Page 108 of Maksim
It’s safe to say that something is wrong.
My car is parked in the driveway with the keys still in it. In plain sight. All evening I’ve been searching for Elira, and now she decides to leave my car in plain sight? It isn’t even that she has the cover of night or a property outside the city. She wouldn’t be this careless, not when she’s still hiding from me with her phone off.
I step inside, swinging the gun behind the door in case someone’s waiting for me there, and when I see the empty corner, I face forward and creep into the living room.
Her name is perched on my tongue, but I don’t yell it out. Not yet.
A sound comes from a room to my left, and I turn to move that way, my gun steady in front of me. A few more steps, and it happens again, more coherent this time.
A whimper.
Elira.
Resisting the urge to run that way, I creep past her phone on the ground toward the room the sound came from and prepare myself to fire at whatever is causing her to make that sound.
With a quick stride, I swing myself into the kitchen, gun first and point it at a woman holding a knife to Elira’s throat. Tape covers her mouth.
When my eyes find Anya, I stiffen.
It was her whimper.
My gaze moving to the woman with the knife, I barely keep my finger from squeezing the trigger. That knife is lined up right against Elira’s carotid, the same cut that ended Daniel’s life. One move of this woman’s hand and Elira is dead.
Even if I hadn’t seen a photo of the woman, I wouldn’t need to guess who this is.
“Drop it,” I snarl, taking another step into the room.
Anya’s whimpering gets loud, and I don’t have time to wonder about it before a barrel presses between my shoulder blades.
“You first,” a feminine voice says, sounding unworried.
Not a chance.
“You have no idea the trouble you’ve just caused yourself, Henrietta,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. Elira is covered in blood. It seeps through gashes throughout her body, and it’s all I can do not to home in on it, not to show its effect on me. If Henrietta had any idea what I would do if I got my hands on her, her partner would shoot me in the head immediately. “Your husband isn’t worth the things the Petrov Bratva will do to you if you don’t put that knife down right this second.”
“How about you put your gun down before I blow your fucking brains out.” The woman behind me sounds angry now. She jabs the back of my neck with the barrel, making my jaw clench.
“You shoot me, I shoot Henrietta, she slices Elira’s neck. Congratulations, you’re a lone survivor.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” she says, sounding deadly serious.
I feel my own brows pinch, but the look of surprise on Henrietta’s face is unmatchable. She recovers, blinking away the betrayal, and opens her mouth to speak, but the other woman interrupts.
“You’re kind of right, though. It does mess up my plan to make you suffer.” The gun leaves my neck, and I feel her take a step back. “How about I shoot Anya first?”
Anya’s eyes widen with fear, mirroring the horror-stricken expression that’s surely on my own face, and I quickly raise my hands, my gun pointing to the ceiling.
“Good boy,” the woman coos. “Empty the clip and toss it.”
Swallowing, I obey the command, my emptied gun thumping across the room.
She taps my back with the barrel. “On your knees, handsome.”
“Let them go.” I flinch as Henrietta rips the tape off Elira’s mouth and finally allow myself to take in her injuries.
My legs fold as I lower to my knees while inspecting Anya. She looks uninjured. Tanner… He’s a corpse that they’ve dragged off to the side of the room, as if proving what they’re capable of.
“Why the hell would I do that after all the trouble it took to get you all here?” Henrietta asks, matter-of-fact.