Page 376 of Vicious Saint
It didn’t take long after my conversation with Bex and Archer for my dad to catch on about Hendrix’s whereabouts, given they’re exactly where he feared she’d end up from the beginning after learning the truth.
His major mistake was assuming she’d be stupid enough to head for the nearest Ivanov residence where there’s twenty-four hour muscle guarding the perimeter.
Hendrix is on a desperate mission as much as I am: her to kill and me to stop her from getting killed. Something made clear I can’t trust my father to do.
It’s why I made sure to be convincing when I promised him I would stay put, even handed over my keys for him to take my Rover.
But the second he was gone, and Cray’s dad picked up June and Poppy, I had Archer tossing me his keys, switching phones as I jumped into his Porsche.
Now, here I fucking am, about to roll up on Nikolai Ivanov’s restaurant, with nothing but Halo, boiling rage, and the pistol I keep around for rainy, deadly nights like this one.
And make no mistake…someone will be dying tonight.
But it won’t be my little Jimi Hendrix.
“They’re moving again!” Archer announces frantically as I approach a red light, gunning the engine to fly past it and turn onto a one way street.
“Still on the highway?”
“One stop from the exit.”
Fuck.
A drive by the mansion is all my dad will need to know that the fight isn’t there.
GPS says I’m two blocks from Valeriya’s, so on the off chance of getting spotted, I pull in front of the nearest fire hydrant and kill the engine, then jump out of the car to run the rest of the way.
“Keep tracking my dad and his men. If you don’t hear from me in twenty, call Levi. He’ll know what to do.”
“Saint!” Bex’s cry rings through the speaker. “Please…save her.”
Bex’s words play as an invisible fist tightening my chest, but I don’t allow myself the chance to consider the alternative before responding with, “Twenty minutes,” and ending the call.
My insides burn with a vengeance as I run uphill to get to Dover Street, but burn even harder when I stop in the shadows twenty feet from the restaurant. Which, judging by the broken glass windows, I’m too little too fucking late.
They’ve got Hendrix, or even worse…
I shake the idea, latching on to the reminder of who Hendrix is, and how she’d mean more to the Ivanovs alive if they want to rile a response from Dante Salvini.
Doesn’t mean they won’t be making her capture worthwhile.
My knuckles ball to fists, and the more I picture what can be happening to Hendrix, the higher my temperature rises.
There’s nothing I hate more than walking into a fight without a plan of attack, but given I’m at least forty minutes too late to execute the one I had, I guess I’ll have to wing it and hope these motherfuckers don’t kill me before I get to Hendrix.
With Halo tight around my knuckles, and the gun at my side, I storm across the street to the restaurant, finding only a couple men and the Ivanov’s friendly crooked police chief inside shooting the shit.
Gun raised and cocked, I swing the door open, being met with three of the guys spinning around to point their guns back at me.
“Where the fuck is she?”
“Who?” one with a buzz cut and heavy Russian accent asks through a malicious grin.
“You know exactly who I’m talking about, motherfucker. Now tell me where she is or your head’s about to get a nine millimeter hole in it.”
He nods to the guy next to him, then the police chief. “Yours would follow right after.”
Tension builds in the back of my throat, restricting oxygen and my ability to think about anything other than white hot rage building alongside it.
