Aequitas, Hope Anika [android pdf ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Boom!

The sound was like a cannon shot.

Having been raised by one of the world’s foremost sharpshooters—and having grown up firing weapons and having them fired at her—had never seemed a particular boon to Ash Kyndal.

Until today. Today, it was going to save her ass.

Because guns were Ash’s friend. There had been a time—a long time—when they’d been her only friend. And the sound of them firing was almost comforting.

Like coming home.

So there was no panic. No startling, no crying out, no losing of her shit. There was only reaction: grabbing the large, gloved hand that held the sleek black 9mm and slamming it into the floor, once, twice, three times.

It was unfortunate that the murderous bastard who held the weapon wouldn’t let go. He rolled over on top of her, and the air in her lungs wheezed out. His knee thrust between her legs, and his other hand found her throat and squeezed. Hard.

“Bitch,” he growled again.

“I hate that goddamn word,” she hissed and shoved her thumbs into his eye sockets.

He squealed and reared up, releasing her; she tore the gun from his grip, and before he could react, turned it on him and fired twice: one bullet for each shoulder. He jerked beneath the impact and fell back to the hard wooden floor. Blood bloomed beneath him in a thick, dark pool.

Ash wiggled out from beneath him and scrambled to her feet, gun in hand. Her face throbbed. Blood filled her mouth and dripped from her nose; her entire right side ached from its impact with the floor. But she was standing.

And the three men who’d broken into her home, tied her to a chair and threatened to beat the hell out of her were down. A cracked sternum, a dislocated knee, a broken nose, and two non-fatal gunshot wounds.

You’re welcome, dicks.

Because she wanted carnage.

She turned and looked at the laptop. It lay on its side, the screen shattered, and she wondered if Ruslan and Butch were still alive. Because Butch was half in the bag—Butch was always half in the bag—and she didn’t know Ruslan from a hole in the ground.

The Russian with one name; like a cheesy spy novel, the sum total of his known parts. And although he was hard as granite and cold as ice, Ash had never seen him in action. Which made her worry. Even though there was nothing soft or the least bit untried about the man, nothing that anyone would ever mistake as benign.

Ash knew an apex predator when she saw one. Ruslan watched everything and everyone; he observed and absorbed, as motionless and still as any wild creature. Her primal hindbrain—primitive, visceral, exquisitely attuned to potential threats due to a childhood spent with a sociopathic father—screeched like an air horn whenever he was near.

Ruuuuuuun! Something she’d moved instinctively to do, more than once.

No, Ruslan would be fine…

Wouldn’t he?

“Shit,” she said.

Because she didn’t know. The man had appeared out of nowhere in the wake of her Uncle Charlie’s sudden death, like an apparition solidifying from mist. A friend of Charlie’s, he’d said. I owe him, he’d said, and planted himself in her life like a tree.

But that didn’t change the fact that he was a stranger. That his motives were murky as hell, and she didn’t trust him any further than she could throw him. He was taciturn and intractable and even more socially inept than she was; she’d never met anyone like him. And Ash had met a lot of people. The only thing she knew for sure about Ruslan was that he was Russian, dangerous, and…other.

Other. Like her.

She’d grown up on the periphery of society; carnival midways and circus tents and endless miles of pavement. Her existence had only occasionally crossed paths with the “civilized” world, and faking her way through its twisted realities and conforming to its rigid definitions did not come naturally or easily. The necessity of bending made her angry, and as some part of her always seemed to be angry—courtesy of that aforementioned sociopathic father—she knew and understood how inherently difficult it was to be a part of the world.

So she didn’t hold Ruslan’s otherness against him. But that commonality didn’t connect them. Nor did his purported connection to Charlie. No, Ruslan was an unknown. Unpredictable and untested. A wild card, at best. And one she wasn’t certain could be counted upon.

Goddamn it.

Just another massive pain in the ass to go along with inheriting Charlie’s PI business, the Firm. A business she didn’t want and didn’t need and didn’t know what the hell to do with. Goddamn it!

“They’re fine,” she told herself. “Ruslan’s a survivor.”

Something else she recognized. Takes one to know one.

But these men…they were heavily armed. They’d come in numbers, with unflinching violence. And Butch wouldn’t have been any help at all.

“Shit on a stick,” she muttered.

They have to be okay.

Because Charlie would roll over in his grave if she managed to kill the one person he’d left behind who didn’t need saving. Not to mention—

Boom!

“Get me outta this chair!”

Ruslan’s fingers tightened around the neck of the man he held; muscle shivered and veins compressed beneath his grip. The man struggled like a hooked fish; his hands clawed at Ruslan’s arm. But resistance was futile.

Ruslan was everything his prey was not: disciplined, experienced, and very, very strong.

“Who hired you?” he asked.

The man shook his head and gasped. He kicked and bucked and struggled desperately for freedom; Ruslan merely lifted him higher into the air.

“Tell me,” Ruslan told him patiently, “and you won’t end up like your colleague.”

The man looked down at his counterpart, who lay at Ruslan’s feet, arms and legs broken, his face bloated and bleeding. A rib stuck out from his chest like an errant tree branch.

“Ruslan!” Butch snarled, still fighting the ties that held him to the metal chair. “Goddamn it!”

Ruslan ignored him and shook the man, a sharp jerk that nearly snapped the fragile bones in hand. “Decide.”

“I hope they fuck her before they kill her,” the man hissed.

Ruslan’s hand tightened involuntarily; the dark, hungry entity that lived within him licked its lips. Feed.

But killing this man was not an option. They needed answers.

There are two more. Feed.

“You would die for this?” he asked, ignoring that feral voice.

“Gladly,” the man choked. He bared his teeth and snapped them together. A heartbeat later, convulsions shook him. His eyes rolled back into his head. White foam bubbled from his lips and slid down his chin.

Movement ceased, and he died there, hanging from Ruslan’s hand.

Wasted.

The darkness snarled.

Ruslan dropped the man and turned to look at the figure lying at his feet. Before he could move, seizures gripped the man; a scream escaped him as his broken limbs shook. White foam burst from his mouth, and he went still.

Eyes open, mouth gaping.

Cyanide.

Ruslan stared down at him, disturbed.

“Jesus Christ, they’re going Kamikaze,” Butch cried, “get me the hell out of here!”

Ruslan looked over at the bald man. He lay slumped and dazed against the concrete wall where Ruslan had kicked him, blood an ugly river down the side of his face.