Rip

“You have my word,” Phoenix said quickly, surprising me, “that I will protect her like she is my own blood, because she is.”

I exhaled. “Thank you.”

“I should be at your apartment within the next two hours. If I don’t hear from you within twenty-four hours, I’m getting her to safety and calling in reinforcements.”

“I’d like to keep this within The Family.” I swallowed the indignation that I was referring to their Family and not my own.

“The Five Families are one,” Phoenix said. “We are separate when we need to be, but lately more united than usual. Apparently, Russians force us to keep needing family reunions,” he joked. “Go do what you need to do. Right now, Sergio’s working on hacking the entire Petrov empire. He doesn’t just mean to helps us discover the location of the two whorehouses. He means to drain all Petrov’s resources and make it look like the Feds.”

I let out a dark chuckle. “Wonderful, and I’m assuming the Feds will turn the other way when they realize our involvement?”

“But of course.” Phoenix answered. “Try not to die, Nik. Love has a way of making things seem less dark… I would hate for you to stop breathing before you get the chance to experience sunlight for the first time.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest—for the woman sleeping in the other room. I would live. I had to live. For her. I would find a way.

Petrov motioned for his men to step back as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigar and took his time lighting it, drawing a few puffs before addressing me again. “My daughter… she died.”

For a minute I panicked then remembered Maya wasn’t technically his, so he had to be referencing Andi.

“She died well.” I nodded. “We attended the funeral.”

“By we, am I to assume you took Maya with you?”

“She does work for me.” I said in a bored voice. “So unless you want me to lock her in a tower for the next year, travel will be necessary.”

“You touched her.” Petrov motioned for one of his men, a cell phone was tossed into the air, he grabbed it then pulled up two pictures of us getting on the plane.

Thankfully, my hand was on her lower back.

Even better?

She looked pissed.

“Apologies.” I fought to hide my grin. “By touching I thought you were referring to sex but were too polite to say so. Yes, I touched her, on the back, I’ve even touched her hand by accident while opening the door for her.” I snapped my fingers. “Damn it, I’ve even seen her bare feet, so if you mean to kill me over an infraction like that, or rip up the contract simply because we had different definitions of the word touch, then by all means, pull out your guns  and blast my ass off, but know this.” I took a step forward. “I always have a failsafe. Always. Do you really want to take the chance that upon my death, I rain hell on your empire by releasing every piece of information I’ve collected on you over the years? Worse yet, do you really want to take the chance that I haven’t asked the Italians for help?”

“Even you wouldn’t go that far.” Petrov’s face turned a deep red. “Working with the Italians…” His eyes narrowed and then he broke out into a smile as he patted my shoulder. “Enough of business… I simply wanted to make sure that you understood the terms of our agreement. If you’ve touched her in a way that causes her to remember… well… I may not be able to kill you, but I could kill her.” I flinched. “And I do think that would be worse for you, would it not? Knowing it was your fault. Knowing that you failed twice?”

“She remembers nothing,” I lied. “I even placed the very same masks in her bedroom… nothing has triggered her… yet.”

“Yet?”

“I’m a doctor. Not God.” My fists clenched. “And I can’t read minds. I simply tell the weak ones what to do….” With a smirk I leaned forward and snapped my fingers twice. “Like this.”

“Stop it!” Petrov stumbled backward. He’d always been afraid of someone taking over his mind, afraid that his mind was not his own, especially after seeing what I could do, what I did do to his soldiers for him. He had a very real fear of seeing me snap my fingers ever since I helped make his last Sovietnik jump off a twelve story building.

I smiled. “I believe we are done?”

Petrov adjusted his coat then slowly heaved himself into the black SUV, I imagined the leather made a stretching noise as his weight settled against it. He slammed the door behind him. I was just getting ready to turn around and leave when the window rolled down.

Shit.

One gun shot rang out and then he yelled. “A reminder.”

The window slid up, and the car glided away with the menacing growl of its engine.

Never turn your back on a Russian.

I fell to the ground in a heap, grabbing my side, the bullet had gone in and out in one clean shot, but I needed to stitch myself up. I limped to the car then was hit in the back of the head with something hard.

Gravel crunched against shoes as my body fell to the ground. I looked up as five men descended.

I could kill. I could fight.

But not against five.

Not with a fresh gunshot wound.

I kicked away from them and stood, just as arms wrapped around me. Two of the men took turns hitting me in the stomach. I hissed out a curse as my wound tore open.

They laughed when my head fell back against the two men holding me. Nearly blacking out, I tried to flex, preparing myself for the hits, but they kept coming, and my vision was starting to fade.

A loud gunshot stopped the next man from hitting. At first I thought I’d been shot again, but with two of the men holding me, two hitting, and one watching, nobody had a gun.

They looked at one another in confusion, while I tried to think of a way to escape.

Someone whistled and then Tex Campisi stepped out of the shadows, giant grin on his face as he held a semiautomatic in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.

He shrugged and said. “What? I have a hard time choosing weapons.” His grin grew. “Who’s first?”

The men laughed, one stepped forward. “There are five of us. And two of you, one half dead.”

“Damn it.” Tex shook his head. “You know? For a Russian, you’re super smart, I bet you even went to high school while dip shit over there couldn’t make it past first grade. Here’s a tip. You point the gun at the target.”

One of the guys started charging him, just as another gunshot rang out, but Tex’s gun was pointed at the ground.

The guy fell over clutching his chest. He couldn’t have been shot by a semiautomatic, considering his body hadn’t been cut completely in half.

“You know how long it’s been since I’ve shot something that stupid?” Chase stepped out of the darkness.

“But you shot at Tex yesterday,” Nixon countered, joining the line where Tex and Chase stood.

“So I think,” Tex scratched his head and looked around. “That makes it, what? Three against four?”

“We will kill you.” The man holding me spat on the ground. “Italian bastards!”

“Hey, that’s offensive,” Chase piped up. “Some of us are bastards.”

The man holding my body pushed me to the ground. I coughed up more blood, great, and looked up in shock as Frank Alfero stepped in the middle of the guys then opened fire.

Two gunshots, three, four, five, and then six more.

“I think they’re dead.” Tex slapped Frank on the back.

“Yes,” Frank nodded, his face serious. “But, I have not had live targets in a while and I’m to be leaving for New York soon. Trace has been saying my vision is not what it used to be.” He turned to them and shrugged. “And I do not like doctors.”

“Great.” I muttered from a pool of my own blood. “Does that mean I get to be another target?”

“Hey, Nikolai, didn’t see you there.” Chase laughed.

I rolled my eyes. “I have no energy to respond with anything but get me the hell out of here. Now.”