Page 48 of The Bratva's Nanny

“Polly, get down!”

The little girl slipped from behind me and crawled to safety behind an aesthetic tree. But Finn didn’t go after her. His arms swung at me.

“It was them, wasn’t it? The Varkovs, that debt you paid—the mysterious deposit of a hundred grand and a warning letter to stay away from you…. It was them. What, did you fuck the entire clan to get that large sum?”

Ignoring him, I dodged, weaved, lifted the stick, and struck. Against his strength, the measly twig snapped.

I had to think fast. I couldn’t let Finn have the advantage. I threw a punch, but he dodged it with ease, and before I could react, he countered with a powerful blow that sent me crashing to the ground.

I gasped, coughed, and tried to reinitiate my plan to survive. From behind his long, skinny legs, I spotted Polly. She looked at me, crying and wondering whether or not to come to my rescue.

I shook my head, and a firm stay right there and don’t move was sent to her.

I scrambled to my feet, determined to take him down. But he was too strong and too fast. I tried to defend myself with some techniques, but he was relentless.

He dealt a blow to my jaw and slapped me across the cheek. Once, twice…again, and again.

“Fucking bitch!” he growled into my ear. “You think you’re a match for me, huh?”

I managed a smirk—or what looked like it.

My face stung. My lungs wheezed. My eyes swelled. And a metallic taste filled my lips. But I’d be damned before going down like a timid cat.

“I’m not your match, Finn. I’m above you.”

He slid his fingers through my scalp, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and pinned me against the wall, his hand closing around my throat like a vice.

“Above me, huh?” he sneered, his voice dripping with malice. “If only we had the chance to make that practical.”

I gurgled, gasping for air, kicking wildly, and cursing in gibberish, but he lifted me off the ground with ease.

With a cruel smile, he slammed me into the wall once, twice, three times, knocking the breath out of my burning lungs.

My vision blurred. My head spun. Wheezing, I tried to land a kick, but he caught my leg and twisted it.

“Ah!” I screamed.

God, I screamed.

And hot tears stung the back of my eyes.

But he wouldn’t let me breathe.

His chokehold grew tighter by the second, and a wave of dizziness washed the ground away from under me. I felt myself slipping further and further down into the stream of unconsciousness until I thought that Finn Jameson would officially be the end of me.

But my final draw of breath never came.

Heavy footsteps and angry voices barking in Russian reechoed down the hallway, and Finn’s hand loosened around my neck.

Trepidation replaced the bloodthirstiness in his eyes when he let me go. He fumbled through his pocket for his phone and growled, “Fall back” over the line.

In a flash, he was gone.

I collapsed to the ground, teary-eyed. I rubbed my neck and winced at the sharp sting of Finn’s hand imprinted on my skin, all the while coughing my lungs out as I tried to catch my breath.

The men in black moved, surrounding the perimeter. Through blurry eyes, I spotted Vasili, standing a row back behind Lev and the man I’d yearned after for a week.

He scooped a crying Polly into his arms and whispered something into her ears before handing her over to Lev.