Page 11 of His Disobedient Bride

Oh heck, I wish anyone would want me. Even if it was just the guy who washed the duke’s boots.

Then, surprisingly, I got my wish, sort of. Except not how I wanted.

So I’m sitting there not getting much done.

This coffee shop is usually pretty quiet, even though it’s right downtown. There’s almost always just a few retirees, students, and me, plugging away at my writing. But today it’s weirdly just me.

I notice a couple of guys in black come in the front door. They all have hard, scarred faces, and they don’t look at me, just walk to the front and talk in harsh, insistent Russian to the cashier. I barely know any Russian at all, only the most basic words, so I have no idea what they’re saying. The cashier seems nervous, and goes to get a guy I recognize as the manager, who is an even more nervous man in his 60s. He quickly goes back into his office and comes back with a stack of bills, putting them down beside the cash register to count them.

Cripes.

My heart began to beat faster. Are these some kind of Mafia guys? Should I leave? That might make me look more conspicuous. Usually, people don’t notice me. So I decided I would just keep my head down and they wouldn’t even realize I was here.

However, of course it’s just my luck that this is the one day I get noticed.

I see a shadow fall over my laptop, and I jerk my head up in surprise. I look up and it’s one of the men. He has a hard, cruel face, scarred and criss-crossed with knife wounds.

“Amerikanskiy?” he says, and that’s one Russian word I know the answer to.

I shake my head, not knowing if this is the safer option or not, but he only grins and calls over to the other men, pointing at me.

Then I see someone else come into the coffee shop. I’m a little surprised, because by now I’ve realized that the regulars must know and avoid shakedown day. It’s a big man with slicked-back dark hair and a short woman.

She’s beautiful, I think enviously, short and curvy, her sundress stretched tight over her breasts, her dark hair wound up in a loose bun. She walks confidently too, like she owns the coffee shop. Even though the dark guy behind her is built like a refrigerator, there’s something indefinable, something I can’t put my finger on, but he’s obviously trailing in her wake.

But when he sees the other guys counting the cash from their shakedown, he shouts out a curt order to them. They look at each other and move away. He must outrank them or something. Or maybe they’re afraid of him?

Either way, I know I need to get out of there.

I stuff my laptop in my purse, hoping I can make an inconspicuous getaway.

To my horror, the men move away from the cashier, stuffing cash in their pockets, but toward me. The first man grabs my arm, yanking me out of my seat.

“No, no,” I cry.

When I resist, he cocks a fist and hits me in the eye. For a moment I see stars, and then it’s all sharp, throbbing pain as I feel myself getting drug out the door.

Then I hear a woman’s voice, speaking sharply in Russian.

I open my eyes and it’s the woman who just came in. She’s speaking sharply in Russian, and I feel another stab of fear to see how she stands right between the men, pointing to me.

They are arguing with her, dismissing her, trying to drag me to the door.

But she cocks her head and I hear one sharp, brisk command and the word “Dmitri,” and the big dark-haired man comes up behind her, putting their coffees hastily on a table.

Then things happen very quickly. With one twist of his arm, the man she called Dmitri drives one of my captors into another, and both men crash into a nearby table.

The third man takes a sudden, foolish swing at the woman and Dmitri has a knife out, driving it into his heart and shoving his body aside.

She isn’t just standing there, either, and I see her swing a chair at the two men getting up from the ground.

Then Dmitri grabs the woman, still swinging, in one hand, and me in the other, and charges outside. There’s a big limo waiting, and he shouts out a sharp, urgent order. Two other men jump out and open doors for us. Then he’s chucking us both inside and in a few seconds we’re peeling out of there. My heart is pounding at what’s happening, and I feel frozen in shock.

I hear shots in the distance, but we’re well away now.

I’m waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal when I hear curses emitting from the woman beside me, who has been tumbled upside down in the back of the limo.

But, luckily for me, they are American curses.

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