Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Boot,” I mouthed, before slamming my fist into the side of his face—just shy of the knockout spot.
I rose again and kicked him one last time.
This time, he wrapped his body around my leg, holding tight.
Perfect.
I struggled, just enough to sell it.
While he reached into my boot and slipped the folding knife from my ankle sheath.
The next time I kicked, he rolled away.
“Would you stop playing?” Mateo said.
For one split second, I thought he’d noticed.
“What do you need to know?” I asked, ignoring him. My focus stayed locked on Zoya.
She was the one that mattered.
She tilted her head. “Let’s start with the senators,” she said, her voice casual and cold. “Which ones answer when the Ivanovs call?”
I turned back to Pavel, grabbed his shirt, and hauled him upright into a new chair.
Leaning close, I whispered, “Almost done.”
He sneered at Zoya. “Fuck you,” he said. But I knew he’d heard me.
I kept my body between him and the others as the swinging light cast us in darkness for a heartbeat—just long enough for him to tuck the knife into his sleeve.
No matter how they tied him down again, he had steel now.
I had to trust him. Trust that I’d done enough.
It was his move.
“I suggest you tell the girl what she needs to know,” I said.
“Fuck you too, asshole,” he muttered, voice slurring just enough.
His eyes stayed focused. Pupils normal.
No concussion. He was still playing the part.
“He’s an Ivanov, ma’am. They’re impossible to break. Stubborn Russian fuckers. Ice and vodka in their veins. If I hit him again, I risk a brain bleed.”
Zoya shrugged, like we were discussing the weather. “Then give him time to reconsider his options. Starvation and pain tend to loosen tongues.”
I nodded and stepped away.
Pavel slumped in his chair.
Battered and bruised.
Steel pressed to his wrist.
I turned my back on him.
He had what he needed.
Now it was up to him.
More importantly…this game was just beginning.
CHAPTER 7
ROMAN
This mission was risky.
I was unarmed, outnumbered, and worse—I didn’t know my enemy.
Which meant it was going to be fun.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, making me twitchy.
Time was short. I had to extract Pavel—fast and quiet.
No backup. No margin for error.
If it were only me? Fine.
But if I fucked this up, it wouldn’t just be my life on the line.
Pavel was counting on me to get him out and back to his wife and child.
We needed to vanish before anyone realized we were gone. If shots were fired, we were both dead.
“No pressure,” Kostya had said earlier when I told him the plan.
Fuck that.
Give me pressure. Stack the odds. Raise the stakes.
That was where I thrived.
I expected these men to be sloppy.
But I wasn’t prepared for how pathetic they actually were—undisciplined, unfocused, easily manipulated.
The air inside the warehouse stank of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and whatever narcotic they’d laced the skunk weed with. Like someone tried to mask the stench of a corpse with drugstore potpourri.
If anyone under my command ever behaved like this, they’d be executed.
Deliberately. Visibly. As a warning to the rest.
Men like this weren’t assets. They were liabilities—and I was going to use that.
It should’ve taken days to gain their trust. Weeks.
Instead, I met Mateo at an underground fight club and had a job within the hour.
Fifteen minutes of booze and bullshit was all it took tonight before they were spilling everything the second Zoya left the floor.
These men didn’t respect her.
And that was dangerous.
Not every boss starts with a legacy name—I got that.
But when you were in charge, you earned loyalty with money, fear, or pain.
Zoya thought she’d bought theirs.
She was wrong.
And it was going to get her killed.
But that wasn’t my problem.
My problem was the two-hundred-pound Russian in the basement with a broken femur.
I’d planned for him to sneak out once the coast was clear—until Mateo got high and decided to work out his aggression by turning Pavel into a punching bag.
And snapping something. Pavel roared.
No one escaped unnoticed with a shattered leg.
Pavel was tough, but he wasn’t Jesus.
Thankfully, three bottles of tequila and a few rounds of whatever poison they were smoking had most of them half dead on their feet.
“Tell me something,” I said, clapping the back of the man next to me as I poured another shot. “Why follow the ice queen?”
He yawned and blinked. “Because she has the money. For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our boss needs capital. He told us to play along. Once he has her cash, we off the bitch and be done with it.”
“After we take turns breaking her in first,” another man added with a sick grin.
He wasn’t joking.
He said it like he was talking about a stolen car—like she wasn’t even human.
I tightened my grip on the bottle but kept my voice casual. “And you’re cool with taking orders from a woman?”
“Fuck no.” The first guy snorted. “She wants to boss me around, she better be on her knees with dinner in the oven.”