Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 122242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Ilya releases me, lumbering to his feet with a curse when he sees her. "Help her," he orders me, fishing in his apron for his phone while he scans the building with his eyes narrowed. "I'll call for help."
I hop up a second behind him and grab the closest thing I can find—a bar rag partially soaked in alcohol—and hurry toward the girl on trembling legs. She collapses to her knees at the edge of the bar, shaking and crying. She's losing a lot of blood…too much.
Rage shoots through me at the realization that she's probably not going to survive. I've never seen her around here before, and now she's going to die. All because she walked into the middle of a war she knew nothing about.
I drop to my knees beside her, doing what I can to help save her life even though I know my attempts will be futile.
God, I hate this town.
Eventually, police officers and first responders arrive in a roar of lights and sirens. People pour out through the doors of the bar, and then a new set rushes inside.
An officer spots me with the girl in my arms and hurries over to us. He takes the dying girl from me, asking questions in rapid succession. She's no longer conscious. She's barely even breathing.
I'm numb, words refusing to form in my mind, let alone on my lips. The cop doesn't wait around for answers anyway. He lifts her into his arms and runs outside with her, calling for a paramedic.
I stumble to my feet and follow in his wake, trying desperately not to see the destruction all around me. It's hard to miss it though. Especially with four bodies lying motionless in the grime. Lev Abashev and Adrian Petrov are dead. So are Abram Dronov and Dimitri Golyshev. Tomorrow was Dimitri's birthday.
Several other people, most of them not involved with the Bratva, are critically injured. Blood and alcohol pool in the floor around them. Tables are smashed and windows shattered.
A chill works its way through me, freezing me from the inside out as I walk on wooden legs outside into the late October air. I stumble aimlessly around, trying to avoid the chaos.
"Hey!" A cop latches onto my arm, stopping me in my tracks. He lifts my hand up to examine it and then swears loudly. Before I can even process what's happening, he drags me toward an ambulance and shoves me into the hands of a paramedic.
The paramedic takes one look at my palms and forces me to sit down. I'm too tired to argue with him, so I do as I'm instructed, fear churning through me hard and fast. He goes to work on my hands, talking to me the entire time, but I don't hear a word he says.
My eyes dart all around as I try to process the scene unfolding up and down the block. Cop cars and ambulances are parked all over the place. There are two dead boys in the middle of the street—two of the shooters, judging by the guns still lying beside their bodies. They're my age, maybe a little younger. A dark liquid pools around their bodies on the cracked blacktop—blood, I guess.
A cop hovering over them checks for pulses and then shakes his head and takes a step away, placing his feet carefully as if to avoid stepping on the bullet casings littering the ground.
Crime scene tape stretches from Ilya's bar to the dry cleaners next door, and then across the street to the little restaurant that's been there for longer than I've been alive. The tape continues on past that building, but I lose sight of it when a cop steps up in front of me, blocking my view.
At least I think he's a cop.
Unlike most of the others, he's not dressed in a uniform. I've been surrounded by men most of my life, but aside from Ilya, he's one of the biggest I've ever seen. His booted feet are planted on the ground, shoulder-width apart. His jeans aren't tight, but they do nothing to hide his thick calves and powerful thighs. His dark blue LAPD t-shirt stretches across his hard stomach and broad chest, hugging his muscular frame in ways that has heat sparking low in my belly.
With his arms crossed, he looks as immovable as a mountain.
He clears his throat, and I jerk my gaze upward…over the badge hanging from a chain around his neck and up to a chiseled jaw and full lips. His skin is flawless golden brown, the hint of a five o'clock shadow on his cheeks and jaw. The higher my gaze drifts, the hotter he is. His face is all sharp angles and planes. His eyes are so dark brown they're almost black. Intelligence blazes in them…and something else too. Something I'm not even sure I know how to define. It's some mix of confidence and uncompromising authority that screams cop.