Page 67 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

Five thick fingers close around my arm.

I whip around and swing with every ounce of fire boiling through my body.

My fist connects with his jaw. My momentum carries me forward and I’m suddenly wrapped up in mountains of bare muscle.

“Not today, buster!” I roar and let my elbow connect with his ribs.

I get an umph and I’m not gonna lie. I fluve the feel of the hard impact traveling up through my forearm. It might hurt like a bitch for me, but that means I must have hurt him too.

“You’re going to hurt yourself, sunshine. Stop fighting me.”

“Yeah, so you can whack me and dump me in some shallow grave? Think again! I swing again and this time my fist catches the other side of his jaw. His head snaps to the right but I don’t get any pleasure from burying my fist in his face.

Pain flares across my knuckles hot enough to water my eyes. The grunt that leaves his mouth is worth every throbbing bone in my hand, though. I twist and kick and claw at anything I can reach with my free hand. "Get off me, you lying, murdering Russian!" Every strike carries all the pent up anger I buried over from Nikolai, the dead man behind my shop, my missed deadline. I haven’t forgotten any of my life that I was forced to leave behind.

He releases me and then tries to grab me again when he realizes I’m stumbling forward. Neither of us have any luck stopping me from landing on my knees.

Staying down, I whirl on him. He tries to help me up but I bat his hands away and stand on my own. The second I’m on my feet, I jab a finger into perfectly taut pecs. I take a deep breath and try to force my fingers to stop shaking, but it’s no use.

My chest grows tight. "What did you do, Volkov?" Tears stream down my face and mix with the sweat from the run. My voice cracks through the morning air. "Mind sharing how long I have to live before the cleaners arrive?" Finally rooted in reality and putting my heart back in my chest instead of on my sleeve, I glare at the man who is calmly waiting for me…

“What? What are you waiting for? Oh, you played me well, Russian.” I wind my arms around my middle and force my stomach to stop rebelling against me. “Was this a game you and your son cooked up?” I bite out.

He absorbs my words in silence and catches my wrist in his hand. Then the other one. His grip is firm, not hard. He shuffles his hold on me to one hand while he uses the other and strokes the pad of his thumb over the edge of my jaw. He pulls back blood on the edge of his thumb and then proceeds to lick it off.

“This has gone on long enough. You are going to hurt yourself. Twenty more feet that way and there is a sudden drop off you’d never see before you are flying off the edge.”

I form a mock face of surprise. “Oh, sorry. I wouldn’t want that to happen and steal the pleasure of offing me from you and whatever sicko you have coming.” It’s fair to say I’m feeling a little bitter and I’m not trying to hide it. Why should I?

I thrash and buck against his hold on me, but his grip doesn’t loosen.

"Cora. Settle down."

I tip my head back and glare up at him. "Don't." I twist against his grip. My knee comes up and he shifts, takes it on his thigh instead of where I aimed. "Don't say my name like you care about me while you're on the phone talking about getting rid of problems." I shake my head to suggest air quotes since my hands are currently being held hostage.

"Listen to me."

“Don’t you go trying to sound all cool, calm and collected.” I laser hate at the man and wish my eyes could shoot daggers. "I gave you everything." My voice shatters on the word and the debris cuts both of us. "I gave you everything and you're on the phone talking about disposal like I’m trash." The tears return and burn a path down both of my cheeks. “I guess happily ever after isn’t real after all. And here I was thinking I could not be any happier than I was last night and this morning waking up in your arms. Joke is on me, huh?”

Wide blue eyes stare at me. A few pine needles stick out of his hair. There’s a scratch across his cheek where my nail caught him. Dirt smeared on his jaw from my fist. Those ice-blue eyes hold steady, unbothered by the blows, undisturbed by the blood on his lip where my ring caught skin.

Then he laughs.

The mother fucker actually laughs! I’m about to take a one way trip to heaven or hell and this Russian prick wants to laugh?

Rowan Volkov laughs so hard his shoulders shake and his head drops forward and the sound fills the forest canopy. Birds scatter from the branches above us. Lines I have never seen before crinkle at the corners of his eyes. His mouth stretches wide and his whole face restructures around the joy of it.

He releases me and I stand there with tears on my face watching the Bratva man lose his composure.

"Mulch," he says.

When he looks at me like that, like I hang the freaking sun in the sky every morning, I don’t know if I want to punch him in the kisser or…kiss him.

My brain stutters.

Mulch. I cross my arms over my chest and huff out my frustration. The word doesn't compute. I run it through my brain twice and it still doesn't compute. "What?"

I swallow deeply as he steps toward me. The lump of embarrassment stuck in my throat is big enough to do me in and I hope it’s a quick death.