Page 28 of Scarlet Secrets

Not on the floor. Thank fuck. No girl in white is down and bleeding, but where is she?

“Alina?” I call her name, but no answer comes and I fight the mounting terror.

I need to find her. She’s my one priority. And she better be okay. Apart from being my only family I have left, I love her with all I am. She’s one of the very few on this planet I actually care about.

Losing Alina isn’t an option.

The room is now mostly empty. People are hiding and cowering, those who didn’t make it out, and I waste a few seconds racing to the bar and peering behind it. Just the fucking staff and a friend of Alina’s, who’s crying.

I don’t even bother speaking to her. If my sister is anywhere of her own will, it’d be with Max, so I’m betting she’s not in here. Someone’s taken her.

With that thought, I run to the exit, hitting outside just in time to see three fucking men, trying to shove Alina and Erin into the back of a car.

Motherfuckers.

Both women struggle but my sister, who has a big red handprint on her face and blood at the corner of her mouth—I’m ready to rip off heads and piss down the throats of those who did that to her—sees me as I sprint and starts to fight more.

“Cunt!” The man holding her punches her in the face and I go for the gun, right as the man holding Erin looks up at me.

“Let her the fuck go,” I roar.

Erin suddenly ruins my shot by slamming her head into the man’s and kicking him in the balls. He doubles over and lets her go, and she scrambles away.

I’m still too far away and my sister struggles too much to get a clean shot. And it doesn’t help that Erin, though she scrambled free, dives back in to help Alina. Too many fucking people in my way.

Shit.

“Hold on, Alina,” I say.

One of the men goes to run after Erin but the one she kicked gasps out, “Ostav'te suku nakh! Berem sestru i valim!” Leave her. We don’t need the bitch. Just take the sister.

This all happens in seconds. It feels like a slo-mo forever.

I bear down on them, managing to squeeze off a shot, winging the one Erin kicked.

But I’m too late for Alina. They shove her in the trunk and jump in the car, fleeing, right as I get there.

Erin stumbles, hitting the pavement, hands coming down to catch herself, and I pivot, grabbing her and pulling her up, running my hands over her to check for injuries.

She’s not bleeding. Nothing’s broken.

And anger and pain consume me. I put on my coldest stone face. “You, come with me. Now.”

Erin shakes her head. “I-I didn’t do it. I tried to help… I… I just… I need to go home.”

“No.”

“What do you mean?—”

“What do you think? No.” I drag her off, tucking the gun away. There weren’t any plates on the car, so of course I couldn’t get the registration tracked.

But they were fucking Russian and that makes it easier. And deadlier.

“I tried to help her. I?—”

“Helped her into that trunk.” I move her to safety, so I can take a moment. Think.

I don’t mean what I’m saying. She was grabbed like Alina and she tried to help, but until I know what’s going on…

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