Page 25 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

I flinch and tuck myself behind the Russian. He’s the lesser of two evils at the moment and I’m not stupid. Stick with the guy not actively trying to kill you. Yet. Maybe he wants me all to himself when he does the deed? I don’t know. But I have to stay alive long enough to find out.

The man doubles over and a knee comes up and meets his face. The sound will live in my memory forever, the definitive crunch of a nose restructuring itself against a kneecap.

My heart holds for a beat.

He hits the wall. Slides down it. Stays down.

Another douche bag comes from the kitchen and this one levels a gun in my direction.

Ohmygodwhatthehellisgoingon is all my brain is screaming when I open my mouth to scream a warning. But Volkov is already turning and closing the distance as if instinct told him there was danger incoming.

His hand catches the gun and his fingers do something fast and vicious that makes the man's grip pop open like a hinge. The gun drops and a swift kick sends it spinning across the kitchen tile.

What comes next isn't a fight. It's swift justice.

Two hits. Three. A fist to the jaw, to the ribs, and another to the temple.

I wince at the burst of shock and pain on the other guy’s face. I’m pretty sure he thought he was coming here to off a weakling woman who had no chance of surviving.

Frankly, I was thinking the same thing.

But my surprise bodyguard is proving us both wrong.

Volkov connects a series of more punches and each one sounds like a butcher beating a pound of flesh.

I duck when a thick fist gets past Volkov, nearly punching me in the face.

Missing his target, the douche swings again and this time he catches Nikolai's father across the jaw.

His head turns by maybe a quarter of an inch. He blinks once. “I’ll give that one to you.” Volkov's voice does not match the murderous expression taking over his face.

In a move faster than I can visually follow, he drives his fist into the douche's sternum so hard I hear the air leave his lungs.

He finishes it with a strike to the throat so exact the man stops breathing. He drops to his knees gasping for air, both hands at his own neck with his eyes blown wide.

Just when I think it’s over, my tiny living room fills with the more dudes jacked up on steroids. I slowly turn on my bare heel and yeah, they have very bad intentions. Instead of looking for me though, it seems their ire is aimed at my bodyguard.

“This is not good,” I murmur sideways to Volkov and he has the audacity to grunt and smile.

“Maybe for you, but I haven’t had this much fun on a Friday for a long time.”

And with that chaos erupts in the middle of my living room. If it isn’t nailed down, it’s in someone’s hands being used as a weapon.

My three-dollar thrifted coffee table. A vase given to me by my mother. Books, a lamp and…

I thrust my hands out and wave them like a madwoman. “Not my Persephone statue, you brute!” I roar at my ex’s father. He puts the porcelain piece down and grabs a marble carved pomegranate instead.

The man crumbles, the fruit does not.

I wince and barely keep my eyes open to witness the would-be killer eat hardwood flooring.

Three men dressed in all black and the size of tanks on human legs form a semi-circle around us.

“Stay behind me at all times.”

I turn wide eyes to the dude standing behind Volkov.

“Yeah, sure. About that. You know they are on this side of you too, right?”