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“Please reach for that gun, asshole. I’m dying to shoot you right now,” I said, my tone conversational, but my expression was probably full of homicide.
Will quickly went over and pulled him away from Emmy while I kept my gun trained on him. Orlov was a slippery bastard who’d evaded us for a long time. We couldn’t afford to take our eyes off him for a fucking second.
“You think you assholes are going to stop me? I’ve been dodging you fuckheads for years!” Orlov screamed as Will threw him against a wall and zip tied him.
I pulled out my phone to call Drago. I quickly told him where we were, but he already knew and was nearly here with a crew.
I went to Emmy where she was still tied to the bed, another wave of fury rolling through me as I noticed her shirt was ripped open. I quickly pulled the gag off her mouth and untied the restraints. The minute her hands were free, she launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around me as tightly as a boa constrictor.
My natural resistance to this kind of contact melted as I cradled her shaking form and felt her tears against my neck. In this moment, I needed her touch, needed to feel her against me, safe, protected, mine.
“Shhh, you’re okay. I’m here. I was never going to let him have you, Emmy. Never,” I said softly as I rubbed her back and stroked her hair and let her cry all over me. I heard a soft growl as Orlov watched me consoling Emmy.
“She’ll always be mine, Ivan! I saw her first!” Orlov said, as if calling dibs on a fucking person was a thing.
Ignoring his psychotic ranting for the moment, I released her, gently pulling back and grabbing a blanket to wrap around her. “Hold on, let me get this around you,” I said when she reached for me again. When I was draping the blanket around her, I noticed blood coming from a shallow cut on the inside of her left breast, probably from the knife Orlov used to slice through her shirt.
For some reason seeing her blood threw me over the edge. Those red drops catalyzed all the helplessness, rage, and fear I’d been feeling and put a red haze over my vision. After wrapping her tightly, I got off the bed and marched to where Will had his gun trained on Orlov.
I grabbed Orlov by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall, my forearm leaning against his throat, my gun at his head. I pressed it against his temple hard enough to leave an impression of the barrel against his skin.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t pull the fucking trigger,” I said, though there was nothing he could say to save his miserable life.
Instead of being afraid, Orlov smiled, clearly delighted with my anger. “You ruined a good party, Petrov. She would’ve been so sweet.” Then the smile dropped away and I saw the ugly, bitter anger sitting under the surface. “I knew I should have fucking killed you the minute I saw you coming around her. You ruined everything. It doesn’t matter what happens, she’ll always be mine. She has been mine since the day Yuri grabbed her.”
I looked at him in shock. There was this parallel between me and Orlov that I’d never considered when it came to Emmy. We had our first encounter with her on the same day and shockingly she had a similar effect on both of us. Both of us wanted her, neither of us could forget her, neither of us could let her go. Except I’d fought my feelings and Orlov had embraced his to an insane degree.
I gave him a cold smile. “You don’t even understand how fucking wrong you are, you sick fuck. She’s been mine since Yuri took her. She’s always been mine and she’ll be mine after we toss your ass in the river.” Not wanting to embarrass Emmy, I leaned forward and whispered in Orlov’s ear. “I know what her skin feels like, I know what her pussy tastes like, I know how she feels when she comes. She’s never been yours and now you know how she’s always been mine.”
Orlov choked out a sound of rage. “You’re a fucking liar! She’s my girl! MINE!” he screamed, trying to charge at me, but I was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. And unrestrained. With a gun. I simply pulled back and shot him in the leg.
He screamed again and collapsed to the floor. “You cocksucker!” he shouted.
“Off to a good start, I see,” Drago said, and I turned and saw him and about six other guys storm into the room.
“How did you find the room?”
Drago shot me a sardonic smile. “The gunshot was a bit of a giveaway. And the open door.” His expression hardened as his eyes darted to Orlov, no doubt remembering the time he’d kidnapped Katya. “Take this piece of shit out of here and bring him to the warehouse,” he said to the guys behind him before turning to Orlov. “We’ve rebuilt, Orlov, so you’ll get to see all the new torture equipment we bought after you assholes torched the old warehouse.”
I turned back to Emmy as she sat huddled on the bed, her head buried in the blanket. I sat down and pulled her to my chest, regretting that she’d seen me shoot Orlov. It had been an impulsive move, antagonizing him, and a part of me regretted it, no matter how badly I had wanted a reason to shoot him.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I whispered to her as I pulled her into my lap and stroked her back as she burrowed under the blanket. I was conflicted as I watched them drag Orlov out the door.
I wanted to jump in the car and drive to the warehouse, my blood pumping for the chance to pound on that motherfucker for a while, but another, equally fierce, part of me needed to stay with Emmy, take care of her, reassure both of us she was okay. Every minute she’d spent with Orlov had taken a decade off my life.
Drago seemed to understand my conflict. “Stay with her. Believe me, Orlov isn’t going to have an easy time of it. I’ll make sure of that. She needs you right now,” Drago said gruffly, clearly uncomfortable giving me relationship advice.
I nodded, but I already knew there would have been no way for me to actually leave her side. I wasn’t sure how I was going to ever let her out of my sight again.
“He’s gone, Emmy,” I said softly into her hair, smelling her shampoo. Shampoo that was currently sitting in my shower. It was hard to believe that just this morning I had been on the verge of jumping in the shower and fucking her against the wall and had ended the day frantically trying to track her down before Orlov damaged her beyond repair. If he hadn’t already.
Her dark head popped up and it killed me to see her beautiful, tear-soaked face. “Hey,” I said softly, wiping the wetness of her face with my thumbs.
“I wasn’t sure you were going to get here. When he threw that phone away, I thought I was going to end up in Ukraine with him,” Emmy tearfully.
“Ukraine?”
She nodded. “That’s where he said we were going.”