Chapter 4 - Someone Outside the Back DoorJerry grabbed the cast-iron skillet before any of the gunmen reached the kitchen.
That would have been funny any other night.
It was not funny when the back window exploded inward and rain sprayed across the floor.
One of Mikhail’s men shoved me behind the counter. Another swept Misha into his arms and moved him behind the refrigerator wall.
“Stay down,” Mikhail ordered.
I hated orders.
I stayed down anyway.
A dark shape moved beyond the broken window.
Then came the sound of something metallic hitting the tile.
Small.
Round.
Rolling.
One guard shouted in Russian.
Mikhail kicked it under the sink and threw himself over Misha.
Nothing exploded.
Instead, white smoke hissed out, filling the kitchen with a chemical bite.
“Smoke,” Jerry coughed. “It’s smoke!”
The back door slammed open.
Two masked men rushed in.
The first never made it past the flour sacks. One of Mikhail’s guards hit him so hard he collapsed like his bones had forgotten their purpose.
The second grabbed me.
Cold gloves closed around my throat and arm.
I screamed, but the smoke swallowed it.
A knife flashed near my cheek.
“Move and she dies!” the masked man yelled.
Everything stopped.
Even Mikhail.
The man dragged me backward toward the alley. My heels slipped on wet tile. My lungs burned.
I saw Misha’s face from behind the guard holding him.
Pale.
Horrified.
And somehow, that broke me more than the knife.
I had survived creditors, hunger, a cheating ex-husband, and two winters without proper heat above the diner. I had not survived all that to become a hostage in my own kitchen.
I slammed my elbow backward.
The man cursed.
The knife sliced across my shoulder instead of my throat.
Pain exploded hot and immediate.
Mikhail moved.
I did not see the whole motion. One second the man held me. The next, Mikhail had his wrist twisted behind him at an impossible angle, his face slammed onto the counter, the knife skidding under the stove.
The masked man groaned.
Mikhail leaned close to his ear.
“You came for my son and touched the woman who fed him.”
His voice was calm.
I wished it had not been.
The man spat blood. “Your family sent us.”
Mikhail froze.
The guard holding Misha cursed softly.
“My family?” Mikhail asked.
The masked man laughed, bloody and broken. “Blood eats blood, Volkov.”
Then he bit down on something.
His body convulsed once.
Twice.
Then went still.
I stared, unable to move.
Jerry whispered, “Jesus.”
Mikhail ripped the mask away.
He did not recognize the face.
But the silver wolf button pinned inside the man’s collar matched the one from my floor.
Mikhail looked at it.
Then at Misha.
Then at me, bleeding in the wreckage of my kitchen.
May you like
“My house has been compromised,” he said.
“And now so has yours.”
