Vasily shoves me forward, the gun finding a home in my shoulder blade as he prods me along. “Now take a fucking seat. You’re going to watch this show from the VIP section.”
He shoves me across the warehouse and orders me into a chair directly opposite of Kat. But I can’t fucking move. When my gaze locks onto her bruised and bloody body, my only instinct is to get to her. She’s barely conscious, her eye so swollen I don’t even know if she can see me.
“Kat.”
She moans, and Vasily slams the butt of his gun into the side of my head, dazing me.
“I told you to sit the fuck down!” he thunders.
On instinct, I try to take a swing at him, but he jumps back, aiming the gun right at Kat’s head.
“Don’t even try me, you stupid fuck. I’ll put a bullet in her head so fast you won’t have time to blink.”
I meet his gaze, forcing myself to keep my temper in check. “What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want?”
“I told you.” He looks at me with unbridled disgust. “I want to see your blood paint this floor. But first, you get to suffer. Just like Andrei suffered.”
“Andrei was the biggest piece of shit and waste of human space that ever breathed on this earth,” I clip out. “I did you a favor. I did the entire fucking world a favor.”
The vein in Vasily’s forehead throbs as he clenches his jaw, trembling with unchecked rage. I know it’s not fucking smart to provoke him, but I need a distraction.
“There isn’t a line you won’t cross, is there?” I ask him. “Your own sister. Your own flesh and blood.”
Vasily’s face pales, his gaze intensifying as he studies me. “How long have you known?”
“I’ve always suspected.” I glare at him. “You never did anything out of the kindness of your heart. You took me in and turned me into exactly what she didn’t want.”
“She was a fucking traitor!” The words fly from his lips with such violence, I can’t believe I didn’t see his hatred for her all these years. How blind I was to the fact that I’d been living with the monster all along.
“You let your filthy spawn… touch her. Her own fucking nephew. You sick, depraved motherfucker!”
I want him to come for me. I want him to focus his rage on me, but being the coward that Vasily is, he always chooses the easiest fight. It still fucking shocks me to witness his depravity when he grabs Kat by the hair and backhands her. Blood flies from her mouth, and it triggers every animal instinct inside me as I lunge forward, tackling Vasily to the ground. He digs the gun into my ribs and pulls the trigger, but by some fucking miracle, it jams.
“Motherfuck!” He slams his knee up into my gut, and I choke back the pain as I twist his fingers back, trying to pry the gun from his grasp.
His bones crack, and he groans as I headbutt him, dazing him long enough to grab the weapon and toss it out of his reach.
“Now we’re even.” I spit into his face. “So fight me like a man, you pathetic fuck.”
Vasily swings his knee up again, this time hitting me in the groin. I buckle for a split second, and he thrashes me in the temple with his elbow. We’re both running on pure rage and adrenaline as we grapple for dominance.
“You killed my father too.” I wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze. “Admit it. Admit that you destroyed my entire family.”
A demonic smile curls across his face as he bends my fingers back, trying to pry me off him. “Everything you have ever loved, I have destroyed, Lev. Your father, your mother, your little bitch. When this is over, they will all have died by my will. Because I’m the fucking god you could never be. I’m the true Vor. And your father was just as weak as you. He died like a pathetic fuck, gasping for breath and pleading for mercy.”
I land a solid blow to his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs, and it gives me the time I need to stagger to my feet. My boot slams into his rib cage, and he curls into a ball as I stomp on his face, shattering his nose.
He chokes on his own blood as it pours into his mouth, and I kick him again and again, watching him writhe on the floor in pain as he fights to get up. But it’s too late. He’s already one foot in the grave, and I’m not finishing until I send him straight to hell.
“Who’s your god now, motherfucker?”
Blood spatters against my face as I grab a chunk of brick and kneel onto his chest, smashing it into his skull. Rage opens up the floodgates inside me as I slam the brick into him, over and over, painting the floor with his blood.
“Who’s your fucking god now?” I roar again.
“Lev.” Gleb’s voice snaps me out of my murderous haze as he reaches down and pries the brick from my fingers. “He’s dead.”
As my eyes clear, and I wipe the blood from my face, I look down at what used to be Vasily’s head. But now, it’s nothing more than blood and fragments of skull, his useless brains spilling out.
“He’s dead,” Gleb repeats.
“No.” I stagger to my feet and grab the Glock strapped to my ankle.
He can’t be dead. That was too easy for him. That’s what I keep telling myself as I unload an entire magazine into his body, watching as he flops around like a fish on the concrete floor. I feel no satisfaction when the blood oozes from his wounds. But one word from Gleb snaps me out of it.
“Katerina.”
Kat. The Glock falls from my grasp, and I turn to her. She’s not conscious, but one of Gleb’s men has untied her.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” Gleb says. “Now.”
The guy in front of her tries to pick her up, and I shove him out of the way. “No. She’s mine.”
With all the delicacy I can muster, I scoop her up into my arms and try to wake her, peppering her bloody face with kisses.
“Wake up, baby. I’m here. I’m here, and I’m never leaving you again. So, you can’t leave me either. That’s the deal.”
Gleb grabs me by the arm, dragging me along out of the warehouse while he orders a couple of his guys to stay behind and clean up.
“Wake up, baby,” I say again, kissing her forehead. “I’m here.”
“Lev. Get in.” Gleb opens the door to his SUV, and I climb in, clutching Kat against my chest.
My eyes burn, and something splashes against Kat’s cheek, and that’s when I realize it’s coming from my eyes.
“Katya.” I clutch her face in my hands. “Don’t leave me, baby. I can’t do this without you.”
The engine in the SUV roars to life, and I don’t even know what’s happening right now. Gleb issues orders, and his man drives, flying like a bat out of hell to the nearest hospital. But all I can focus on is Kat. My angel. My life. I can’t fucking lose her.
I don’t even realize I’m saying it out loud until Gleb turns around. “You won’t, son.”
But how can he know that? How did he even find us?
“My guys hacked into your GPS system a week ago,” he tells me, answering another question I didn’t even know I said out loud. “It was a safety precaution until this blew over.”
I rock Kat in my arms, stroking her hair back away from her face. Nothing else matters right now. I just need her to wake up.