Page 8 of The Russian Retribution

Not from a lack of trying.

Ryan continues his rambling about what happened last night after I left, but his words fall into just background noise as across the parking lot, Anastasia comes striding out of the building with Viktor in tow. She pauses and stares upward, causing her platinum-blonde hair to cascade off her shoulders and pour down her back like liquid silk. Even this late at night, it stands out like a beacon in a sea of black. Her body is tense, and whatever discussion she’s having with Viktor doesn’t seem to be going smoothly. Not that it ever does. Anyone can see that she keeps him around because of his relationship with her father, as they’re both on very different tracks regarding the future of this family.

Maybe Ryan is right. Maybe this position will lead to nothing but my demise.

Then again, he doesn’t know what I know.

“I gotta go,” I say, cutting off Ryan’s tirade. “Ice Princess is on the move.”

“Frappe time?”

“Something like that.”

“Alright, catch you later. Asshole.”

“Uh-huh.” I end the call with a touch to my earpiece and reach for the car door handle.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Anastasia’s car is engulfed in a ball of flame and the explosion rocks the entire parking lot. I immediately start sprinting toward the fire, fearing that she was close enough to be consumed and I’ll forever be remembered as the security lead who let his Godmother die. I make it three steps before other random cars in the parking lot start exploding one after the other, like popcorn escaping the pan and rolling right into the fire. Viktor melts through some smoke and stumbles with blood pouring from the side of his head, then he’s grabbed by a member of his security and dragged to cover.

People yell and scream, fire and smoke consume the air, and the next car I pass explodes so suddenly that I’m swept right off my feet with a gasp. I land on the windshield of a vehicle thankfully safe from the explosions, completely winded. My body screams and aches, and the back of my neck tenses up like a rock. For a few precious seconds, I can’t move.

Embers and ash rain down on me, threatening to ignite my suit. Metal screeches, flames crackle and scream, and my heartpounds so violently in my chest that I can taste iron on the back of my tongue.

Get up, Erik. Get up!

I roll off the windshield and hit the ground on all fours. Small stones cut into my palms, but it’s a distant pain as I scramble up and resume my sprinting toward the source of the first explosion. People’s screams of terror mingle with loud yells and the sharp screech of car brakes. Darting around one of the ambulances, I stumble through a column of smoke and skid to a stop on the sidewalk when I spot a charred body lying a few feet away.

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no.

Crashing to my knees, I gingerly grab the figure by the shoulders and haul them onto their back, only to be met with a bulkier build than Anastasia's.

Igor.

Her bodyguard.

“Shit.”

Wiping sweat from my brow, I glance up and peer through the inferno in time to see three masked men dressed in complete black dragging Anastasia into the back of their silver car.

I’d recognize her hair anywhere.

And those aren’t my men.

“Hey!” I bellow, racing toward them. One man looks up at me, and then he throws himself into the backseat with her. The doorslams, and the car races off down the street just as I reach the burned skid marks left in their wake. “Fuck!”

There’s no time to wait or to call anyone else. I have to get after her. I sprint back to my own car, which has mercifully survived the series of explosions, and throw myself inside so violently that the pain of clipping my elbow on the door doesn’t hit me until I’m speeding down the road chasing the kidnappers’ vehicle.

“Ow,” I groan softly as pain radiates from my elbow and sends a numbness fluttering across my forearm. “Fuck, fuck!”

It doesn’t take me long to catch up to their vehicle. They’re driving recklessly, likely just trying to escape, while I drive with a goal. My time in the military was short-lived, but it birthed my skills as a driver that Viktor put to use quite a few times when it came to robberies. That’s where I existed in this crazy Mafia world until he found a new job for me and a new goal.

That goal is Anastasia, and I’m not letting some ratty vermin take her from me.

It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know who I am.

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