Page 100 of Blind Devotion

“I made him suffer. I did it. I dealt the killing blow before Adrien’s team made it there.”

“You?” He laughed and pulled the gun away, my head swaying from the sudden lack of pressure.

He made me tell him how, in excruciatingly long detail, and I relived it, but I wasn’t frightened this time. If anything, I was proud of what I’d done. I went against my attacker, and I brought him down, not the other way around. I conquered him. I survived. I was alive, which meant I could do the same again.

I embellished the story, going into painfully long detail, as I tested the bindings around my wrists and ankles. Plastic, probably zip ties. The chair’s wood was thick enough that it was unlikely to break from the force I would put into it. Maybe if I rammed it against a wall? I wiggled the chair a bit. It wasn’t bolted to the ground.

I was on the part when I stabbed Bogdani with glass when gunfire erupted outside the barn. I ducked on instinct.

“Leontyev,” Adrien yelled in English, his voice slightly muffled. Definitely coming from outside. My relief was instantaneous. “We had a deal.”

I sagged in my chair. He came for me, for us. We were found. It wasn’t like last time.

“No deal.”

“You have your money. Let the women go.”

“Mudak. This is not about money. This is honor.”

Shots rang out. Between them, Adrien commanded his men in French. Leontyev yelled at his men in a mix of Russian and English, his voice sounding turned away from me. He was distracted. This was my moment.

I lifted the front legs of the chair and shimmied my ankles down them until they were free. The zip ties dangled at my heels.Now, how to get my hands free? I didn’t have a wide enough range of motion to tug them hard enough to break the zip ties.

A bullet pinged against metal not far from my head.

Something scratched against the floor next to me. Even amidst the chaos, I flinched, expecting Leontyev looming above me. My ears rang from the nonstop gunfire. My head ached from whatever drug my body was still burning through.

“Smart.” It was Alizé, beside me, shouting over the ruckus. The edge of her chair tapped against mine, her knees nudging me. “Now for our hands. Bend over.”

I didn’t question her. Her hand dug into my shirt and bra, where I stored the lipstick-knife tube.

“Breasts will always be a woman’s best assets,” she exclaimed, pulling it free. “Don’t move.”

I felt the small blade slip between my skin and the zip tie. One quick tug, her chair making a grated skip, and one of my hands was free.

Men kept barking at each other. The gunshots were slowing down, used more sparingly. Grunts and thuds resounded from not too far away, hay rustling beneath their movements.

I took the knife from her and tried to slip it under the ties as seamlessly as she did mine. Another gunshot whizzed by our heads. I ducked. She hissed. Blood slicked over her wrists.

“Just do it,” she snapped.

Feeling my way around what position to tug in, I jerked the knife. The zip tie snapped. She took over, cutting our last two binds. She slapped the tubed knife back into my hand.

“Keep it. I still have mine.” Then she grabbed my hand and tugged me after her.

“We need to find a way out of here.”

“Already on it.”

Maybe I should have questioned her more when she led us up rocky steps.

Chapter 40

“Anyonehaveeyesonthe women?” I asked over the comms.

A Russian aimed at one of my men. I took the shot, hitting him dead center between the eyes. The crack of the gun echoed in the night.

“Let’s wrap this up,” Erel’s voice grated in my ear, meaning Franc had signaled police were on their way. But this was an old-style little farm in the middle of the countryside, so we had some time.