Chapter 29

"They're on the move," I snap as we reach the bar where Dad's men tracked them. Just as we pull up, a van is driving away. I might not have noticed it if the goddamn amateurs didn't push the gas the second they saw us coming. Then one moron even sticks a pistol out the window and fires at us. The bulletproof glass of the car splinters as I speed after them.

Mikhail is on the phone, talking quickly and relaying all the information.

I press down on the gas, something dark and violent twitching in me as I think about all the things I'm going to do to the bastard stupid enough to put my woman through this.

The van tears around a corner and then hits the long strip that leads toward the docks.

"Are they going to take her onto the water?" I growl. "Is that their plan? Those dumb bastards. Mikhail, tell Dad to get the choppers ready."

"On it."

As Mikhail relays more information, two more cars pull up beside us. I glance over to see Dimitri behind the wheel, looking as ready as I am, like he's filled with the same cutthroat violence.

"Idiots are driving too fast," I snap.

"I was thinking the same," Mikhail mutters.

"If they crash …"

Mikhail lets out a sigh. "I know. Remember what we said to you about if you ever hurt Ania?"

They said they'd make my death last days.

"The same goes for them," he goes on.

"It'll be barbaric," I agree, "but it won't do Ania much good."

Or Molly, I remind myself, which seems callous as hell—the fact I even have to remind myself. Yet I can't ignore the fact that right now, the thing that's playing on my mind most is the thought of losing my Ania, not my stepmother/mother-in-law. It's my stepsister, my prisoner, my woman.

My everything.

They take a corner at high speed, causing the back of the van to kink out and then teeter from side to side as it corrects its balance. It has me thinking about what kind of mayhem my woman is experiencing in that vehicle. Ugly images of her petite body being bounced around hit me, but nowhere near as hard as I'm going to hit these bastards for daring to put those ideas in my head.

"Should be a couple of your father's boys up ahead," Mikhail tells me. "If the van doesn't stop?—"

"Then Ania and Molly get seriously injured," I say, or die. "These bastards have just given me an excuse to wipe out their entire fucking Bratva, but they'll stop, Mikhail."

"You're sure?" Mikhail says, sounding shocked but curious, as though he believes me but is unsure why.

"I'm sure," I tell him. "They're cowards. Opportunists. They want this, it's true, but they want it like all cowards—easy, without a real fight."

The long road is dead at this time of night, streetlamps lighting up the grayness, the moon shining down. At the end of the road, three big SUVs pull out, completely blocking it. The van moves one way, then the other, and I can imagine the fight going on in there, the petty motherfuckers yelling at each other to slow down.

Finally, it's just like I guessed—no, not guessed. It's a lifetime of dealing with scumbags, but that doesn't mean this is even close to being over.

A second after the van comes to a screeching stop, a man leaps from the back, a gun in his hand, dragging a woman by her hair. It's my Ania with her dark, beautiful hair in his grimy hand, the gun now aimed at her head, something she doesn't deserve. She's been through too much. This world has been too damn cruel to her.

I leap from the car, shoulder my rifle, advancing on Roman Kozlov with murder on my mind.