Page 85 of Wrath
But that’s where Wyatt’s translation ended. He lost the rest. His skill wasn’t enough, because the next actions made Wyatt think of a baby. The boy rocked his arms as though he held one, and then he pointed to the door.
“There’s a baby in there?”
Alek shook his head and made a motion around his stomach, pointing desperately at the door. Misha was in there. Why would he make that motion toward the door unless—Wyatt’s heart stopped beating. Misha’s evasiveness and unexplained vomiting over the week became clear. She was pregnant, and she was in danger.
He froze. Rooted to the spot as the word bounced around in his head. Pregnant? His?
No time.
If Alek knew, he’d never leave her side willingly. “What are you doing out here?”
She locked me out.Blue eyes widened and Alek shook his head.I’mlooking for a weapon.
“Kid, I am the weapon. Move.”
Thirty-Nine
The sick manin front of Misha had been toying with her since high school because—if he was believed—he was her half-brother. Reconciling his view of their mother with her own version was not melding. She knew Hannah Minksi to be a kind and caring mother who would do anything for her children. It didn’t make sense that she would give one up. Never. It didn’t compute that she was thiswhoreDimitri made her out to be, even if she was beaten by her first husband.
Misha was in some kind of hell, a nightmare she couldn’t wake from, but there she was, dressed in a cheap French Maid’s outfit, with no weapon, and no protection from the madman with an impossible mechanical arm. As she stared at him, she couldn’t help registering the real pain in his eyes.
“You’re taking your anger out on the wrong person,” she said, lifting her chin. “If what you said is true, I had nothing to do with my mother’s decisions. I wasn’t even born then.”
“You had everything to do with it!” he shouted, face turning red with rage. “She wanted you, but did not want me.”
“You want me to feel sorry for you?”
“No. I want you to pay for her sins.” Dimitri drew his mechanical fist back, clenched his teeth and held it there, hovering—eyes so full of fury that Misha knew these next few minutes would be her last, and she didn’t want to die, not anymore. She knew she’d already become a burden to Wyatt, and this child would make everything complicated, but damn her if she gave up now.
Dimitri released. Misha dodged and his metal fist embedded in the wall beside her head. Plaster crumbled. She tried to get out from underneath him but he grabbed her with his free hand and forced her in place while he yanked his enhanced hand free.
She had nothing. No weapons, but herself. She kicked and punched and scratched. The man was smaller than her, but strong, so strong. Hopelessly, every strike she made glanced off, and when her fist struck his metal arm, she cried out in agony. All she did was infuriate Dimitri further, and when he finally pulled his metal hand free from the wall, and drew it to strike, she shut her eyes and prayed.
This is it.
Had she lived life the way she wanted? Everything stilled and Misha’s world slowed. Time stopped and all she could think was, I don’t want to die.I’m not ready.
A loud bang exploded behind Dimitri and a shadow burst through the door, kicking it from its hinges. That’s all she saw, the fast blur of a shadow, and then Dimitri cried out in pain, bowing his back as though he’d been hit there. Dimitri’s face twisted, and he rounded on his attacker, mechanical fist flying.
Wyatt.
In his Deadly suit with the hood and mask down, his face was clear as day and… infuriated. His dark blue eyes were shrouded in animosity. He focused all that fury on the man who’d tried to kill her. Wyatt’s hands moved in expert precision as he pummeled Dimitri, but when Dimitri’s powerful arm collided with Wyatt—Misha’s heart almost burst from her chest.
She thought he was bulletproof, but that right hook knocked the sense out of Wyatt—he shook his head, clearing the fog from the hit. A flash of red blood in his mouth revealed he wasn’t infallible. Dimitri took advantage. He attacked Wyatt, over and over again, hitting her man with his unyielding metal fist. Wyatt blocked, two forearms and fists shielding his body and face.
Weapon.She needed a weapon. Her sight jumped all over the broken room, searching for something. Glass. The glass terrarium had broken. She ignored the tiny shards pricking her bare feet and ran to the desk, looking for a big shard she could wrap her jacket around and use to cut. But when she rounded the desk, she saw something even more frightening. The enormous snake slithered out of its container, somehow climbing over the fallen computer monitors, broken glass, and filling the entire floor space between the desk and the back wall. It was massive. Human killing size. She swallowed a lump in her throat, urgency speeding her pulse. There was no way she’d reach past that thing to find a shard of glass big enough to use as a weapon.
So what? What else?
Dimitri’s damned golden gun.
Misha yanked open the drawer to his desk. Adrenaline surged when her eyes landed on the obscene glowing weapon winking in the artificial light. She picked it up and turned back to the grappling men. Wyatt had Dimitri in a headlock, and was trying to separate his arm from his body with his feet, but the mechanical arm was too strong and slippery to gain purchase. The two men rolled, grunting. There was no clear shot. They were so intertwined… but… Wyatt was bulletproof. Maybe not mechanical arm proof, but she could shoot, she could—
No time. With an infernal roar, Wyatt tore Dimitri’s gold arm in two at the elbow.
“No!” Dimitri wrenched himself from Wyatt and stood cradling his shoulder. Wires dangled from the cyborg prosthetic, sparks ignited. Dimitri tried to irrationally hold the wiring together, but only succeeded in giving himself small electric shocks. “Give it back!”
Wyatt held Dimitri’s broken metal arm. He flipped it to adjust his grip, holding it by the wrist, and then his hard eyes met Misha’s. He swung the metal arm, baseball style at Dimitri’s head, knocking the man out cold. Dimitri’s body landed near the desk with a thud.
