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Marcela peers around the corner quickly and then turns back to me. “There’s two of them just past the short hall. They’re straight ahead. I’ll cover you by shooting at them, keeping them hunkered down. You need to stay low, move as fast as you can, and go to the right.” She puts a hand on my shoulder, “Do you understand, Katia?”

“Stay low. Run Fast. Go to the right. Got it,” I repeat the instructions back to her.

She presses her back against the wall, closes her eyes, and takes two deep breaths. Another gun is pulled from her holster, so she has one in each hand. Her body moves completely around the corner and starts firing both guns straight ahead. “Go!” she commands.

My body moves faster than it ever has, and I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. It’s a pure rush as I make it to the end of the short hall, diving to the right behind a partition. The firing from behind me stops, and I hear the two men she was shooting at start returning fire. I don’t turn back, but can only hope Marcela made it behind the corner fast enough.

I’m crouched low and start to move to the end of the partition. Peering around the corner, I see the men that were with Ryan shooting in the direction I last saw King. If they’re firing, then he must still be alive. Instant relief rushes over me, but it’s quickly followed by fear because I have no idea what the fuck to do now.

My targets are taking cover behind a forklift, taking turns getting up to shoot in King’s direction, so it's a constant onslaught. A moment later, King returns fire, and a bullet hits the wall above me.Too close.I need to get closer to get a better shot at them. My shots need to find their target the first time because I need to avoid a return fire if I can.

Staying low, I move quickly out from behind the partition and behind some metal boxes that are a few feet closer. I make sure to scan the room, leaving more space behind me. Creeping up on these guys made me more aware that someone could do the same to me. The gunfire in the room seems to be reduced to the fight between Marcela and the guys she was shooting at and the men shooting at King. I don’t see Nat, Alexie, or Conrad, but people are running across a long hall at the end of the space. There are offices that surround a good portion of this place, so it’s a safe bet that they tried to separate Ivan’s men as much as possible. Fuck, Ivan could be lurking anywhere. I don’t remember seeing where he went after he shot that man.

As I peek around the corner of the boxes, I see a perfect spot to take my shots. There is a flipped-over table outside an office door. It would give me a perfect line of sight on my targets. I jump back as a few bullets hit the metal boxes making loud banging sounds. When the gunfire goes back down, I peer around the corner again to see that King took down one of the men. More shots ring from above, and I see a body near the hallway I came out of, so now it's down to Marcela and one man.

I wait for the guy shooting at King to return fire before making my move. My feet move quickly as adrenaline is still pushing me forward. The table provides tall enough cover for me to be on my knees, and I kneel down on one putting my gun on the edge of the table to keep it steady. My hands are shaking slightly, but I pull the trigger and hit the man in between the shoulder blades. He goes down and doesn’t move.

Damn, does it always feel this good? No wonder Nat and Alexie love it so much.

My body jerks backward, slammings into the wall. My gun drops to the ground, but I’m not sure where it landed, and I fall to a seated position on the ground. I look up to see Ryan staring down at me.

“Hello again, Katia. I do love seeing you below me like this. If only there was time for us to get to know each other, but I need to get you ready to be shipped back to Vegas,” he sneers. “There were a lot of big buyers brought in for you before your friends ruined it. Mistakes will not happen again.”

He reaches down and grabs the front of my shirt, pulling me to my feet. I push my body against his and try to run to where I know King is. Ryan grabs my hair from behind and throws me against a window, causing it to shatter. He’s on me in no time, pushing my back into the ledge lined with broken glass. Shards press into my back, and I can feel some starting to break through my skin.

“Fighting will only make things worse for you. I’m sure Ivan will take great pleasure in breaking you again.” The smile on his face tells me he knows exactly what Ivan did. Ryan was never someone I saw in Vegas, but clearly, he was in on everything.

Ryan keeps his body pressed against me as one of his hands moves to my throat. He doesn’t squeeze his hand but holds it there. “You really are perfect, aren’t you? I wonder if my loyalty would afford me the luxury of having you?” he asks, but I sure as hell hope he doesn’t expect me to go willingly.

My hands keep pushing back against him, but he’s too big. I try to swing my knee up to smash his balls, but he’s pressed too firmly against me. Then I try to use the wall as leverage and push my hands against the window ledge. I feel a large shard laying there. My fingertips brush against it, trying to move it toward me to get a good grip.

Ryan continues to go on about all the things he would do to me to ‘break me in’ as he so eloquently put it. He’s not paying any mind to my struggle beneath him because he believes there’s no way for me to get away from him. That might be true, but my hand grips the glass. I can’t move to strike him where I want because my arms have limited motion with him pressing against me.

“I love to watch you struggle,” he breathes into my ear. His tongue trails along my lobe as disgust runs through me. “I can’t wait to watch you struggle beneath me for the rest of your life.”

Rage courses through me as I swing the shard of glass as far as I can, stabbing his arm. He staggers back slightly and presses his other hand against his arm. This gives me the space I need to hit my original target.

“You will fucking pay for that, you–” is the last thing he says before I slam the shard of glass in his eye. I can’t pull it back out to stab him again because I pressed it as far as I could. Ryan drops instantly.

I look down at him, his one eye staring up blankly. He died quickly. I find myself wishing he would have suffered more, but glad for it to be over. “Good luck watching me now, bitch,” I retort to his corpse with a little laugh.

“Did you just call that dead body a bitch?” I look up to see King walking towards me. He bends down, checking Ryan’s pulse. Satisfied that he’s dead, he gets back up. “Nice work,” he tells me.

“Thanks,” I say, but I can’t stop myself from telling him the rest. “That guy over there,” I point to the guy I shot moments before, “I shot him. And there’s another one over there.” I point to the middle of the room, “That one I shot from up there with Stryker.” As I finish my sentence, I swing my arm, pointing to where I was with Stryker.

“Calm down, killer. We can celebrate when this is over but don’t get too excited because no matter how many you kill, Alexie will always tell you he killed more,” King warns in an annoyed voice. They’ve really become like brothers with their constant banter.

“I hear my name and killing,” King and I turn to see Alexie walking towards us from the side. He’s covered in blood and has a knife in each hand. Each one drips blood as he walks. It’s like a scene from a really cheesy action film. That actually describes Alexie perfectly the more I think about it.

“Where’s Nat?” I ask him.

“I am looking for her,” he replies. “We got separated when she thought she saw Ivan. I told her to wait for me, but true toMalyska, she took off on her own.” He doesn’t seem upset or angry by her actions, but he scans the room looking for her.

Alexie then looks at Ryan’s body on the ground with the large chunk of glass sticking out of his face. He looks at King, but King points his finger at me. Alexie’s eyes grow wide as his attention returns to me. He lunges forward and wraps his bloody arms around me. “Oh, sweet Katia, what a glorious kill,” he celebrates.

Our embrace breaks as he steps back again. “She killed two others too,” King tells him.

I didn’t think Alexie’s smile could get any bigger, but it does. “I have killed nine, maybe ten. It is so hard to keep count,” Alexie says. Looking at King, we both start to laugh because Alexie did exactly what he said he’d do. “Why is that funny? Do not lie and say you killed more Prince-y,” Alexie’s tone gets more serious.

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