Page 28 of Kiss of Death
She didn’t even have the decency to warn Otto.
“Are you —” His sentence died on anooofwhen the guy in the ski mask punched Otto in the jaw. He quickly swung back, and the two fought in front of her until another guy jumped in and tried to pin Otto to the ground. She caught a glimpse of Otto’s bloody face, and when their eyes connected she saw the second he registered her betrayal.
Another guy came out of nowhere, kicking Otto in his ribs. Each hit made Ivy flinch, and when she felt the warm hand around her neck, she almost screamed until she heard Bruno’s voice in her ear. “You did good. Now the real fun begins.”
He walked around her and knelt down in front of Otto. “You picked the wrong side, my man, and you’re going to pay for it. Get him up and on the stage.”
Otto was still fighting the three guys as they dragged him toward the stage, and he never took his eyes off of her. She could feel his hatred for her the same way she once felt his desire for her.
They threw him on stage and quickly tied him up to the center pole—the one she danced on. Ivy didn’t know what else Bruno needed from her, but she didn’t want to bear witness to what he had in store for Otto. It would be too much for her.
Bruno stood in front of the stage and pulled out a gun. “You are such an easy guy to fuck over, Otto. I knew you’d fall for her too. They all did, pretty face and the sweetest cunt out of all my girls.” He chuckled and Otto struggled against his binds until one of the guys punched him in his jaw again.
“Sofia’s going to kill you.” He spit blood, and Ivy wasn’t sure if that remark was meant for her or Bruno—probably both.
Bruno shrugged. “She’ll be too busy trying to rebuild this place.” He turned toward Ivy. “You’re free to go. Once I’m done here I’ll text you your sister’s location, and you two can meet and run off into the sunset together.” The smile he shot her way made her feel cold and instantly worried that he was about to send her on a wild goose chase for Eve.
“You’ve done your part. I really couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
He turned back toward the stage and nodded at his men who started beating on a defenseless Otto. Her feet were stuck to the floor, torn between running away and doing something—anything that would help him.
Bruno looked behind him. “I’d advise you to get a move on it, before I change my mind and you don’t get your sister back.”
Ivy spared Otto one last look before she turned on her heels and hauled ass out of Tres. She looked down at her phone, debating on whether she should call anyone. She opened the keypad on her phone and hesitated. If the cops showed up before Bruno left, he’d know it was her that called and she’d never see her sister again.
No. She’d stick to the plan and let the guilt of what she just did catch up with her later.
“We are finally free, Eve.”
OTTO GROANED AND COUGHED AShe started to wake up. His head throbbed and his left side hurt every time he took a breath. He blinked slowly as the main floor to Tres came into view. It was foggy, and he didn’t know if it was from the pulsing in his eyes that clouded his sight or something else.
He pulled at his arms, but they didn’t get very far. He pulled again, and he realized he was stuck. The events from the last—however long he’d been knocked out for—came rushing back to him along with the smell of smoke.
He let out a pained laugh at the predicament he was in. Nico was right, he was a sucker. The club was going to burn to the ground with him in it all because he fell for Ivy’s poison. He should have known—should have listened to that nagging voice in his head that said something was up with her, but he’d been blinded by the pull between them, hoping he was wrong about her.
When she called him crying to meet up at Tres, he came running like a fucking a fool because his instincts had screamed at him to protect her, and she played him.
She was used as a pawn to get what Boris and Bruno wanted, and it worked. The Council and the Barbati organization were going to take a hit from the loss of the club, and with him gone, there would be no one to look out for Gia and Natalya. Sofia wouldn’t be obligated to keep them safe because this was Otto’s fuck up. He brought the bomb in, got close to it because he wanted to fuck her and she fucked him with no lube instead.
You wanted more from her than what was between her legs, and that’s why this stings. It ain’t only your ego that’s bruised.
Otto shut down his inner monologue. He didn’t need to hear that shit right now. He needed to focus on his escape, if there even was one. He coughed as the smoke started to get heavier on the main floor and winced when the pain in his side throbbed in tune with his rapid pulse. He tried to pull his arms forward again with a little more strength, hoping to break the binds but nothing gave. He looked down at his feet and cursed when he saw his ankles had been zip-tied together. He looked around for broken glass—anything that would help him, but he came up empty.
He had no clue where Bruno started the fire, but the heat in the club had risen. He was starting to sweat, and he could hear wood start to splinter and break. Of all the ways to die, this wasn’t too high up on his list of preferred deaths. His only hope was that he’d pass out from smoke inhalation before the flames kissed his skin.
“Gianna!” He heard someone scream his sister’s name, and at first he thought he was imagining it. Gia wasn’t here. He made sure of it when he called her about Ivy being at the club. They must have hit him in his head pretty hard if he was starting to hear voices, or maybe it was his basic human instinct to want to survive that made him imagine help was on the way.
Otto coughed again, and he sucked in a sharp breath. The pain in his side was getting worse with the coughing from the smoke he kept inhaling. He leaned his head back, and hit it against the pole he was tied to. It wasn’t lost on him that it was the same pole Ivy had danced on every night that she worked here. She set him up, and he was going to die strapped to what brought her into his life.
Talk about poetic.
He heard someone shout his sister’s name again, but the voice sounded closer this time. “Fuck, Otto. What the hell happened?”
Otto dropped his head when the voice finally registered to his tired mind. “You have got to be shittin’ me. Why are you here?” Otto wheezed out to Smoke who worked quickly to cut his binds with the knife he always carried.
“Saving your dumbass. Where’s your sister? I usually come with her to the club, but she wasn’t home, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of her.”
Otto felt Smoke’s hands on his arms, and in one quick motion Smoke hauled him up to his feet. Otto let out a pained howl as his head swam.
