Page 152 of Savage Don

“I’ve killed all of your men. Send more, let’s see how that turns out for you,” I dare her.

“Those men were an act of kindness from me to you,” Sonia says, her brown eyes flickering with dark glee. “I wanted you to go out feeling like a man. And I know how much you like killing.”

“What have you done?” I demand, shattering the remote in my hand. The pieces fall to the floor as Sonia lets out an ear-piercing giggle.

“I’ve done what I needed to do in order to survive,” she says. “You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

“We’re not the same,” I sneer.

“You’ve got that right,” Sonia nods. “I’m a winner and you’re a loser.”

“You must have lost your mind,” I grumble, my gun dropping to my side. “How could you possibly win in this situation?”

Somehow, Sonia knew that she could lure me here. But how? There’s no way she would be saying these things if she knew that I was listening in to her conversation last night. If she did, then why would she have confessed her sins?

“Do you really want to know?” Sonia teases. “Do you really want it to be the last thing you hear before you die?”

“I’m not dying,” I snap. “Even if your men we’re only here to die at my hand, no one else is getting in. I have the place surrounded. When I walk out of here, it will be to my troops, not yours.”

“You won’t be walking out of here,” Sonia assures me.

Before I can respond to that, I feel a presence behind me. Whipping around with my gun drawn, I get ready to blast some Italian bastard to high hell.

But I only see Leonid standing in the doorway.

His pale Russian face is even whiter than usual.

“Uh, we have a problem,” he mumbles, his blue eyes slowly wandering over to the screen.

“What?” I ask, my hands trembling from rage… and foreboding.

Leonid looks scared.

What the hell could scare a man like him?

“He must have found the first bomb,” Sonia crackles behind me.

“More than one…” Leonid mutters.

No fucking way…

“I think you’ll find that the whole place is rigged to explode the second you try to leave,” Sonia explains. “All of the doors. All of the windows. Hell, even some of the weaker walls. Not that I’m going to give you a chance to try any of them.” Looking back over my shoulder, I can only watch as Sonia lifts up a remote of her own. Her thumb hovers over a tiny red button. “I want to see you die, Raymond. I want to witness that pretty face of yours go up in flames. You embarrassed me for the final time last night. You may have turned into a Great Don, but I’ll be the one standing on your grave. I’ll be the winner…”

“Wait!” I hear myself shout, as I whip back around towards the screen. My heart is pounding like crazy behind my chest. But it’s not because I’m afraid to die.

Francesca.

Without me, she’s on her own. And I know Sonia isn’t going to stop with my death.

“Oh, I’m not going to let you die so easily,: Sonia teases, waving the remote in front of her face. “I want you to hear what I’m going to do, first. I want to make you feel just as helpless as you’ve made me feel in the past.”

“Are you listening to this?” I hear Leonid quietly whisper behind me.

Instantly, I know he’s not talking to me. He’s turned his radio back on so that the men we have outside can listen in on this madness.

Right now, they’re our only hope.

Fuck. I wish Maksim could have been here. I’d be a lot more confident if he was leading the charge outside.