Mikhail Dmitriyev.
He’s alive and at the head of the men with two guns pointed at Ivan.
“I am not dead, and you aren’t taking my wife!” he shouts. That’s when all hell breaks loose.
Bullets fly everywhere. Ivan pulls me away, but I keep looking back at Mikhail as he runs across the balcony and takes the stairs.
“He’s not getting you back, princess,” Ivan promises.
“Let go of me.”
He pulls his gun and holds it to my head. “Come now, or I’ll blow your pretty little head to pieces.”
51
Mikhail
Isee Ivan hustling Natalia away with a gun held to her head, and I run.
I run with all the strength I can summon.
I don’t know where it comes from because God knows my body is still weak, but I’m sprinting. I’m moving with one goal in mind. I need to get my wife back.
Eric and the men from our combined brotherhoods follow behind me, clearing the path through Ivan’s men and covering me as I rush down the hallway. So are the cartel men below who swore their allegiance to me.
I watch Ivan hurry Natalia outside, and I follow.
They’re far ahead of me, which places me at a direct disadvantage.
I leap over the stairs and continue running, chasing them across the grass. He’s heading for the waterfall.
He takes a set of stairs, and I can see why he went that way. There’s a bridge there. Across it waits a truck.
He turns back to me and fires several shots I manage to dodge. Only just.
I’m massively off my game.
Natalia screams and stumbles, but he yanks her up and drags her. If I could just get a clear shot, I could kill him, but it’s too risky with her next to him.
I shoot ahead at the path he’s aiming for, but he continues.
Bastard. He knows I won’t risk hitting her. That’s why he’s still running, practically shielding his ass with her.
“Stop, Ivan!” I call out, but it’s to no fucking avail.
It’s only when he notices Aiden running up toward the other side of the bridge where he was heading that he stops abruptly.
I watch confusion set in, and the motherfucker decides to head for the water instead. He’s fleeing to the fucking river.
He ends up on a dusty path that leads to a dead end. He can’t go any further beside what looks like a two-hundred-foot drop into jagged rock and rough waters.
They’ll die if they fall in. No question about it.
Ivan stops at the end of the track, whirls around, then holds the gun to Natalia’s head.
I stop when I notice the wicked smirk on his face.
He glances at the water and smiles wider. “Us and water don’t agree, brother. Remember when I tried to drown you in the river?”
