isPc
isPad
isPhone
Ruthless Vow (Vegas Vicious #2) 17. Nicole 63%
Library Sign in

17. Nicole

17

Nicole

When we come to a stop, I wait, tense, listening for any sounds. I’ve already searched the back of the limo. There’s nothing here I can use as a makeshift weapon. Even the water bottles have been removed. I don’t have a plan to get myself out of this. Not a good one. I exist now on sheer adrenaline and pure survival instinct.

And rage. A whole boatload of rage.

The back door opens with a creak.

“Let’s go,” Danila instructs.

I emerge slowly from the limo and peer around at my surroundings. It’s almost fully dark. Only a thin line of red, orange, and purple at the horizon shows the spot where the sun went down. We’re in the desert, at the side of a two-lane road. Overhead, the moon is almost full, a round silver disk in the star-flung navy sky.

Danila gestures with the gun he’s holding. “Walk.”

I consider making some sort of a deal, but what do I have to offer? Bianca’s rich, I don’t know how rich, while I’m nothing but a liability with a few thousand dollars in her savings account.

Besides, I have a strong suspicion that Danila has ties to the Chicago syndicate. Which means he’s unlikely to turn against her even if I had something of value to offer.

It infuriates me that I can’t figure a way out of this. And that I got in the back of that limo of my own free will, not once but twice. The first time outside the storage facility. The second time, just now in front of my aunt’s house. I let myself be lured into the spiderweb, a hapless fly about to be devoured.

Maybe a part of my aunt feels bad about giving this order. I doubt it. Bianca would consider getting rid of me a smart business decision.

I keep walking, anxiously eyeing my surroundings, searching for a way out. Rock formations and dunes dot the landscape. Potential hiding places.

The moon is both my friend and my enemy, offering enough illumination that I can study my surrounding… and enough illumination that Danila will be able to see me if I run.

I can hear Danila breathing behind me. He’s out of breath. I’m not. I consider sprinting into the desert, but while I might outrun Danila, I can’t outrun a bullet.

And then what? What happens to Sofia?

I miss my sister desperately. The thought of never seeing her again is more than I can bear.

“I’m sorry, Sofe,” I whisper.

“What did you say?” Danila asks. His head is cocked as I glance at him, my gaze dropping to the gun.

To Danila, and to my aunt, I’m just a dying cat being euthanized as humanely as possible.

But Leo saw me as a wolf.

Wolves aim for the throat or the soft underbelly.

Fuck euthanasia.

“I said I’m scared,” I say as I turn to face him, making my voice soft, adding a tremble to my chin for good measure. I hunch into myself, making myself appear small and scared and weak.

“You don’t have to be scared,” he replies, lowering the gun. “It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

“You promise?”

Danila nods. “I—”

I lunge at him, fingernails out and aimed at his face. His skin tears beneath my nails, his blood warm against my fingertips. I throw all of my body weight onto him, throwing him off balance, taking him to the ground hard.

We land in a tangle of limbs with me atop him on my knees. He tries to aim, but I ram my knee down on his forearm and repeatedly slam my fist against the place where his wrist meets his palm, trying to get him to release his hold on the gun.

Finally, the gun skitters out of his grip and spins out of reach.

With a snarl, he cuffs me on the side of the head. The world spins, but my pulse is racing, slamming adrenaline through my veins to every muscle in my body. I mesh my fingers together and bring my joined hands down on his temple. He roars and punches me in the chest.

My breath is gone. My eyes tear from the pain.

I weave to the side, my hand hitting something hard. A rock.

I grab it and surge up on my knees as I slam the rock down. He knocks my arm aside and I hit his shoulder instead of his face. Doesn’t matter. I just need to keep hitting him. I smash the rock against his forearm as he bucks and pushes me off.

I bound to my feet and run for the gun. He’s a breath behind.

No time. There’s no time.

I won’t be able to grab it in time, so instead, I kick it as hard as I can, sending it spinning away again.

If I can’t have it, neither will he.

“Stupid bitch,” Danila yells as he lunges for me and grabs my ankle, sending me sprawling. He plows his fist into my face and I turn away just in time, his fist grazing my cheek instead of getting me full on. “I was going to be gentle. But now, not so much.”

“Me neither,” I say, and drive my knee into his balls with every ounce of strength I still have in reserve.

He cries out and collapses to the ground, right between me and the gun.

I surge to my feet and make a split-second decision to forfeit the weapon and instead turn and run. There are boulders in the near distance and a larger rock formation just beyond that. If I can get there, I can hide. But out here in the open, even with the darkness as a shield, I don’t have a chance.

I’m fast. Faster than I was in high school, at any meet, any race. Tonight, I’m running for my life and for my sister’s life. I run legs pumping, terror driving me.

I dart behind a group of boulders and risk a glance behind me.

Danila is about fifty feet back, and he has the gun.

Fuck. Fuck!

Heart pounding, I spin and slam into something that stops me in my tracks.

Something tall and broad and made of hard, unyielding lines. And suddenly, I’m having a déjà vu to the cemetery when I was running away from Luca.

I lift my head and meet Leo Russo’s fierce gaze.

“Leo?” I manage. “How are you here?”

His jaw tenses as he touches my cheek. “Who the fuck hurt you?”

Chapter List
Display Options
Background
Size
A-