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“For every second you don’t suck me off like a good whore, that girly faggot will be punched.” The leader speaks with sickening arrogance. “How long until he dies, I wonder?”

The men punch me again and again. Blood explodes from my mouth and I feel like vomiting my guts out.

A feeling of frustration whirls through me like a storm. Just why the fuck did I have to lose my energy now? I’m virtually useless.

“Wait a second.” One of the men crouches in front of me and slaps his palm to my chest.

No, no…

Otherworldly energy grabs hold of me and I use everything I have to buck and try to kick them away.

While his friend holds me in place, the one in front of me pulls down my pants and boxers.

Please no…

I catch a glimpse of Rai forcing herself to look at me. Pain lingers in her eyes, but she wants to offer me any form of consolation, even if she’s also on the verge of being assaulted herself.

I go crazy in my attempts to stop them from undressing me. I kick and thrash. I try to bite, too, but it’s impossible to cause any form of injury when I barely have any strength.

Before I know it, I’m half naked in front of their greedy eyes.

“Fucking shit. Jackpot, Boss.” The man who undressed me grins. “It’s a woman.”

I make eye contact with Rai, who can see the evidence of my actual gender, then lower my head, a tear escaping my eye.

I’ve screwed up everything. Me. Kirill. The whole of the Morozov carefully built influence.

“Have fun with her while I have fun with this one.” The leader smiles and turns his attention to Rai.

The two guards push me down on the floor. One stands by my head and hold my hands and the other parts my legs.

Fuck them. No one but Kirill will touch me. No fucking one.

I stare at Rai, only to find her searching my gaze.

Now.

She opens her mouth, but once he stuffs his dick inside, she bites down so hard, the leader howls as blood explodes on her face.

The guard kicks her, so she releases the boss as I try to fight the one who’s hovering over me and pushing his rotten dick against my mouth.

A sense of panic floods my throat as reality sinks in. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t stop this assault.

Rai kicks the one who’s on top of me and snatches his gun. I hit the other one, then pull him down in a headlock and steal his gun as I break his neck with my arm.

Fuck you, asshole.

A rush of energy surges through me as Rai and I shoot whoever we can. She gets the leader in the dick—I should’ve done that with the other bastard.

I pull up my pants and zip them up. Once I’m decent, we cover each other on the way out.

Once we’re out of the room, which appears to be in a huge basement, we head down a long hallway, looking back at any intersections in case one of them followed us.

Rai wipes the blood off her face with the back of her hand and steals a look at me. “Is your name Aleksander? Do you prefer I call you that?”

“It’s Aleksandra.” I lower my eyes.

“Thank you for helping me.”

“Anytime.”

We run as fast as we can down the hall. The drug is definitely starting to wear off, and the adrenaline helps, but we’re nowhere near our full strength. In fact, it takes a lot of effort for me to stay focused while still running.

I have to shake my head now and again whenever the floor gets blurry.

A noise comes from upstairs and we hide on either side of a hallway that intersects the main one.

We shoot at the soldiers following us, and despite my dizzy state, I manage to kill two. However, I find myself in the same predicament as prior to my kidnapping—I’m running out of bullets. Rai wouldn’t be any better.

And we need to get the hell out of here before they catch us again, because this time, with the damage we inflicted on their leader, they’ll kill us, no questions asked.

Boom!

We freeze when what sounds like a bomb explodes near the stairs leading to the basement. Then a hail of gunfire follows.

The guys who were behind us disappear, and soon after, we hear Russian words and orders.

Oh, God.

I mirror Rai’s smile when she looks at me. We have backup . Or she does because she’s the Pakhan’s grandniece.

Still covering each other, we slip out from behind the wall and head toward the commotion.

A lot of our, Damien’s, and Kyle’s men are shooting the whole place down. Even Damien has a machine gun with the ammunition slung across his body as if this is some sort of toy war.

But that’s not what gets my attention.

It’s Kirill.

He’s on the front line, wearing a vest and leading Viktor, Yuri, Maksim and the guys I’ve grown to consider my family.

Kirill looks regal in his suit, despite the fact that it’s a bit disheveled and droplets of blood smear his forehead.

He's here for me.

The fight leaves my shoulders and I want to fall to the ground and cry. No, I want to hug him and cry.

I run to him, ignoring everyone and everything in my path.

“Kirill,” I call, but my voice is drowned out by the chaos.

He hears me, though, because his attention flies in my direction immediately. He sprints toward me, killing a man on the way. Blood splatters on his glasses and face, but he doesn’t even blink as he continues jogging until he nearly runs into me.

“You okay?” he breathes the words out as if they’re a prayer, and I want to close my eyes and listen to his voice all day.

I nod and lift a hand to touch his cheek, then I remember we’re not alone and let it fall to my side. “You’re alive.”

“No one will be able to kill me. Or you. Hear me? No fucking one.”

I swallow my tears.

I want to cry. I want to say how happy I am that he’s here, but if I say that right now, I can’t guarantee that I won’t break down in sobs.

So I remain silent and concentrate on the battle.

Soon after, the Albanians are wiped out in droves, mostly by our men and Damien, who went completely rogue.

I only managed to shoot two before I was out of ammunition, so Kirill shielded me from the bullets. He physically pushed me behind him as if he were the bodyguard and I was under his protection.

As I took cover, I could only watch his back as the muscles contracted with each shot he fired.

“Stay beside me,” he orders as he tells the others to clean up.

“That was over too soon,” Damien complains. “They couldn’t put up more of a fight or something?”

I try to help with the cleaning, but a glare from Kirill keeps me rooted in place. I look at Rai and she smiles.

I walk to her as her husband, Kyle, hugs her to his side. “Thank you.”

“Likewise, Aleksander.”

Warmth fills me at the way she respected my apparent gender. I was terrified she’d certainly use this information—that Kirill hired a female guard who’s pretending to be male—to threaten him with, but she proved me wrong.

In more ways than one.

Maybe Rai isn’t as bad as I initially thought.

“You can call me Sasha, Miss.” I offer her a bow of respect. When I lift my head, my eyes clash with Kirill’s icy ones. He’s wiping the blood off his glasses and glaring at us.

I jog to his side, or as much jogging as I can do under the circumstances. The last thing I want to do is spur some sort of war between Kirill and Rai because of me.

When I stop beside him, he gives Rai an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture, then slips his glasses up his nose.

“You don’t have to do that—”

“Shut the fuck up and walk.” He nudges me in front of him not so gently and I stumble but then regain my composure.

What’s wrong with him now? I would almost swear he’s mad at me, but why would he be?

I didn’t do anything to warrant this…or did I?