Barefoot With a Bodyguard (36 page)

And so would her baby.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the concrete floor, but the exchange of conversation was too low to hear. The only light went off almost immediately, making everything so, so dark. Words and snippets floated to her, mostly Vlitnik’s low voice and occasionally Cole’s despicable voice.

Alec Petrov.

Pussy.

Bait.

Reel that fucker in for good.

The last few words grew louder, closer, and were punctuated by footsteps.

“We meet again, Miss Bickler.”

She blinked up at Dmitri Vlitnik’s obese figure looming over her.

“Take the tape off. No one can hear her.”

Cole leaned down, avoiding her gaze, and ripped the tape off her mouth so hard he had to have taken skin with it. She bit back a cry, not wanting either one of them to see how weak and scared she was. So weak and scared. And pregnant.

And so not the street-smart runaway she liked to imagine herself as being.

“Chair!” Vlitnik barked to Cole, who ran to do his bidding like a pathetic lackey.

God, she hoped her baby didn’t take after him.

Cole hustled back with a folding chair, placing it behind Dmitri and stepping back as though allowing the king to sit.

“Not for me, you dumbass. For her. Put her on the chair and untie her hands and feet.”

Cole looked suitably shamed, tearing at the tape and pushing her into the seat, untying her as he’d been told.

“Don’t hurt her,” Vlitnik said, the words and tone surprising her, and giving her hope. “Or
your
baby.”

Cole choked. “We don’t know it’s—”

Vlitnik pushed him so hard, he almost fell over. “Fuck you, Daddy. We know whose it is.” He speared Cole with a harsher look. “Go watch the door.” As Cole walked away, Vlitnik turned to Robyn. “You missed our appointment.”

All she could manage was a nod.

“And I had to send this nitwit all the way down the East Coast to find out what I need to know.” He leaned closer. “Where the hell is Alec Petrov?”

Her knowledge, that information, was her only bargaining chip. She couldn’t waste it. “I…I don’t know for sure.” She rubbed her bruised and chafed wrists, a lump of fear growing in her throat. Why did he have Cole untie her? What was Vlitnik going to do to her now?

He was strong, and ruthless.

So the only decent weapon she had was information, and she needed to use it wisely.

Cole disappeared, and a few seconds later, the garage door opened. The sound echoed over the metal walls, and there was enough light to see that, oh, God, Vlitnik had a gun in his hand.

Then he came very close to Robyn, leaning all the way over her, sour breath on her face. “Where is he?”

She looked up at him. “Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”

“Don’t be stupid, girl. I can’t do that.”

Then what was going to happen to her?

He bent over in front of her chair, holding the gun to her head. “Where is he?”

If she told him, she’d be dead, she knew that. And if she didn’t…she’d still be dead. Either way, she was—

The gun clicked, and she sucked in a breath and nearly fainted.

“Oh, that one was empty.” He chuckled softly. “Let’s try the next one. You know this game, right, little girl? It’s named after my country.”

Russian roulette.

“There’s one bullet. Six chambers. Well, five now. Where is he?”

Okay, she should tell him. But then he’d kill her anyway, right? But if there was any chance, then—

Click
.

Blood whirred through her brain, pounding and screaming. If she died, the baby died. What was the best thing for her child?

“Where is he?”

“He’s…” She stole a glance at the gun. “He’s…” He pressed the trigger harder. One in four chances that she’d be dead on her next breath. “He’s…”

Click
.

“I’m right here. Put the gun down and let her go, Vlitnik. You have no reason to hurt her.”

Blood rushed so hard from Robyn’s head, she fell over, out before she hit the floor.

*

Alec lunged forward to try to grab the fallen girl, but Vlitnik was closer, instantly on her, the gun pointed directly at her belly. “I knew you couldn’t resist the bait.”

Is that why it had been so easy to take down the kid? Vlitnik wanted Alec in here and put weak sauce on guard. Alec had left Cole flat out on the driveway, but he wouldn’t stay out for very long.

And neither did Robyn, who moaned, waking up.

“Let her go,” Alec repeated. “You don’t need her anymore.”

She came to quickly, giving a soft whimper.

“Oh, no. We’re going to have some fun with her, Alec.” Vlitnik gave her a kick in the side. “Just like old times.”

Alec breathed slowly, memories threatening to swamp him, but this time he had training. He knew how to be still and forget. He knew how to ready his body for an attack. He knew how to fight to kill.

And he would kill or be killed tonight.

Vlitnik lowered his girth so all two-fifty of him was smashing Robyn’s belly, his gun at her head. She cried out, and Alec vaulted to push him off and—

Click
.

The hammer fell on another empty chamber. And Robyn shrieked louder.

“What do you want from me?” Alec demanded, not willing to take the fifty-fifty risk that was left in this sick game.

Vlitnik let out a long, slow sigh, rich with some meaning only he understood. “I want to know what you’re made of,
Aleksandr
.”

“I think you know that already, or I would have been working for you for the last ten years.”

He couldn’t move fast or take any chances. The next shot could end Robyn’s life, and she knew it by the way she was sobbing. If it was empty, Vlitnik would just fire again and that chamber
wouldn’t
be empty. So he had to talk this through, but he had to get that fat bastard off the poor pregnant girl.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not armed, I’m not here to fight. I’m here for you. What do you want?”

“I told you.” Blessedly, the position was uncomfortable enough for him that he pushed up, but didn’t move the gun away from Robyn’s tear-stained face. “What are you made of?”

“I’m not a killer, no matter how hard you try to turn me into one.”

He moved the gun down, pointing it at Robyn’s chest now. “Some people are born that way. I guess I thought you would be, too.”

As much as Alec didn’t care about the asshole’s chatter, something…wasn’t right about that last sentence.

“You thought I would be…what?”

“More like me,” he said. A slow, ugly tremble of a smile pulled at his face. “But you’re a carbon copy of Daria.”

Daria. His mother.
What was he saying
? The possibility rocked him, nearly stealing his breath with the shock, just as footsteps scuffed behind Vlitnik.

“He’s alone,” Cole said. “I made sure.”

“Well done, Cole,” Vlitnik said calmly.

So Cole
hadn’t
put up a fight. He might not even have been knocked out. His job was to make sure Alec arrived without backup.

“And you’re just in time,” Vlitnik added. “For our science experiment.”

Cole walked past Alec without sparing him a glance.

Vlitnik stood up, more confident now that he wasn’t alone with Alec, not that Alec couldn’t take Cole down—for real—in five seconds. But by the time he did that, Vlitnik’s bullet would be in Robyn’s head.

“Cool,” Cole said, cocky with his position of power. “What’s the experiment?”

“Who has balls?”

Cole snorted and grabbed his crotch like a preteen showing off on the playground. “Steel ’nads, my man.”

“Good. Then give your girlfriend a punch in the belly.”

Cole stood stone still, his swagger fading. “But she’s…”

“Knocked up,” Vlitnik said. “You want to work for me? You want to show your teacher here what it takes to work for me? Fucking punch her, you shit bag!”

Robyn rolled up a little, looking from Vlitnik to Cole. “No, please, the baby. Your baby.”

“Have him punch me, asshole,” Alec said, moving closer to position himself to take down Cole if he so much as made a fist.

“I don’t want him to punch you. I want to see if he has what it takes to work for me.”

Cole choked indignantly. “I don’t need to beat up some defenseless chick, man. That’s sick.”

“Sick!” Vlitnik turned, wild-eyed. “You think I’m sick?”

Alec moved the second Vlitnik turned, throwing his full weight at the man, nearly toppling him, and sending the gun flying.

“Hey!” Cole jumped them, attempting to wrap his legs around Alec and get back precious control, but Alec easily threw him off.

“Go!” Alec screamed at Robyn. “Run!”

Cole moved again, fighting for good arm and hip position, desperately trying and almost getting Alec down. Alec threw a jab at his face and an elbow strike at his chest, vaguely aware that Robyn was running…in the wrong direction.

Cole glanced long enough at Robyn for Alec to hook his arm and pull it backward, a move he recalled Cole never saw coming in training. It worked, forcing Cole to writhe in pain long enough for Alec to give his attention to Vlitnik.

He was fat and weak, and Alec threw himself at the man, shoving him to the ground, threading one of his legs through Alec’s to almost break his knee, earning a yelp of misery.

Alec couldn’t see where Robyn had gone behind him, and wouldn’t think of letting up on Vlitnik, but he sensed Cole scurrying across the room.

“Gimme the gun, baby.”

Alec jerked into another move, sliding his arm under Vlitnik’s head to execute a perfect guillotine choke. Enough pressure and the bastard would die in his arms. He whimpered like the wuss he was.

Alec couldn’t turn to watch the drama behind him, but kept his gaze locked on the man he’d spent most of his life hating.

“Don’t, Cole. I’ll shoot you.”

“She won’t shoot him,” Vlitnik said to Alec through clenched teeth. “He’s the father of her baby. Same way your mother didn’t stick a butcher knife in me when she had the chance.”

The words slid through Alec like hot oil, burning with the truth. The ugly, ugly truth.

“You thought you were Sergei’s son?” Vlitnik choked the words when Alec froze. “That old bag of nothing? Your mother was smart, though. She’d do anything to protect him from the brotherhood.
Anything
.” The meaning layered into the last word was unmistakable.

Hate and fury and vengeance rocked him, making Alec push harder, cracking Vlitnik’s neck. “No way,” Alec ground out. “No fucking way.”

Vlitnik managed a sneer. “Sergei couldn’t even make a baby. You really think that impotent old man signed some oath to give you to me when he was dying? He knew you couldn’t possibly be his. And he knew I could just come and take what belonged to me anytime. And you belonged to me. You always have and you always will.”

He hated hearing his parents’ names on this beast’s lips. Hated everything he was saying. “You bastard!” He twisted Vlitnik’s thick head harder as fiery hate and venom shot through him. “You fucking bastard!”

“No, son, that’s what you are.”

Rage blinded him, the desire to kill licking like flames through every cell in his body. It would be so easy. So
easy
. So satisfying and easy.

Because being a killer was in his blood, as he now knew without a doubt.

“Just give it to me, Robyn,” Cole pleaded to the still-sobbing girl.

“Why do you work for him, Cole?” she demanded. “Why would you give him your life? For money? To be like him?”

Alec blocked out the conversation, his brain completely focused on not killing the son of a bitch. One more ounce of pressure, and this man…his
biological
father
…would be dead.

No one would ever have to know the truth.

“Robyn, just—”

They scuffled, she screamed, and the gun went off, no empty chamber this time.

Cole howled, loud and hard enough for Alec to know who’d been shot.

“Run, Robyn!” Alec hollered, and the sound of her footsteps confirmed she took the command.

“Kill me,” Vlitnik ground out, looking to the side so he could catch Alec’s eyes. “Show me what you’re made of, my son.”

He pushed a little harder, enough to hear the tendons crack, but not his neck. Breaking his neck would be so simple.

Cole’s moaning in the background faded away as Alec stared down at Vlitnik. It all made sense now. He wasn’t worthy of life, because it had been given to him by a ruthless, narcissistic beast who deserved to die.

“Come on. You can do it,” Vlitnik coaxed. “Live up to your name and brand, Aleksandr Vlitnik. Be worthy of being my son. Kill or be killed.”

Be worthy. Be worthy. Be worthy of something…better than this.