Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance(116)

“Alicia!” I growl the name out in a bellowing shout as I surge into the bedroom toward the body. But it’s not her. It’s Eva.

The woman’s eyes flutter open as I look around the room, see the mess of the place, the ironing board and items strewn about, the blood staining the carpet and smearing toward the door.

“Get her…” Eva says weakly.

She’s burning up and badly wounded, but she should survive. I hope. They didn’t get her in the gut or any of the vitals, at least, so as long as the ambulance gets here quickly enough she’ll be alright. With a motel like this, I imagine there’s been at least a few calls in about the gunfight in the parking lot, so I give her a nod and a pat on the shoulder.

But I don’t know how to take her advice. There’s no sign of Alicia, and the room is in such a mess, it’s impossible to figure out what happened. There’s only one exit, though, and it’s the door I came in through, so I take a step toward it just before a scream pierces the air.

I only get a fraction of a moment’s time before a bullet whips past my head and I have to duck down, but I spot Alicia, being dragged through the parking lot.

I run back out of the motel room and race around the side of the building towards the back lot. Her blood is marking the way, and it’s making my body scream in anger, but I can’t let it distract me. I need to push it down, into my fist, let it make me hard. For so long, I’ve honed my body and my mind to be cold and ruthless, but now I’m burning hot with rage, and it’s a new sensation entirely.

The back parking lot is smaller and there’s only one car there, and just two guys. One pushing Alicia into the back of the car and another pointing his gun right at me.

The shot goes off as I dive forward, losing precious moments. But it saves my life, in two ways.

Not only do I dodge that shot from the goon below, but the third thug that’s rounding the corner with his gun held high instead finds me at his feet. In the seconds I have, I manage to twist and grab hold of his wrist, keeping the gun pointed away from me as I raise my own weapon and fire.

But my position’s not optimal on the floor like this and he’s able to grab my wrist as I did to him, and my shot misses his ugly mug by an inch or so. It comes down to a battle of raw strength, but I have the guys down below to worry about, too. I don’t have the time to fight him over this, not if I’m going to save Alicia from the other guys.

I hear doors slam shut, and thankfully no more bullets, but that only makes matters more urgent. I push up from my place on the pavement, and as I rise, I’m able to put more of my strength into overpowering this guy. I’m able to stare into his scarred face as he gnashes his teeth at me.

And I recognize him. He’s no ordinary goon, he’s from Brighton Beach. He’s one of Vasili’s men. And that makes me realize the guy in the gaudy suit below, the one that shoved her into the car was Vasili himself.

“The girl’s ours,” he says to me with a sneer, and I bash his nose in with a vicious head-butt, sending a spray of blood all over the both of us. That’s all I need to get my gun pointed back at his face and blow an inch wide hole through his skull.

I rise up, wiping the blood from my face and eyes so I can see, but the image that greets me fills me with rage. The black sedan is pulling away out of the parking lot, with the image of Alicia in the back window looking at me, panic in her emerald eyes.

I raise my gun to try and shoot out one of their back tires, but their erratic movements, the distance, my blood-blurred vision, and Alicia’s precarious position at the rear of the vehicle mean it’s a shot I can’t risk taking.

Instead I watch in horror as my girl is hauled off by Vasili. A sick, sadistic bastard whose only intent will be to torture her to get her to incriminate me to Gregorovich, and then murder her.





16





Alicia





I can’t see where I am anymore. At some point, I’m not entirely sure when, they got sick of my screaming after watching Mikhail vanish in the rear-view mirror. The one cruel thug forced a gag in my mouth and a sack over my head. It felt like hours ago that happened, but I’m no longer sure of time or pretty much anything else, either.

I was trying to memorize the turns, as if that’d help me instruct Mikhail if I ever got to talk to him again, but I long ago lost count. It certainly didn’t help that it felt like we kept veering off the road and driving erratically. It’s any wonder we didn’t get pulled over, but then I guess there’s not a lot of cops wherever they’re taking me.

I just know that as we get to the end of the journey, they’re hauling me out of the backseat and I feel my feet dragging over cement once we’re inside. Which means we’re not in some cozy place. We’re probably in some dank, abandoned factory. The kind of place people end up right before they get shot by the mob.