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I don’t think I have a choice. I stare at him, unwilling to nod, to actually agree to this, but when he lets go of my face and motions for the other two men to step back, I can’t move. I can’t make my feet budge even an inch, much less run for the door. I see the crew starting to adjust the lighting, and I feel frozen once again, like a deer in headlights.

“Good,” a voice says, someone I don’t know. “Now, we’re going to get started. When the music starts, I want you to start dancing. Strip just like you would for a private show. We want the two men by the couch there for now, naked—keep stroking, yeah, we want those dicks hard—and then the guy in his boxers, you come up here next. Two of you dressed, you come in last, like you’re walking in on a private show. We want the participation staggered. In three, two?—”

I stiffen, braced for the first note of the music, for the moment when I’m going to be expected to start, unsure if I can. If I can move, if I can do anything at all—and I’m terrified of what happens if I can’t. Of what happens if I can.

I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

I hear the music, the first beat filling the air and making me flinch—and then a different sound cracks through the air, making me jump and let out a sharp, startled, shrill scream.

I know that sound. Anyone who lives in a neighborhood like mine does. It was a gunshot.

Before I can take a breath, or think, or react, there’s more of them.Crackaftercrack, the sound splitting the air outside the room, and I hear thepingof metal, shouts, the stomping of boots, a guttural, male cry of pain…

I stagger backwards, arms wrapped around myself, looking around terrified for somewhere to go. Somewhere to run.There’s only one exit, and it leads out to where the gunshots are?—

The door slams open, and I scream again.

Chaos erupts. I hear the men behind me swearing—I don’t know who, the camera crew or lighting guy or maybe the ones who thought they were going to get to fuck me, or all of them. Someone shoves me as they run past, more gunfire erupting in the room, and I drop to my knees as one of the lights crashes onto the floor next to me, glass shattering and spilling across the hard concrete floor.

“Fuck! My fucking cloth—” There’s a guttural, choking sound, and I wrench around to see the man with the bulldog face, the one who said he was going to fuck me in the ass, sprawled on the concrete. There’s a smear of blood under his body, more leaking from his head.

I stare at him, dizzy with shock, unable to process everything happening all around me. I should feel something other than relief and a strange sense of vindication…shouldn’t I? But all I can think, as I stare at the man’s sightless eyes and limp body, is that he was going to force me. He knew I didn’t want it, and he was going to enjoy fucking me anyway. He was going to enjoyhurtingme.

I’m glad he’s dead.

A string of curses from the other side of the room makes me wrench around again, and I see Sean being shoved to his knees by three of the men in fatigues. I stare in horror as one of them puts a gun to the back of his head and pulls the trigger.

My blood turns to ice as I watch him drop to the concrete, blood pooling around him. The cold violence of it makes my stomach roil, and I nearly vomit, my throat tightening as I start to shove myself up to my feet. Men are still shooting, there’s blood everywhere—and I’m in the middle of it, backing away as I look for an escape. There isn’t one, nothing other than the doorI entered through, and suddenly my feet feel as if they’re able to move again, as cold terror ripples through me.

I run. Blindly. I bolt for the door, ducking, keeping to one side of the room, my ears ringing from all of the gunshots. I’m nearly there…and then a man is filling the doorway, standing in front of me, blocking my path.

He reaches for me as I try to shove past him, his arm wrapping around my waist much like Sean’s did earlier, and my chest tightens, panic overwhelming me. I didn’t like Sean, he was an asshole—but now he’s dead. Killed in cold blood…I start to swing my arms wildly, clawing at the man holding me, a man I’ve…

A man I’ve seen before.

There’s a brief moment of clarity, as I look up at him. Blond hair, broad shoulders, tattoos climbing up his neck, dark blue eyes?—

It’s the man that I saw with Konstantin. The quiet, brooding, dangerous man. The one that Carmen claimed fucked her like a beast.

That memory is enough to make me go wild with fear again, clawing and kicking as the man grabs the back of my neck, shaking me hard enough to make my teeth clack together.

“Stop!” He shakes me again. “Stop fighting. I’m trying to help you.” He keeps me close to his side as he looks around the room, and I realize there’s a gun in his other hand, blood spattered over his arms and clothes. I follow his gaze, breathing hard, and I see that everyone who was in the room with me is dead, all except the black-garbed men who burst in. The crew, the five men who were getting paid to fuck me, Sean…everyone.

I have a momentary flicker of sorrow for the crew. They probably didn’t know they’d been hired for a job where the star of the show didn’t want to be there. But the rest of them…

Maybe I should feel bad that they’re dead. But I don’t.

“Come with me,” the man says urgently. “Stay close. If I let you go, are you going to?—”

I twist in his grasp, hoping it’s loosened, and he lets out a frustrated growl.

“I’m trying to protect you, girl!” He shakes me again, pulling me with him as he backs out of the doorway, turning abruptly around as he raises his gun, scanning the hallway. “Come with me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Who are—” I break off, my voice ending in a high-pitched sound of horror as I almost trip over a slender body in the hallway. Bright pink top, dusty blonde ponytail…it’s the other girl who came here with me, the one whose name I didn’t know. Another flare of guilt washes over me…I didn’t even ask.

The man is already dragging me down the hall with him. “Damian,” he says curtly, his voice sharp and abrupt, thickly accented. He’s Russian, I can tell that much, which makes sense, if he works with Konstantin for the Bratva. “Damian Kutnezsov. Is that good enough for you?”

My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. I can’t think, can’t form words. I’ve never felt fear like this before—I thought I had, just a little bit ago, when I saw those five men, but I was wrong.