Page 106 of Beautiful Forever
Keeping my eyes closed, I play possum when he fists my hair and lifts my head. “Stupid cunt. Toss her into the back of the van. And don’t fucking touch her unless you want Viktor to cut off your dick and feed it to you.”
His warning to the others gives me little reassurance. But Viktor won’t be the one turning them into eunuchs if they attempt anything in the van.
A burlap sack gets shoved over my head, and I’m dragged through the warehouse and outside.
They really should brush up on their Greek mythology because they just invited the Trojan horse into their kingdom.
And we all know how that story ends.
Forty-Five
For fuck’s sake.Whoever is driving the van needs glasses because he’s managed to hit every pothole in the road during the half hour long drive to wherever they are taking me. My hip is sore from lying in the same position on the hard, metal, corrugated cargo floor, and the side of my face is going to be bruised from constantly being bounced around.
Other than a few utterances that didn’t provide much information, the men have kept quiet for the most part, giving my mind way too much time to ponder a million what ifs. What if I’m too late? What if Aleksander is already dead? What if I never get to hear him call me songbird again, or talk to him again, or spend more quiet moments gazing up at the stars with him…or tell him that I never meant to fall in love with him, but my heart gave me no other option?
Hendrix was right. I have been afraid. And that fear may have taken another person I love away from me.
The van slows down and makes a right turn onto smoother asphalt, and the silence is broken when the guy in charge calls someone. “We’re one minute out…yeah…how’s Uri…fucking hell...no, she kicked him in the balls when he got too handsy withthe pat down…fuck you, it wasn’t my fault…no…yeah…kiss my ass, Alto.” Apparently done with the conversation, he hangs up. “Fuck.”
“What?” someone asks.
Instead of answering, he barks, “Pull around to the back of the house. She awake?”
Ow, motherfucking fuck.I don’t make a sound when I get punted in the back with the toe of a work boot.
“No.”
“Good. Stupid fucking bitch.”
The van abruptly brakes, and the back double doors open. A pair of hands grabs my ankles and slides me out, then I’m flipped around and tossed over a shoulder. I can’t see much through the tiny holes in the burlap as I’m hauled inside the house.
Clickity-clack.“There was a problem?”
No freaking way. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted not killing someone before, but hearing Serena’s high-pitched, nails-down-a-chalkboard voice has me cursing myself for not tossing her ass down the elevator shaft when I had the chance.
Now I understand why Viktor wanted me. But it wasn’t him. It washer. Kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.
Using every bit of willpower and restraint I can muster, I remain absolutely still. Finding Aleksander is my priority. Breaking every bone in her body in the most painful way will have to wait.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” the man carrying me replies.
Strands of my hair get yanked out when the burlap sack is pulled off, and I get poked in the cheek with a pointy fingernail right on the bruise where the guy punched me. Serena leans in close, and I’m accosted by her bad breath.
“Hey, burn girl. I hope you can hear me. I just want you to know that I’m going to enjoy every second of what’s about tohappen to you. Who knows? I may ask Viktor to spare Hendrix. He can bemyfuck toy.”
Don’t do it, Aoife. Stick to the plan.
But the murderous rage comes bright and hot, almost too big to contain. Serena won’t get the chance to do what Natasha Zephyros did to Hendrix. I’ll die before I let that happen.
“Were you followed?” she asks the man.
“No.”
Serena scoffs. “Then you’re as stupid as you are ugly. They’ll come for her. Throw her in with him, then have your men do a sweep of the grounds.”
Hope and happiness blot out everything else. Aleksander is here.
“I don’t take orders from you.”
