the bloodied knife, and when I reach for her shoulder, she immediately shrugs me off.

“I’m fine.”

I’m not taking no for an answer, not this time. “Anastasia.”

As she turns back to the bound and bloodied captive secured to a metal chair behind us, I catch her wrist and tug her a few steps closer to me. Her pulse races against my fingertips, and the flash of annoyance in her eyes when she looks at me melts into something unexpectedly soft when I place my fingers against her cheek.

“Stop.”

“We don’t have time for this,” she replies, her eyes darting back and forth between mine. “I want answers.”

“He’s not going anywhere. And he hurt you. Let me look at you.”

Her lips part slightly, and the hesitation is evident across her face. Even her wrist tenses under my grip as her fingers flex back and forth. But after a few seconds of staring at each other, she relents with a half-nod and her shoulders slump. Anastasia leans back against the table and places her hands on either side, gripping tightly until her knuckles turn white.

Gently, I skim my fingers over the rising bruise under her left eye from where the assassin struck her in the face. It’ll turn into a bad bruise within a day or two, but from the tender pressure from my fingertips, it doesn’t feel like the blow broke anything underneath. Her eyes close briefly, eyelashes sweeping across my thumb as I caress under her eye.

“Does it hurt?”

She makes a negative noise in the back of her throat. “Not right now.” Then her eyes open and she fixes me with an intense, bright-eyed stare.

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