With This Ring

“Dismantle the surveillance on me and don’t follow me,” I said harshly.

“What?” he muttered.

“You heard me. You and Viktor get to Freya’s apartment immediately and take her to a safe house.” Then I got into the driver’s seat, and drove away. The Holden Calias Sedan followed me from a safe distance.

I headed straight to my apartment complex and pulled into my parking spot. There was a gun in the car. I got it ready and looked at the ring I had been given on my eighteenth birthday. There was not a day it hadn’t been on my little finger since then. Then I got out of the car and waited for them to make their move. Soon enough, I would know exactly whom had been pursuing me for the last few months.

There were three of them. They had their guns pointed at me. They had masks covering their faces, but that was probably because of the cameras.

“Lose your gun!” One of them roared, and I instantly stilled, but I knew that their goal was not to just kill me. They wanted to take me with them.

I moved my hand to the back of my pants.

“There are three guns pointed at your head and heart right now,” one of the men warned. “If you even blink the wrong way, you will be dead. Throw the gun away, over there!”

I took a deep breath and did as I was asked.

“Tie him,” one of them ordered, and another moved forward with a plastic tie in his hand.

“Don’t even think of trying anything funny. Your men are racing to your girl, aren’t they? But they will be too late if we get any trouble from you.”

The man bent forward, secured the tie around my wrists. I saw his yellow teeth through the face cover just before he raised his fist. He was a gigantic man, just about a head shorter than me but disturbingly thicker, so I wasn’t surprised at the power that the punch packed.

The impact of his fist driving into my jaw made me stagger away. As I tried to recover from the agonizing blow, I heard his roar. I looked up, and saw the knife slicing through the air.

Chapter Seventy-Four

Maxim

Excruciating pain woke me up. It felt like my shoulder was on fire. I tried to touch the wound, but I couldn’t move my hands. I realized I was still tied up.

Through the haze of pain, I blinked and looked around. I had been tied to a chair in a room that stank of rust, oil, and a foul stench of death. I turned to the throbbing wound and found darkened blood. My body felt weak, incredibly so, and sweat beaded my skin all over. I had to get out of here.

Through the small, barred window in front of me I could see that the sun was now high in the sky, which meant I had been held for about six or seven hours. In that time, I had been stabbed, beaten close to death, and still not been told why. I wondered why Levan had not found me yet. Then I looked at my ring and saw why.

My ring was gone. I also noted my watch was gone, which hopefully meant they didn’t realize the significance of the ring. I looked desperately around the room for it. It didn’t have to be on me but it had to be at this location otherwise they would never be able to use the tracker inside of it to find me. For the first time since I had been taken, I panicked.

“Where’s my ring and watch?” I demanded to the camera watching. My voice was gruff from the torture.

I heard voices and footsteps approaching. The door was banged open and in walked the three men, who had long discarded their masks. They didn’t care if I could see their faces any more because I wouldn’t be walking out of here alive.

Otherwise I would come for them.

Nevertheless, I committed them all to memory. Life had a funny way of throwing you a line when you least expected it.

None of them however, I was certain, was the boss.

The bald one with the beaky face laughed aloud. “He’s awake!” He raised his hand in the air for a salute and stomped his feet on the dirt blackened floor in a parody of respect. “The almighty Ivanov.”

“Almighty my ass,” the skinny one, who was almost certainly Albanian, piped up.

“If by some sick luck he gets out of here alive, I hope you understand that you’ll be running from him for the rest of your lives,” the only Russian among the trio said. I could feel the fear in his voice even though he tried to hide it.

“Well he’s not getting out—”

The door was pulled open suddenly, and all three men quickly arranged themselves. Whoever had come into the room was obviously the boss. I turned to finally see who it was.