Page 4 of His Savage Bride
— ROBERT MONROE
Constance
An hour earlier…
“Melissa!”I scream as the larger of the two men drags me toward the back of the restaurant. I can feel the barrel of his gun digging into the small of my back as he jerks my hair and twists my head away from my best friend lying on the floor, her face a bloody ruin.
“Shut the fuck up,” he growls as he withdraws the gun and points it at the young man behind the register. “And you, get the fuck out of my way,” he commands, shoving me through the kitchen doors.
“Someone call the police!” I screech as he hustles me past the two stunned cooks and toward the back door. He uses my body like a battering ram to shove the door open, then he and his partner grab me by my arms and carry me down the alley towards a green SUV parked at the curb of the next street.
They throw me into the back seat so hard I slam into the far door. I lunge for the handle, but before I can fumble the lock open, a thick hand tangles in my hair and jerks me backward.
“Give me a zip tie,” the man with his hand in my hair barks as his partner gets in the driver’s seat and pulls into the flow of traffic. With a grunt, the driver digs around in the center console and then throws a plastic tie back at us, which is quickly wrapped and cinched around my wrists. “We’ve got the child locks on for you. Still, try for the door again and I’ll break your face like that bitch in the pizza parlor,” he adds, jerking my head back so I have to meet his gaze. “You understand me, Constance?”
I glare at him without replying, until he jerks my hair hard enough to arch me backwards over the seat and slams the butt of his gun into my sternum, just below my breasts. My breath whooshes out of me and I gag so hard I nearly vomit again as he throws me forward, slamming my face into the driver’s headrest.
Between the pain from the barely healed gunshot wound in my arm, the fresh cut from Cindy, and my way too recent concussion, I’m in fucking agony.
“You understand me now, bitch? Throw up on me again and I’ll make you wish you were dead.” I can feel his hot breath as he spits the words at me.
“If you know my name,” I gasp, “then you know what I’ve done. You’re a dead man for this, either by my hand or Maximo’s.” Even through my blurred vision and wheezing breaths, I see the driver shift uncomfortably in the rear-view mirror.
“Take it down a notch,” the driver mumbles. “Irina wants her in one piece in case we need her for negotiations.”
Irina. I’ve definitely heard that name before.
“You know as well as I do there aren’t going to be any negotiations,” the man in the backseat with me replies. “This is the bitch that capped Kirill. Irina is going to carve her eyes out and feed them to her just so she can show Maximo Luciani who he’s messing with.”
Oh right. Irina is Kirill’s mother.
“Did she tell you that?” the driver retorts more forcefully. “No? Then don’t presume to know her plans, and don’t antagonize this chick any more than necessary to keep her under control. This is a big job for us. We’re dealing with big-time players. Don’t fuck it up!”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” the man beside me mutters as he holsters his gun under his arm. “You just remember your manners, keep your mouth shut, and your hands away from the door,” he tells me as he shoves the back of my head again.
I’m bent over at the waist, still trying to catch my breath. My hair is falling all around my face, and I hope it’s hiding my hands as I fumble at my boot, pulling out the switchblade that I’d deliberately tucked into my boot before leaving the estate. It’s a front-loaded model, with only five inches of hilt showing while it’s closed. I manage to palm it between my zip-tied hands and keep it hidden between my knees as we weave through traffic.
“Shit. We need gas. I’m grabbing coffee before we head back down to–” the driver begins.
“Shut up,” the man beside me snaps. “She doesn’t need to know where we’re going. Just hit the next station you see. Get me a Butterfinger while you’re in there. You want anything?” he adds with a chuckle as he slaps me on the back of the head.
“I want you to let me go,” I whine in the most terrified voice I can fake. I even add a little sob, still bent over at the waist andcringing away from him, making sure I’m hiding my knife. The pain in my voice is a hundred percent real. Still, I play it up. I’m only going to get one shot at this, and I know I have to escape before they can turn me over to Irina Volkov.
“Yeah, well, that ain’t gonna happen. Quit sniveling and get a fucking grip,” he gripes at me as he smacks the back of my head again. I cringe down as if I’m trying to sink into the floorboards, and he grunts as though pleased with himself.
I feel the SUV slow and hear the click of the turn signal as the driver finds a service station and pulls up beside a gas pump. A moment later he gets out from behind the wheel and walks around to the passenger side, where I hear him unscrewing the gas cap.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man beside me glance down at me, grunt, then turn away to roll the window down a few inches. “While you’re in there, grab me a bottle of Coke, too,” he calls out to his accomplice at the pump.
I plant my feet under me, coiled and ready to strike the second he starts speaking. I lunge across the seat, press the knife to his neck, and thumb the trigger. The blade explodes free and rips through the skin just below his ear. His body jerks so violently I almost lose my grip. He thrashes beneath me, trying to get his hands up, but I rip the knife forward and open his throat.
Hot blood explodes into my face as his breath whooshes out of the gaping hole I’ve created. His face pales and his eyes bulge as his hands flutter feebly at me. All of the strength rushes out of him as his lifeblood pours out over his chest and soaks both of us.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” the driver screeches from just outside the window. He reaches behind his back for a weapon as I dig under the dead man’s coat and rip his gun from its holster. I have trouble aiming with my hands bound, but I manage tofire a shot that blows out the rest of the window, rips through the driver’s shoulder, and shatters the glass display on the gas pump. “Fuck!” he screams again as he staggers backwards and trips over the hose connecting the pump to the SUV.
I lean out the shattered window and fire down at him where he’s fallen as voices erupt all around us. The driver tries to skitter away like a crab, but at this range he’s impossible to miss. I squeeze half a dozen shots into him before he goes still, then sink back into the blood-soaked seat, gasping and trembling as adrenaline tears through me.
“I told you that you were a dead man,” I mumble as I set the gun down on the floorboards and bend over, willing my heaving stomach to relax. The stench in the back of the SUV is unimaginable as the corpse beside me lets out one last, long wheeze. I struggle my way into the front seat, unlock the doors, then climb out onto the pavement. A breeze chills the blood soaking my face and clothes as I lift the neck of my sweater with my bound hands to wipe away some of the gore.
