I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
He grinned and yanked the gun from my hand before grabbing a handful of my hair and hauling me out of the car. Fire raced down my scalp as he yanked. Speaking in Russian to his men, he walked me to the nearest Range Rover and shoved me in the back, then climbed in behind me as a cacophony of honking horns and shouting cut through the air.
“Idti!” He slapped his hand on the driver’s headrest, and we shot down the ramp. I glanced back, but Hargut hadn’t moved.
Go. He said go. I thought I’d lost all my Russian after I was adopted, but some words still made sense.
The man slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight to his side as we turned back onto the freeway and headed downtown.
“Get off me.” I tried to shove him away, but he wrapped his hand around my throat and slammed me against the seat.
“Stop fighting, kukla.” His dark eyes pierced mine. “You are mine now. My perfect little doll.” He glanced to my lips. “Don’t you remember me?”
I tried to shake my head, but he closed his palm tighter around my throat even as I clawed his wrist.
“Your father and I were close. I was his apprentice. Fourteen years old.”
A spark of memory tried to surface. A blond boy who helped my father with the powder while I played with my dolls. A boy who never spoke to me. Dmitri, my father called him.
He laughed, but the cold sound was like sharp nails raking down my mind. “I say apprentice, but your father found more uses for me than simply learning the drug trade.” His eyes bored into me as his voice dropped to a hiss. “Did you know your father preferred boys? Did you know how he liked to hold them down? Hold me down?”
I tried to shake my head but got nowhere.
“Your father said that a piece of trash like me should never go near a beautiful girl like you. His little doll.” The explosive anger rolling off him made the fear inside me ferment to all-out terror. “If only he could see us now.” He kept the grip on my neck as he used his other hand to stroke my cheek. “Finally together.”
“Let me go.” The words barely carried.
“Never.” He smiled and moved closer, his warm breath against my lips. “You’re mine now. That idiot Nate never should have let you out of the house. Especially now that you’ve grown up so beautifully. Your father didn’t have any finesse. Not like I do. I’m going to ruin his precious little doll. I’ve already ruined his other toy.” He ran his hand down my neck, my chest, and cupped my breast. “But I’m going to do you slowly. You deserve a thorough job.”
I tried to wrench his wrist away, but he only gripped me harder until I cried out.
“My little kukla. I can’t wait to get you home so I can enjoy every last bit of you.”
He held out a hand and snapped his fingers. I was too afraid to look anywhere but in his eyes. Fight or flight wrestled inside me, but his grip told me I wasn’t going anywhere. And his size—at least two-hundred pounds of muscle and rage—reinforced that fact. I needed a weapon.
“What are you going to do?” The weak words poured from my lips.
He smirked, a cruel twist of his lips. “Whatever I want.” Yanking me forward, he wrapped a black hood over my head. An antiseptic scent filled my nose, and I tried not to breathe. My lungs began to burn as the men spoke in rapid Russian. They were agitated, their voices rising. All I could make out was that someone was following us.
“Fucking Hargut.” Dmitri shoved me to the side.
My lungs felt as if they would burst, and I had to take a breath. Screeching tires and shouts were the last things I heard before everything disappeared into the inky black fabric before my eyes.
Chapter Five
Nate
“Where is she?” My roar seemed to stun George at the front door, but he pointed up the stairs.
I took them two at a time until I came to her room. Opal sat next to the bed where Sabrina was sitting up but holding her head in her hands.
“She just woke up,” Opal offered as she twisted her fingers together in her lap.
“Are you all right?” I rushed to Sabrina and sat next to her.
Lifting her head, her wide eyes met mine, then trailed down the blood staining my shirtsleeves. “Whose is that?”
“Not mine.” I inspected her face—no visible injuries, thank god.
“Whose?”
“Don’t worry about that now.” I glanced to her throat where reddish finger marks marred her skin. Fury boiled and raged inside me. When I found the motherfucker who’d put his hands on her, I’d do him slow.