Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Fucking coward.
The soon-to-be dead man number two held his gun to her temple as tears streamed down her face.
“Put down your weapon,” the man yelled in a heavy New York accent.
The fuckers weren’t even Russian.
Solovyov probably had to hire some local thugs that didn’t know shit about Gregor.
I bet his men were too chickenshit to dare to come into Ivanov territory armed. They knew the consequences. Even if the rumors about Gregor going soft had reached them…they would’ve still known it was a suicide mission.
“Not on your fucking life,” I yelled back.
“Drop it or she dies,” he said, pressing the barrel of the gun into her temple until she let out a pained whimper.
Marina didn’t look scared. Tears flowed from her eyes, but there was nothing but determination and fire behind them. She wasn’t scared; she was pissed.
“Do it,” the soon-to be dead man number two yelled again, ducking behind Marina, making a kill shot too risky even if I wasn’t injured.
I dropped my gun on the floor and kicked it away for good measure as I eyed the pistol sitting on the table among the stacks of rubles.
“If you so much as take a fucking step, I’m going to kill the bitch.”
“That would be rather fucking stupid, even for an American,” I said, refusing to let my emotions show, but letting my accent come out thick and heavy.
Emotions got people killed.
I needed to be cold, hard, and logical.
If I could piss off the dead men, maybe I could get the upper hand.
Her life depended on it.
“If she’s dead, there’s nothing that’s going to protect you from me. What kind of coward uses a woman as a human shield? Do American men not have enough balls to fight on their own? All this next day delivery and climate control make you weak?”
I was laying it on thick. But I knew these men probably had no idea what they’d walked into and the veins pulsing in dead man number one’s forehead told me my words hit home.
“The kind that is going to make it out of here alive,” he shot back.
“Unlikely,” Marina said, and the man squeezed her throat tighter and pressed the gun to her temple hard enough she bit back a wince.
Good girl, she wasn’t showing weakness. She knew that would only encourage them.
“Hurry the fuck up,” dead man number two said, talking to dead man number one who was still taking cover in the doorframe.
He was so far out of his league it was hardly the same fucking sport. He was a kid, barely twenty, who was probably used to stealing candy from babies, and cash out of grandmas’ purses. This was at a whole new level, and he wasn’t prepared.
He ran into the room, eyeing me warily as he tucked his gun into the back of his pants.
“You don’t want to do this,” I told him.
“Shut the fuck up,” number two yelled.
“Do you know who I am? What I am?” I asked number one, ignoring number two.
“If I don’t, they’ll kill me,” he said, glancing over to Marina, an apology in his eyes. Yeah, he did not sign up for this shit. But it was too late now.
“I am Konstantine Nikolai Ivanov,” I said, and watched the realization wash over his face.
Fear, genuine fear, painted his features.
He may not have recognized me on sight, but he knew the name.
“What do you think is going to happen when my people find you?” I asked.
“Shut the fuck up, or I will kill the bitch,” number two screamed again, and I wondered if he was on something. Powdered courage maybe? The way he was shaking and his eyes started bouncing around, I knew he was on something. That made him even more unpredictable.
Fuck.
Number one grabbed the bag and just scraped all the money and the guns into the duffel. His hands shaking so badly several of the bound stacks fell to the carpet, and he struggled to pick them up.
One of them shaking because of drugs, the other OD-ing on adrenaline. Fucking fantastic.
“Do you have it all? If we miss a single fucking thing he’s going to—”
“You shouldn’t worry about Solovyov,” I said. “You’re never going to see him again. I’m going to kill you before you get the chance.”
Marina clenched her jaw, and I could see her shoulders tightening as she subtly moved her arm. She was getting ready to throw her elbow back into his gut and try to get away.
I met her eye and shook my head.
This was not some Hollywood movie where she could distract him long enough with one gut punch and get away from him.
Maybe if I had my gun in my hand, but even then it was too risky.
If she missed, if she hit his ribs instead of his solar plexus, or he was too high to feel it….