Page 82 of The Bratva’s Monster

I pull the emergency brake and jerk the wheel. The ass end of the car skids violently to one side, tires screeching as I hold through the centrifugal force.

But we’re all the way turned around and facing two cars as they come for us. Alex is reloading his gun, but his eyes are on the windshield. “Back up!”

I comply as I hear his gun magazine click, putting my arm on the seats as I look behind me. The back window has been shot out and a burst of air comes rushing in as the car speeds backward down a street lined up on either side with cars.

Alex is out the window again, shooting. I hear about five shots… then cars crashing into one another. I look back over my shoulder to see one of the cars has T-boned another.

“Fuckin assholes,” Alex says as I bring the car to a stop. That over, I’m looking around again. There’s no sign of them. No fucking sign…

A car crashes in the distance—to the west of us. I put the car into drive and head toward it.

We navigate narrow streets until we pass by one with a car that’s rammed itself into a fire hydrant. Water’s spraying everywhere as the crumpled front half of the car sits in the middle of the geyser of water.

It’s his car. I turn down the street and park, jogging toward it with a racing heart.

The rush of water from the hydrant rains down on me as I get to the side of the car. The doors are open, the airbag’s been deployed, but there’s no one inside.

I hear Alex’s footsteps behind me. “They’re not far,” he says. “I’ve got a virtual army on the way. We’ll find him.”

I’m just barely hearing him. I’ve started walking along the sidewalk, my eyes trained to the ground and the building walls, looking for signs of injury, trails or smears of blood, teeth or body parts. Something that tells me which way they went.

“Rikki. Hey, you hearing me?”

I don’t answer. I can’t. I have to find them. If that piece of shit hurts her⁠—

That’s when I spot them, at least twenty or thirty yards away. Josef has her by the arm as he’s pulling her into a bar. Several large guys are gathered around him, holding the door, letting him in.

They don’t matter. None of them do. Only Liz. And if I have to go through every Irkutsk in that bar, I’ll rip them all to pieces before I see them hurt her.

I feel Alex’s hand on my arm and I yank it away. “Hey! Hold on! Rikki!” He grabs me again and I pull away, stalking toward that bar. Then suddenly, I’m looking into my brother’s face as he steps in front of me.

“Hey,” he says. “You in there?”

I don’t have the right words. I can barely understand his. All I can say is, “I have to get Liz.”

“I hear you, but we’re on the wrong side of town. We need backup.”

“Fuck backup.”

“Rikki, I know you’re a beast. But even you can’t handle a bar full of those fuckers.”

“Watch me.”

With that, I sidestep him and walk the rest of the way to the bar. I see the door open again when I’m about ten steps away. The guy’s about my height, but half my weight, bald head, wearing a suit…

He looks around, but by the time he sees me, I’ve already cocked back my arm. I rock him in the jaw and feel it click and crunch under my knuckles as it shatters. He yells a garbled sound and stumbles to the side. I don’t give him a chance to recover. I grab him by the head and ram his face into my knee, busting his nose.

He falls, his eyes rolled back as he hits the cement. From here, I can hear talking, music, whatever. Don’t give a fuck. I’ll plow through them all to get to her.

I kick open the door and step in. Somebody curses with surprise. Somebody else tells me I don’t belong there. I just stand at the door, scanning the dim light of the bar for him.

“I’m looking for Josef Kiselev,” I say. “Came in here with a blonde. Give him up now or I’m fucking up everybody in this room.”

A battle cry to my left, one of them coming at me with a broken pool cue, the splintered and jagged wood pointed straight at me. I sidestep him and grab the cue, then I push his head into the wall. He stumbles as his head hits the brick and concrete with a sound thud. I break the rest of the cue over the back of his head.

Two more come at me. One tries to shove me down with a shoulder to the chest. I bring my elbow down on his back, sending him to the floor. The other tries to wrap an arm around my neck, but I grab him and send him flying over my shoulder and into a group of tables.

It takes three more of them until the bartender finally comes at me with a baseball bat, then he stops, his eyes wide with fear as he looks at me—covered in blood and bruises.