I aim the gun straight at his chest with enough room between us he can’t easily lunge for the piece of metal. If he was paying closer attention, he might have realized that I held one more bullet back in the barrel. One chance to get this right.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to let me go.”
Andrei’s body tenses like a tiger about to pounce, but he doesn’t actually move a muscle. His face is pale and haunted, his eyes dark pools of fury.
“I will let you go when you serve your purpose.”
That’s the first mention he’s ever made of releasing me after this is all said and done. But that’s not really the point. The point is, going back to Oleg will destroy me. If not physically, it will destroy what’s left of my soul.
“You don’t get it,” I say, frustration bubbling up hot and heavy. “You think a few weeks of training can transform me into some femme fatale who can coax secrets from your enemy?” I shake my head sadly. “That’s not me.”
His narrowed gaze drops to the gun in my hands before sliding back up to mine. “You fucking underestimate yourself. I just witnessed what you are capable of—an hour ago you didn’t want to look at that gun, and now look at you.” His voice is tinged with a lethal edge. He points to the bullseye that I hit several times in a row, but his eyes stay glued on me.
My arms are shaking from the weight of the metal in my grasp. Is he trying to tire me out? But he doesn’t need to. All powerful muscles and coiled-up energy, deep inside, I know he could take me down if he wanted to. It’s why I have to finish this now.
“Put the gun down.” The raw command in his voice has me nearly acting on instinct, but I block out his words and focus my attention on where to shoot to maim, not kill. Trying to think back to human biology class, I have a vague recollection of a major artery supplying blood to the legs. Probably best to aim elsewhere.
“You might need to work on your response time.” His voice is a menacing growl.
Block him out, block him out, block him out.
“Thighs and upper arms both feature important arteries—the femoral and brachial arteries. If a bullet severs either of these, the blood loss will cause death in just a few minutes. If you’re just trying to injure me, I suggest the hands or feet. Painful, but it would pose little deadly threat.”
He holds his hands up helpfully to give me a clear shot. An internal battle consumes me, stealing the air from my lungs and suffocating me. Why is this so hard?
“Fuck you.” Tears of agony run down my face, but I can’t move my hand to wipe them away.
“Get it over with, krasotka. Don’t you want your freedom?” he taunts.
“I can’t.” How pathetic do I sound? Andrei steps forward, a muscle pulses in his jaw. I raise the barrel to his chest and even though my arms shake with the weight of the gun, I stand my ground. “I want my freedom, but I don’t want to hurt you for it.”
He remains uncompromising. “No.”
He doesn’t rush, just takes one commanding step towards me, and then another, hands still out, daring me to shoot. My heart pounds in my ears, frantic energy coursing through me as my finger tightens on the trigger and I suck in a wild breath.
BANG.
A tense, unnerving silence follows the blast. Holy fuck! It was an accident, my finger just pressed a little too hard on the trigger, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to sell that to Andrei. My stomach twists at the sight of red blooming on his shoulder, but he doesn’t flinch. Frozen not from shock, but savoring the moment before he exacts his revenge on me.
“Not your best shot,” he growls. The gleam in his eyes is predatory. The gun drops from my hands, though I don’t hear it land on the soft grass. “You really, really shouldn’t have done that.”
Andrei reaches for me. On instinct, I turn and run.
Terror spikes my heart rate and makes my limbs pump ferociously. Running is delaying the inevitable, but I’m acting on pure instinct as I dash farther into the wilderness. A rock catches my foot, and I stumble forward, landing hard on my hands and knees.
Andrei closes in on me, one big hand wrapping around my arm. Throwing my other elbow back, I hit something hard, and he grunts in pain. His grip loosens enough for me to escape his grasp. Struggling to my feet, I continue my mad dash to nowhere. I don’t have a direction, other than aiming towards a more densely wooded area.
His footsteps follow at a distant pace. He’s either losing steam or losing blood, the thought of which I find unsettling. My lungs burn, but I can’t turn around. There’s no point now. I’m in too deep, and the only way out is to move forward.
When I think I’ve lost him, I scoot behind a boulder and hold my breath. Staying stock still. Listening for any signs of an angry mob boss hot on my heels. A bird squawking, the wind rustling through the leaves, a woodland critter scampering through bushes—those are the sounds that fill my ears and give me momentary peace.
A terrible, false sense of peace.
A hand reaches out and collars me around my throat, pushing my back hard against the boulder. Then his face comes into view. He looks wild; like a beast unleashed. I vaguely register the pressure of his hand against my neck, the jagged edges pressed into my back—my only focus is on the rage contorting his face, and beyond that, the look of molten heat in his golden eyes.
“You think that I’m a fair man because I haven’t hurt you so far? You think I can control myself?” He laughs cruelly. “I am not a good man, krasotka.” The pressure on my throat doesn’t let up, and it’s all I can do to suck in a shallow breath, my heart pounding in my ears. “You are going to pay for what you did, and you are going to pay with your dignity.”
Chapter19