Page 81 of Possessive Vows

Feliks yanks me backward. My head spins and fingers tingle.

Dimitri tosses a second handgun, then two knives and what looks like a throwing star.

I swallow, shocked. I knew he was carrying weapons, but I didn’t realize how many.

It won’t do us any good if they all end up on the ground.

Sirens finally sound in the distance, but with traffic blocked, they’ll be too late, and by the nearby gunshots, the men Dimitri brought with us fight their own battles. Other travelers scream and duck for cover, some fleeing on foot down the overpass.

Dimitri holds his hands up, palms toward us. Feliks sneers and commands Grisha to frisk my husband.

I shift toward the bumper. Feliks chokes me. I claw at the back of his hand, desperate for oxygen. Milliseconds before darkness takes me over, he relaxes his fingers. I suck down ragged breaths and cough.

“I will fuck you in the back of this car soon,shlyukha, but I will kill your husband and stepchildren first. I may be twisted, but I am not a home wrecker,” Feliks mocks.

Visceral madness sweeps through me. Another person takes over.

She is the version of me who slapped a nanny for spanking her daughter. She bit and stabbed a man for touching her son. She would rather cut off her own arm than see her middle child endure a second of hardship.

“No,” I say.

Feliks scoffs.

“No what,suka?”

I meet Dimitri’s crystal-clear blue eyes and smirk. His expression darkens and his entire body tenses.

I tilt my head back and quirk a brow at my tormentor. He scowls. The pistol slips off my temple, but I aim my haughtiest glare deep into his wretched pale eyes.

“You’re the only one getting screwed today,” I snarl.

With every ounce of power in my body, I lunge, yank the screwdriver out of the pile, and twist. A gunshot blasts through my skull, but I swing harder, leaning on the one self-defense session Loretta gave me. The metal punches into Feliks’s stomach. I drive it deeper.

Crimson rains down on me. It coats my hands, soaks my clothes, and sprays my face.

Feliks slams flat on his back on the concrete. A gash cuts through his throat. Half his face is gone, replaced by gory bullet holes. I spit into it and watch with detached amusement as the glob oozes down what used to be his temple.

An iron band wraps around my stomach and lifts me off my feet. I kick and flail until I catch Dimitri’s reflection in the side of the SUV as he hauls a blood-soaked woman in one arm and fires his pistol with the other. He opens the back door and tosses me in before slamming it closed and jumping into the driver’s seat.

My brain slams into overdrive as he shifts into gear.

“The kids!” I yell as I grab for the door even as he swerves forward and parks beside our wrecked vehicle.

“Get them,so´lnyshka,” he snarls before hopping out.

I already have the door open and one foot on the ground.

Artur wields his knife at me.

“We have to go. Now. Capisci?” I demand as I reach for him.

“Mama Camilla?” he asks.

Right. I’m covered in blood.

“Yes. I’m okay, and so are you. Let’s go. Hurry,” I urge.

He pushes Maksim toward me and wraps Zoya in his arms. I don’t care how big or heavy Maksim is, I scoop him up and carry him to the SUV.