Page 7 of His Disobedient Bride

By this time the grounds seemed thick with smoke and the rat-a-tat-a-tat of gunfire seems to be getting uncomfortably closer.

He chucked me unceremoniously inside and shouted a curt order at the driver in Russian.

“Go!”

I noticed the driver was Dmitri’s own right-hand man Yaroslav, and the only other person in the car was his other right-hand man Gleb, both of them big men with shaved heads and scarred faces. Then Yaroslav started the car, and we streaked away from the beach house.

I twisted around in my seat, watching the big SUV with the women in it go in the opposite direction.

“Why did you do that, Dmitri?” I demanded.

He ignored me again, only saying, “get down on the floor.”

I was starting to feel angry. I might stand for that shit from Andrei but I’ll be damned if I do from Dmitri.

But then I saw he had his gun out and was looking narrowly down the road, where several dark cars were waiting to intercept us.

“Shit,” I say.

Yaroslav turned the wheel, skidding off the main road and cutting through the lawns and gardens in this fancy-ass beach neighborhood, and we spun crazily back on the road as their gunfire peppered our mostly bulletproof limo.

“Give me a gun,” I interrupted.

With a glance up, he did so.

Shit. I didn’t expect him to actually give me one. It felt like a strange and unfamiliar weight in my hand. I didn’t think I knew shit about how to do this, but at least I knew which end I was supposed to stick out the window.

I rolled it down slightly. My heart was racing, but my hands were surprisingly steady.

“Wait for my signal,” Dmitri said, and I waited, my hands on the gun.

Then we got a clear, uninterrupted view of two of our pursuers on motorcycles.

I squeezed a couple of rounds off. I don’t think they did much, but one of Dmitri’s shots knocked one of our pursuers off his motorcycle. Then we were blazing through the neighborhoods, trying to lose the remaining cars.

“Why did you take me?” I asked again.

“I thought it would be safer,” he said. As usual, his face was expressionless, his dark eyes still fixed out the window.

“Dmitri, there’s a whole plan!” I said, exasperated. “The women are all supposed to go in one car. Now Andrei is not going to know where I am.”

But you can’t tell a Petrovic shit.

We barreled down the road, and I had no clue where he was taking me or how long it would be until we could kill or elude our pursuers.

6

FREDERIK

My heart was pounding, but I was surprisingly calm as I directed the remainder of the men to defend the house. If that western gate fell, I would take the rest of our men and we’d reconvene at the safe house until my brother Grigoriy and Andrei were back with the rest of our lieutenants. Luckily, the gate hadn’t fallen when I saw the limousine with the Pakhan and Andrei arrive back, Bratva lieutenants jumping out of all the following cars to shore up the defense of the property.

I walked quickly over to their limo, still surprised that I was able to direct the defense even though I haven’t done anything but academic work in decades.

“Cerise?” was the first thing Andrei said when he saw me, impatiently shoving me in the backseat of their car.

“I saw her get into the SUV,” I assured them. “It went through the side gate not more than 10 minutes ago.”

“The side gate?” Andrei bit out. “That’s not where it was supposed to go. Step on it,” he barked to the driver, and he turned the car around and we headed to where I had seen the SUV go.

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