Jozef grabbed hold of his collar with both hands and lifted him off the ground, his legs swinging uselessly underneath him. Shaun wanted to scream out, to tell him to leave the man alone, that he was in too much pain to be of any use. It didn’t seem to matter though, she was the only one cared about his state beyond getting him to tell them whatever they needed.
The man who had come downstairs with Jozef, the one who spoke with her in the van, stepped up to them and snarled, “Tell us where Krystoff is.”
The injured man blinked several times as if trying to remove a fog, then groaned loudly, bringing his unbroken arm up to shield himself. It was no use though, as Jozef dropped one arm, using his other hand to hold the guy up off the floor. Shaun was amazed at the strength it would take to do that. She could usually tell how much a person weighed by looking at them, a hazard of her profession, and she suspected Jozef was holding a two-hundred-pound man as if he weighed no more than a sack of groceries.
Jozef pulled his fist back and sent it flying into the other guy’s gut. Hitting him in the belly, then continuing to punch him, getting him in the face, arms and stomach. The hits would be unbearable over top of his other wounds and the squeezing pain in his chest, but they weren’t lethal. Jozef seemed to know what he was doing; like a surgeon, he was precise.
Shaun bit her lip so hard that it bled into her mouth. She wanted to scream. She wanted to leap to her feet and defend her patient, but she knew it was a lost cause. They were going to kill this guy and then her. Maybe if she kept her silence, they would forget about her. At least for now. She’d seen too much death in her career, which had prepared her for the inevitability of dying, but now, every precious second seemed to count. She wanted as many as she could get, even if those seconds came along with the horror of watching someone else beaten to death.
She was about to cry out that the man was dying, that he couldn’t talk to them, when his groans turned to words. The words were garbled gibberish, pushed through a mouth full of blood and broken teeth. Shaun didn’t understand what he was saying, then she realized that he wasn’t speaking English, but Ukrainian. She’d managed to pick up enough to interact with her patients on a basic level, but she hadn’t been in the country long enough to speak fluently, or understand it well, especially when the words were being spoken with rapid desperation.
Finally, the words ended, and Jozef nodded. He dropped the man, who fell backward with a crash, his head hitting the floor so hard it bounced. Shaun winced and started to crawl toward him. Maybe if they were done the interrogation they would leave and she could tend to the man, at least make his passing a little more comfortable.
Before she could reach him, Jozef pulled his gun again, trained it on the man and put a bullet through his head. It was a clean shot. The head remained intact, the only sign of a fatal injury a couple of drops of blood seeping from the wound. Shaun let out a scream of horror and scrambled away, crawling back until she was pressed against a wall.
Her heart thundered, and she looked up at Jozef, expecting the gun to swing around toward her. She was going to die in that dirty basement, next to the stranger she’d failed to protect. She didn’t know what to expect. She thought maybe her mind would flood with images of her family, or maybe a bright light. Instead, there was nothing but blank terror. Every instinct within her was screaming at her to run away, to try her hardest to escape the fate that was rushing at her, but her limbs were locked, and she could do nothing but watch the gun swing toward her.
She stared up at Jozef defiantly, tried to tell him silently that he didn’t scare her, that she was prepared for death. None of it was true, but he didn’t need to know that. She watched as his finger tightened on the trigger, just the way it had seconds earlier. His fingers were so starkly beautiful, with the intricate ink painting them. She wondered if he played an instrument; his hands would look beautiful flying over chords as he made music.
Then she thought of her parents and prepared to die.
Chapter Five
Shaun was expecting to feel a raw ripping pain tear through her, followed closely by death. She wasn’t expecting to have someone grip her arm and wrench her up to her feet. The move was so fast, so sudden, that she felt instantly dizzy. When her vision cleared, she was confronted with the intense stunning blue eyes of her captor. His forehead was wrinkled in a frown.
“What are you doing?” the other man demanded. “We got what we need. Finish the job so we can get on with it.”
She felt sick, genuinely nauseous to the point that she would’ve doubled over and gripped her knees if she could have. By ‘finish the job,’ he meant kill her. She was a loose end, a witness to a murder. They had no choice, she had to go. Jozef glared at the other man, and then turned and dragged her toward the stairs.
Shaun was dizzy, hyperventilating, floaty. She was disassociating from what was happening. Multiple times in the space of an hour or so, she’d been positive she was going to die, then, when the real thing finally came, when she was certain he intended to pull the trigger, something had held him back. She didn’t know what, couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t even really be grateful that she was still alive. She couldn’t possibly guess what was going to happen to her now.
Jozef pulled her up the stairs and through the house. She glanced around and saw dusty unused furniture. There were still drop clothes on some of the items. She suspected the family that had lived there fled the war, closing up the house and moving somewhere safer. These guys were probably seizing on an opportunity to use it while it was empty. It was in a remote area outside of the city, ideal for criminal activity. At least, she hoped her hypothesis was true. What if they’d killed the family and were using the house as a base for their operations?
Jozef hauled her toward the van, opened the passenger door and flung her at it. She caught the edge of the frame and glanced back in time to see his leather jacket filling her vision. He didn’t wait for her to climb in but shoved her until she was halfway laying across the seat and gripping the dashboard for balance. He stuffed her legs inside and slammed the door shut. She righted herself and turned to watch as he confronted the man who stormed out of the house behind him. They embarked on an angry conversation, the thug guy yelling at Jozef, and Jozef responding with rapid, angry hand gestures.
Shaun had no idea what they were saying, the conversation was too fast, too angry, and Jozef’s back was to her so she couldn’t see his hands. Finally, the guy gave a sharp nod and turned his malevolent gaze on her, staring at her through the passenger window. He pulled the van keys from his pocket and tossed them at Jozef, then he turned on his heel and strode back into the house.
Jozef watched the house for a few seconds, seeming to gather himself, then came around the front of the van and opened the door, climbing into the driver’s seat. He ignored her, sliding the keys into the ignition and turning. As the engine flared to life, hope filled her chest. He hadn’t killed her in the basement along with that other man, and he was taking her somewhere else, maybe back to the hospital. Hell, she didn’t care if he ditched her in the middle of nowhere, she was just happy to be alive.
Shaun’s relief was short-lived when Jozef turned off the main road and started following a bumpy dirt road into a sparsely wooded area. Her alarm grew as they continued to drive with no houses or signs of civilization. Her heart began to pound and her palms grew clammy.