Born in Blood Collection Volume 1 - Cora Reilly Page 0,101

minutes even with a helicopter and he wouldn’t be able to take as many of his men with him, so there was no saying how long it would take him to fight his way into the mansion. There was the possibility that he would fail.

Gianna came running toward me, eyes wide.

“I can’t talk anymore,” I whispered.

“Aria—”

“What’s happening?” Gianna asked, as she stumbled against me.

“The Bratva.” I pulled her toward the dock where the boat was anchored. It would be safer to hide there than to go back inside and look for the panic room. The boards of the dock groaned under our weight as we walked toward the boat. But then Lily’s scream pierced the night and I froze. Gianna and I exchanged a glance. Without a word, we turned around and hurried back toward the house.

My heart hammered in my chest when we arrived on the loggia. The living room was deserted. I knelt beside Umberto and took his knives even as I shuddered. I handed one of them to Gianna and put the switchblade into my back pocket.

“Come on,” I whispered. I wasn’t even sure what Gianna and I were going to do once we got inside. I’d shot a gun once, and I had handled a knife only when I’d sparred with Luca; that didn’t bode well in a fight against Russian mobsters. Yet I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t find Lily and Fabi.

Gianna and I crept inside. It was dark. Someone must have turned the lights off in the entire house. I held my breath, but it was terrifyingly quiet. I approached the door that led into the lobby when an arm shot out and wrapped around my waist. I cried out, struggled, tried to angle the gun toward my attacker, but he twisted my wrist. Pain shot through my arm and the gun tumbled from my fingers. Gianna gasped behind me. I kicked out. A deep voice snarled at me in Russian. Oh God. My foot collided with his shin. He pushed me away but before I could catch my balance, his fist collided with my lips. My vision turned black and I dropped to my knees as blood filled my mouth and trickled over my chin, the warm, salty taste making bile rise into my throat.

Fingers twisted into my hair and I was wrenched to my feet, crying out from the pain in my scalp. My attacker didn’t care. The lights came on as he dragged me into the lobby by my hair. I could see Gianna in the arms of another tall man. Her body was limp, a bruise already forming on her forehead.

I was thrown to the ground in front of jeans-clad legs and quickly peered up into a pockmarked face and cold blue eyes. “What’s your name, whore?” he asked in heavily accented English. Didn’t he recognize me? I supposed I looked different with blood all over my face. I stared back at him defiantly. He kicked me in the stomach and I toppled over, gasping for breath. “What’s your name?”

My eyes darted to a body to my right. Cesare. He was making gurgling noises, clutching at a bleeding wound in his stomach. I didn’t see Lily, Fabi or Romero anywhere, and I hoped they’d made it to the panic room. At least they would survive.

A hand gripped my chin and wrenched my head up. “Will you tell me your name, or do I have to make Igor hurt her?” He nodded toward Gianna, who lay on her side on the marble floor, blinking dazedly.

“Aria,” I said quietly.

“As in Aria Vitiello?” the man asked with a cruel smile.

I nodded. There was no use denying it. He said something in Russian and the men guffawed. My skin crawled from the way they were looking at me.

“Where are the others? Your shadow and the children?”

It took me a moment to realize whom he meant by shadow. “I don’t know,” I said.

Igor kicked Gianna. She screamed. Her eyes met mine and I could see she didn’t want me to say anything, but how could I watch them hurt her?

Voices and shooting carried over to us from outside. The leader of the Russians grabbed me and pulled my back flush against his chest before pressing a blade against my throat.

Fear paralyzed my body as I listened to the sound of fighting. I was dragged backwards closer to the living room. Igor was yanking Gianna by her hair. She