Page 10 of Scarlet Promise

If I can.

“After all,” I whisper, “what do I have to lose?”

Not a damn thing.

At least taking me means they need me alive, and needing me alive means they won’t kill me.

I pace again, stretch, try to stay limber and awake. When I need to sit, I do.

And I have a new mantra now.

What do I have to lose? Not a damn thing.

It’s a good mantra.

Better than self-pity. Better?—

Something bangs directly above me, so loud I let out a small scream.

It’s like a beast upstairs has woken, one made of scrapes and bangs and thumps. Of heavy boots.

They’re either back or still here, only they’ve moved to the ground floor if this place is multi-storied. It strikes me then, like ice thrown at my face, that there are worse things than death. Human trafficking comes to mind. Or using me to lure Ilya to his death. Demyan, too, because why stop at taking one bratva when you can take two?

But taking the Yegorov Bratva makes no sense. Not one man would follow the person stepping in to be the new pakhan. They’d be ripped to pieces, and I suspect Erin would be first in line.

My hold on my emotions slips.

The grief of losing Max swamps me, and now it’s threefold with the possibility of losing my brother and Ilya. I can’t lose two loves. I can’t. I can’t lose my brother, either. I can’t lose either of them.

I’m not sure Melor would kill Demyan. But Ilya? Oh yes.

I start to tremble, the tears pushing, one spilling free. I dash it away.

The lock scrapes, and the door swings open with a bang, making me jump.

Melor strides in, a sneer on his face, and reaches for me.

I pull my arm away at the last minute, so he grabs air instead. I hurl myself into him, raising my knee and slamming him in the balls. He grunts and snatches my hair as I try to grab his gun in his belt. He wrenches my head back.

Searing pain streaks through me.

I drop my hand past the gun and grab his junk, twisting it.

He cries out and picks me up by the hair, pulling me off him. I go for his eyes, scrape my nails down his face, trying to dig in.

Melor throws me to the ground. I land on my shoulder with an agonizing, jarring thud.

Even as I try to get up, his shadow falls over me. He slams a foot hard on my other shoulder, pinning me to my back.

“Cunt.”

With that, he picks me up by the throat and crushes a fist into my face, turning everything into a burst of white and black.

He drops me, jumps on me, and punches me again, banging my head against the cement floor.

Now there are two…three of him.

He grabs my head and smashes it to the ground again.