Page 17 of Kept By the Bratva

The soldier lifted his hand to slap her back. Others had deferred to using force too. It was implied that we’d face struggles here.

Before he could release his anger over her fighting back, I caught his wrist and held on tight.

I knew that voice. I fantasized about hearing it again.

She lifted her face, glaring at me with scorching rage.

It was her.

Amy.

8

AMY

The man held a gun to my head, daring me with his evil glare to open my mouth. Earlier, he’d threatened to cut my tongue out, and that scared me. Having the end of his gun barrel jabbing at my temple terrified me more.

Gunfire erupted outside the room. So much violence. It sounded like a war out there. Shouts and screams. Orders and threats volleyed back and forth. Voices were muffled, but I knew there were many of them.

Help?I shook from the fear of having a bullet in my head, but I clung to the hope that all that noise out there meant someone was here to rescue us. That there was a god, and there was some good in the world. Anything. I’d be gullible and believe or pray to anything and anyone if it were true.

If all that commotion and chaos wasn’t happening because of someone bursting in here to save me and these other women, I didn’t want to consider what other trouble was coming our way. If all that fighting wasn’t a case of the thugs battling to keep us captive, then what else could it be?

Time didn’t stand still now. It dragged out, stretching the fear and agony of wondering what was going to happen. These two men were warning us to keep quiet. Our room must not be obvious to find, and the pair of thugs wanted to keep our presence a secret. Seconds dripped into long, tense minutes.

I stood as still as I could, blinking and breathing through my nose while blood leaked down my calf. If I weren’t tied to the wall, among the six of us in here, we could team up and try to get those guns from these men locked in here with us.

The tallest one with blood on the insides of her thighs likely wouldn’t risk it. The guy singled her out to silence. His gun was rammed into her mouth. He’d shoved it there when he told her to shut the fuck up.

Her eyes leaked tears as she cinched them tightly shut, her cheeks no doubt aching around the forceful thrust of his firearm in her mouth.

The child was the one who gave in. She caved just when the gunfire died down. They had to all be dead out there. Voices sounded here and there. Footsteps too, as people marched quickly on stairs somewhere in this building.

Just as I thought things were settling, the young girl in the room buckled under the suspense and fear. She cried out. The sound of her sobs pierced my heart, but I soon had another pain to suffer.

The man pushing his gun at my head reacted. He glowered at me and backhanded me with a warning to be quiet as he ran to the girl and covered her mouth with his hand.

Keeping his gun in the one woman’s mouth, the other thug glared at us and mouthed orders to keep quiet.

It was too late. Someone out there heard the girl.

Gunshots rang out at the door, and I flinched at the metallic sounds. All of us crept toward the wall, unable to flee as the two thugs approached the door with their guns ready.

They were no match for the intruders. Tall, muscled men filed it and shot them both dead, right between the eyes. So many of them filed in, all dressed similarly in all black. Their eyes held the coldness of killers, and as they began to sever the ropes that held us to the wall, their faces bore no expression of compassion.

I couldn’t keep up with the blur of actions. From teetering at the brink of death, a trigger pull away from the end of my life, to… freedom? These newcomers wanted to get us out of here, but I realized they were not here as heroes. They didn’t release us or offer blankets or first aid. No paramedics or crime scene techs came in after them. This was no grand rescue attempt from law enforcement.

I was being whisked from one bad situation to a worse one.

These men had no reservations about killing. Their guns were an extension of them, at the ready and with the willingness to be used.

A taller man with short blond hair and the bluest, iciest eyes I’d ever seen strode toward the girl. I couldn’t look away. In a strange, prickling sense of déjà vu, I watched him. I knew him, those sloping, muscular bulges of his shoulders leading to his back. Those firm thighs that stretched the fabric of his pants as he crouched to cut the girl’s rope free.

Even the fierce scowl that marred his face with a show of complete anger.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my?—

I shook my head, rocked by the realization that I knew this man. Flashbacks of him removing his pants and lowering them to bare his thick legs like trunks of muscles. Then more, the memory of clawing at his broad back as he filled me. Even worse… I sucked in a deep breath, stuck on the visual of him narrowing his eyes with that gritty, feral expression of anger.