Page 95 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“Who’s there?” one of them demands.

The men walk towards the stall. I know they aren’t going to let this go. If I were in their shoes, I sure as hell wouldn’t. They’ll ferret me out and make sure I’m not a threat.

Iama threat, of course.

These men are about to learn that the hard way.

I can hear them just outside the stall door. All at once, I bring my boot up and stomp on the ribs of the man on the floor. At the same time, I unlatch the stall door and hurl it open violently.

The man on the floor groans from the kick just as the flying door smashes into the face of the first man outside the stall. He spins around, both hands clamped over his face as blood explodes between his fingers.

“What the fuck…?” snarls the last one.

This is the one who was speaking. The one who tried to hurt Arya.

He’s a pudgy, middle-aged man with jowls and bloodshot eyes. The thought of him buying Arya, touching Arya, harassing Arya? It makes my vision red.

How fucking dare he?

I bury a fist in his smug face. The crunch beneath my knuckles is satisfying, but I want more. I want to make him hurt so bad that he begs for death—just so I can deny that mercy to him.

But there isn’t time.

The other man is starting to yell for help, and it won’t be long before the entire bar is crowding in here to lynch me. I may be able to take these three drunken idiots without a hitch. I don’t intend to try my chances with their whole damn crew, though.

And now that I know where Arya is, I can’t let myself be captured. I have to escape and save her.

Even if that means letting Taras go.

For now.

Taras is starting to get his wits about him again. I don’t wait for that to happen. I burst out the door and down the hall at a headlong sprint. I don’t stop when I emerge into the main bar area and bowl into someone, knocking drinks to the floor.

Some men gasp. A few of the women scream.

I keep going. I hit the sidewalk. Head down, dig my heels in, sprint harder.

I’ve got two goals in my head.

The first: find Arya and my son.

The second: make everyone who touched them wish they’d never been born.

32

Arya

Rose & Arya’s Room

I stroke Rose’s long red hair in silence. The necklace on her throat catches the dim light. A half-heart, simple and unadorned.

I asked her about it once. “A gift,” she’d explained simply. “My mother gave it to me when my daughter was born. She said a child always has her mother’s heart. No matter what.”

I feel my own heart breaking at the sight of it.

This woman should hate me for what I’ve done to her. Maybe she does hate me, but she’s simply too weak from Taras’s beating to do anything other than lay on the floor. That’s okay, though.

Because no matter what, I’m getting us both out of here.

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