Arkady jumped from the SUV.
“Arkady, no!” Fear robbed me of breath.
He crouched just outside the vehicle, opened the back door, and used both partitions for cover.
“Get down in the wheel well, Lucia,” he ordered in a stark voice.
I hurried to crouch even lower, and Arkady raised the shotgun. I was worried that if I so much as blinked, he’d get shot.
The gun let off a loud crack when he fired in fast succession. Someone else bellowed. Then I heard two more screams.
The impact of nonstop bullets rocked the SUV. It must’ve been armored or reinforced or something because, other than the smashed windows, the vehicle remained intact.
“What can I do?” I yelled to the invincible Russian.
“Stay the fuck down until I kill the rest of these sukas.” Gritting his teeth, he rattled off more bullets.
He stood, undaunted, the pistol in one hand, shotgun in the other.
He fired both front and back, and I wondered if the Bratva soldiers in the other vehicles were still alive or if they’d become part of the damage all because of my father’s inability to save his own dynasty.
Approaching footsteps thundered closer, and Arkady’s lips pulled into a grimace.
He glanced at me one last time, muttering, “Fucking Sabato.”
In the space of seconds, he singlehandedly took on an entire army of the old Sicilian’s forces. Two of them fell on Arkady, but he was nowhere near going down.
I watched in abject horror as he blew the head clean off one of his attackers before shooting the other with a handgun pressed to his gut.
His eyes cold with fury, he glanced at me again. “Center console, Lucia. Another gun. Remember what I taught you.”
“What? No!”
“Do it!” he roared.
I scrambled, barely getting shaky purchase on the firearm before he tossed his phone at me.
Seconds later, another pair of attackers flew at him.
“Call Kirill.” He shot again and again, and I jabbed at the screen of the phone.
Someone reached into the SUV just as I got to Kirill’s contact. I barely had time to press it before the unknown man wrenched me from the vehicle.
“Duck!” Arkady shouted.
Even though one assailant punched down on his wrist to break his hold on the pistol, Arkady raised the other weapon.
I kicked back at my attacker and threw my head down just as Arkady’s bullet whistled past.
A grunt sounded behind me, and I reached for the phone again with fear pounding straight through my heart.
Then I saw Arkady, and terror poured like ice through my veins. Three men were on him, viciously beating him.
The phone forgotten, I grabbed the gun.
I barely had a chance to aim before I pulled the trigger. One of the Italians flailed backward as the bullet plugged into his chest.
Arkady flashed me a quick grin, and I thought we might be all right but, a second later, another soldier squeezed his forearm tight around my Russian’s throat.
There was no way I could fire without hitting Arkady too.
Using the butt of his handgun, he bashed his assailant over and over on the side of the head.
Yet another of Sabato’s men jerked Arkady’s arm down.
“Lucia,” he growled out. “Phone . . . Kirill . . .”
I could tell he was wheezing, having trouble breathing, and my own breath halted in my chest.
I watched, horrified while trying to locate the phone again to make sure the call had gone through. Using brute force, Arkady lifted both his legs and pushed his body—attackers attached—away from the SUV. He thrashed with all his might to dislodge the Italians.
I shot again, hitting one of them but not lethally.
Then someone else snatched me from behind and the gun fell from my grasp. While I was being hauled from the vehicle, Arkady suddenly slumped like all the life had drained out of him.
“No!” I wailed, twisting and turning against the arms caged around me.
Seeing Arkady struck down was incomprehensible.
Any other man would’ve been felled at the first blows, the first onslaught, but I could see bodies lying all around like the middle of the road had become a battlefield.
Dragged away from the vehicle, I was surrounded by more of the Sicilian men.
“Stronzos! Did you kill him? What did you do to him?”
No one answered.
Not one of them said a word.
The one holding me grunted, though, when I kicked my foot up behind me.
Good.
I hoped I got him in the balls.
I noted a pair of others carrying Arkady’s limp body between them.
Then that old goat, Sabato, appeared from the safety of a limousine, which was so at odds with the scene of carnage all around.
With the aid of a cane, the stooped don approached me.
I glared, thrusting my chin forward.
When he stopped in front of me, I spat a mouthful of saliva at him. “You coward.”
As my spittle clung to his hollow cheek, he raised his cane.
He cracked the wood with blinding force against the side of my face.
19
Arkady
I CAME TO WITH a groan I quickly stifled.
I instantly remembered the final moments before the assholes overpowered me. Lucia had been snatched for a second time, the pistol falling from her grasp.
Alarm jolted me to total awareness.
I tried to move, latent pain wrenching through my body. Someone had roped my arms behind my back and tied my ankles to the legs of a metal chair.
Blyad.
Where the hell is Lucia?
My head swiveled, and I finally spotted her.
Only then did my heartrate slow.
A long breath whistled from my chest.
Likewise restrained, she sat there crying silently. Tears tracked down her cheeks, her chest heaving with silent sobs.
“Lucia.” My voice sounded raspy and unused.
She startled, swiping her face quickly against the shoulder of her shirt.
Her gaze swung to me, and her mouth popped open. “Oh my god! Arkady! I thought they’d killed you.”
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine at all. Rage roared through me with a need to inflict raw bloody violence.
Despite the crazed anger, I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m sorry, dragotsennaya printsessa.”
“Save your apologies for after we get out of this. And then you can say sorry for abducting me too, sì?” Somehow, she managed to wink at me, and I knew she was making light of a very bad situation.
It didn’t matter.
Responsibility for her weighed heavily, not to mention the strange feelings she’d begun to evoke.
I looked her straight in the eye. “You would not be in this predicament if not for me.”
“You’re right. I’d already have been put on a plane to Italy with the weasel who did this to us. You’re not to blame,” she said vehemently.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked.
As far as locations went, the small room built of concrete walls was nondescript. Nothing personal decorated the stuffy box, no equipment or computers even hinted to where we might be.
Shaking her head, she frowned. “Not exactly. We’re back in the city, but they blindfolded me before we got here.”
I watched as she swallowed, and almost as much as I wanted to raise holy hell, I wanted to be able to comfort her.