Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(66)

The man shoves Viktor’s head sideways with the gun. If he pulls the trigger, the shot will kill him. I meet his beautiful eyes.

Time seems to stop when I gaze into Viktor’s eyes.

“The question is, what happens to the nun? Tell me about Kiro and I’ll let her go on her merry way.” He tightens his arm around my neck.

Panic flows through me, and in a flash I see the scene move forward, like a Rubik’s Cube.

It all fits together in a flash. Colors turning, planes of action lining up.

And suddenly I’m moving. My elbow slides up to Lazarus’s face. He regards me with shock during the split second before the pain sets in. His shock gives me what I need—the opening to remove myself from the blade while taking his hair and driving his still-stunned face into the concrete wall.

He crumples to the ground. I kick up, planting a foot in the burly man’s also-stunned face. I have given Viktor the distraction he needed to take the gun.

It worked to my advantage—the helpless nun becoming a ball of fury.

“No killing,” I say to him in Russian.

“Tanechka!”

“I mean it.”

Viktor doesn’t argue. We know how to move together. I grab the switchblade, the faux-wood handle as familiar as honey. The same make as the first blade I owned.

The memories are crashing in. I remember my childhood room. My father raising us. My mother taking tickets on the passenger rail, back and forth across the country. School in a gray cement building. Playground benches. Rides at Sky World, the feeling of flying there, lights in all colors. Something cold tugs at the edges of my mind. Something cold and dark.

A gunshot rips through the air, and I spin. Viktor has the man’s arm. He breaks it with a crack, and then he knocks the man out.

We move into the hall, fighting back to back.

“Hear me—no killing!” I say this in Russian as we pull out into the hall, fighting our way out.

“Blyad!” he says. “More coming up and back.”

It’s small, this hall. The tightness gives us the advantage of only having to take down one man each at a time. I’m still in this nun’s garb. This is another advantage.

Again we fight back to back. Men come from each way. They don’t shoot because if they miss us they hit one of their people.

One man comes at me with a blade, and I sever a nerve in his arm. He collapses. Very painful, but he won’t die. Viktor grunts behind me, taking out more men.

The fight opens in my mind, a fast-moving grid. I move left when Viktor moves right. I track him as I finish another. He appears when I need him, knocking people out instead of killing them. We get to the small steps and run up. We get out the door. But there’s something else—more wrong.

Something…something so very wrong.

Viktor wipes the blood from his eyes. My heart lurches to see him hurt. Is that it?

“Come on.” He holds out his hand. I take it. We run down the broken sidewalk to a black truck.

Viktor swings open the door for me, and I climb in. He goes around and takes the wheel. My heart pounds as we scream out. I find a shirt in the back and use it to wipe the blood from his eyes.

“I got it.” He snatches the shirt—he’ll handle it himself. “Belt up.”

I slide over to my side and click the seatbelt over me, just as he screams around a corner. Sirens behind us.

“Lazarus’s cops,” he growls. “Hold on. I have you.”

“How did you find me?”

He wipes more blood from his eyes. “Tracker in your shoe.”

Viktor. He came for me.

But something tugs at the edges of my mind. Something wrong.

I feel a chill right then. In the cab of the truck, I feel a chill.

“Tanechka? Are you okay?” His voice sounds so far away. I hear the whoosh of wind. This chill I feel goes into my bones.

Tanechka?

He calls for me, but I’m not in the truck. I’m on top of that cliff, cold wind at my back.

I’m shaking, clinging to him, begging, crying.

Dariali Gorge.

It’s Viktor, but I don’t know his eyes.

Predatel! he shouts, peeling my fingers from his arm.

I remember his eyes—so cold. Cold nothingness howling at my back.

I’m begging him to believe me. I’m trying to explain about my mother. He doesn’t believe me. I’m innocent, and he won’t believe me.

I press my hands to my belly, remembering, feeling like I’m back there.

The cold wind. He’s pulling my fingers off his arm.

And I love him so much.

I’m reaching for him, but he’s too fast—he shoves me backwards into the darkness of Dariali Gorge.

I’m gasping for air. Falling. Gasping.

I turn to him. “You didn’t believe me! You thought I betrayed you!”

He looks at me wildly. “Tanechka—”

The world swims before my eyes. “You thought I betrayed you! Betrayed our gang!”

He looks back and forth from the road to me, talking on and on. “I was wrong. So wrong. Please, Tanechka! I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—”

“I would’ve never betrayed you!” I can barely get the words out. “I loved you so much. So much!”

He swears and takes a turn. “We’re in trouble, Tanechka. You need to get that piece out and start shooting some tires.”