Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
I wrestle harder underneath Dimitrov, scratching wherever my nails find purchase, but his suit jacket hampers my efforts. I go for his face. He leans back far enough that I barely scrape his jaw.
Abandoning the cord, he folds his hands around my neck. His injured hand is functioning poorly, but even so, his force is frightening, the kind fueled by hatred and a blind will to survive. “I’ll fucking kill you slowly.”
I try to throw him off by bucking my hips, but he’s dead weight. A frantic glance at the door assures me the mousy man is still standing there, observing the spectacle with obvious glee. Does he get off on watching people getting killed?
A string of gunshots rings out from closer, maybe just behind the door, but they’re faint sounds compared to the buzzing in my ears as Dimitrov continues to choke me. My lungs protest and panic surfaces.
Calling on all my training, I stop fighting his hold, forcing myself to think.
“Not so brave now that you’re on the receiving end,” Dimitrov mutters.
He pins my neck to the bed with his injured hand while reaching for his buckle with the other, giving me just enough oxygen so I wouldn’t pass out. So I’d be conscious for what he has planned for me.
“Are you just going to stand there?” he asks the mousy man. “Or do you want a taste of the traitor’s cunt?”
“I’ll let you go first,” the man replies.
Fuck him. Fuck them.
A loud crack comes from the lounge. It’s followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Dimitrov is occupied with his frantic fumbling, pushing down his pants before wedging his hips between my legs. Blood from his broken nose drips onto my face, and drops of saliva splatter over my lips as he snarls, “I’m going to fuck every hole in your body. Then I’m going to watch my men do it. Then, before I kill you, I’m going to fuck you with that broken bottle.”
I want to spit in his face. I want to sink my teeth into his tongue and rip it from his mouth, but I tamp down the instinctive urge to fight back with anger. I suppress the impulse to go blindly into the battle. I have to fight with my brain, not my body, like Gergo taught me.
The thought of my friend calms me, and the knowledge that Yan is on the other side of that door gives me strength.
When Dimitrov’s cock falls on my thigh, I push off the wig and grip one of the hairpins keeping the net in place. Slipping the curved end around my middle finger, I secure the sharp points between my fingers and make a fist while Dimitrov is shoving up my dress, groping for my underwear. When the bastard grins at me, I stab him in the eye.
His scream is chilling. He tries to jerk away, but I grab his hair in my free hand and hold his face to me. He swats wildly, mostly hitting air. I don’t stop. I stab him in the eye and cheek, everywhere my hand happens to fall. He throws back his head and yowls, stilling a fraction of a second in his strain to escape the assault. It’s enough to take aim. Putting all my force into it, I jab the long, sharp wire of the hairpin deep into his ear.
The piercing cry of a man pushed beyond the threshold of pain rips through the room. It’s not a scream but a thin wail, a sound that goes hand in hand with torture. Nothing hurts like a ruptured eardrum. Nothing makes a person go crazier than a needle in the inner ear.
I pull out my weapon. He lets go of me to slam a palm over his ear. A rivulet of blood oozes through his fingers. It’s the longer pause I need to locate the jugular vein in his neck. The prick from the pin in a vein is nothing compared to the pain in an eye or ear, but his good eye grows large while the bleeding one bulges as the hairpin sinks into his neck. Like all animals, he knows instinctively when the end has arrived. Defeat is written on his face, but like all overconfident men, he battles to believe it. He stares at me in shock. The fight has gone out of him completely. He doesn’t approach death gracefully.
He greets it screaming and crying.
Shoving a slobbering Dimitrov onto his side, I crawl out from underneath his semi-naked body. He’ll bleed out. With Dimitrov eliminated, the mousy sociopath is now my biggest immediate threat. I aim for the door, ready to jump like a tiger, but the man is gone.
Pop! Pop!
I have to get to Yan. I have to help him and Ilya.
My ribs protest when I move. Dimitrov must’ve cracked one or two with his punches. Ignoring the pain, I hobble away from the bed, but stop as something hard presses against my temple and the unmistakable click of a safety being cocked sounds in my ear.