Page 60 of Scorned Beauty

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. Maybe I said a prayer even when I wasn’t the praying kind. I looked around the apartment. “Where’s my cat?”

“If you’re talking about that she-devil, she better not show up.” I noticed the scratches on Anton’s arms.

She was alive, then.

“Kindly let Phil go.”

Anton had two henchmen with him who brought up the rear, forcing Phil to give up his weapon.

“Fuck, no,” Anton said. “This man is a pain in the ass.”

“You can’t have a dead fed?—”

“What’s another one? There’s already a manhunt for us, not to mention our own bratva is turning on us…fucking rats.”

“You know, apparently I’m a rat too, so I can commiserate.”

Phil was looking at me like I was crazy. A lethal calm had settled over me in the last few seconds since I realized Grigori’s men had come for me. I was tired of the anxiety I’d been living with. I wanted to know what my fate was. Or hope had died in me, and I wanted Anton to end my misery.

“And this man here”—Anton got close to Phil—“is a pig.”

He wheeled his arm and sunk his fist into Phil’s gut. Phil folded over with a groan, then Anton grabbed the collar of his shirt and tossed him on the couch.

“Stop it,” I yelled.

“Hold her back,” Anton snarled.

Phil staggered to his feet, cocked his elbows, and issued a cocky gesture. “Come on.”

The two men clashed in the center of my small apartment, sending my furniture scraping across the floor. Both of them landed heavily with a thud.

“My neighbors are going to call the cops, you dumbasses,” I shouted. We were not going to get arrested and miss the opportunity to find my brother. I knew what Phil was doing.

Well, he wasn’t dying on my watch.

“Stop it now!”

Anton might have a little brain, but he was a bruiser of a fighter and turned Phil’s face into a bloody pulp in a flash. Then he dragged him across the room and unlatched the door leading to the fire escape.

I tried to wrench myself free from the goon holding me, but he gripped my upper arms painfully. I jerked my elbow to his chin and stomped on his feet.

He spun me around and punched me in the stomach. “Bitch!”

I fell to the floor and tried to get up, but a wrenching pain low in my pelvis had me crying out.

“Boris, dammit, what did you do?” Anton roared. “Grigori said unscathed.”

“I hit her in the stomach. He can’t see it.” The man hovered over me, nudging me with his boot. “Stop pretending. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

An orange missile jumped on his back, and he started screaming.

“Fucking cat!” Boris yelled.

“Don’t hurt her.” I strained to get on my knees, fighting against the nausea building inside me.

I whimpered when I heard the breaking of glass and Ginger’s yowl. Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Ginger…Phil…”

I glared tearfully as Anton returned. “You’re so much trouble,suka.”