Russian Mobster's Stolen Wife (4 page)

“You may now kiss the bride,” the pastor said joyfully.

Behind her, Flynn heard the man named Anson talking to another guy—presumably their missing witness—while she held her breath and waited for the world to end.

Grigori cupped her cheeks and leaned down. She had expected to feel repulsed, but there was nothing but gentleness in his touch. He smelled amazing. How was that even possible after their crazy night? But he did. She inhaled in sharp surprise and got a stronger whiff of spicy male musk and sandalwood.

He placed his lips on hers, and the kiss seared her on the inside. She couldn’t help it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair as their mouths meshed together and he loved her almost tenderly with his mouth.

Then it was over, and Flynn was left with weak knees and stars in her eyes. What. The. Hell?

“Oh you two are just the most beautiful couple!” The pastor seemed bizarrely happy, given the weird circumstances of their hurried wedding.

“Thank you.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The witnesses came forward and signed the marriage certificate with a flourish. They were bickering back and forth in choppy Russian, their dialect so muddled that she couldn’t really make out much of what they were saying.

“Your turn to sign.” Grigori handed her the pen.

Taking a deep breath, Flynn put her signature to the document, sealing her fate and making her basically a criminal in her father’s eyes.

The pastor had just taken another breath to speak when his eyes opened wide and he began opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. He was facing the front doors of the church, the opposite direction that she and Grigori were facing. It took less than a millisecond for Grigori to clue in to what was happening.

He grabbed Flynn and ducked left behind the pews just as the first shots were fired. She grunted in pain as her shoulder hit the hard wood floor. She rolled, and Grigori lunged for her.

“Don’t be stupid,” she told him. “I’m not running away from you. There’s an exit over here. Let’s try to get out through there!”

Grigori nodded then glanced around. “Anson, Igor! Where are you?” he called in Russian.

“Over here, boss,” came Anson’s voice. “There are six of them, and they’re armed to the teeth!”

“Work your way to the backup point,” Grigori told them. After belatedly discovering that Flynn spoke Russian, he apparently wasn’t taking it for granted anymore that her father’s men didn’t. Which was good, because there were at least two of them that did speak Russian a lot more fluently than she did.

Flynn was already army crawling in front of the pew, headed for the exit. Unfortunately, the heavy boots of their pursuers were headed in their direction. Her heart pounded as she anticipated the moment she’d get caught and dragged home. Then someone grabbed her leg. She swung around, prepared to fight, but it was Grigori. He pointed beneath the pews.

“Scoot underneath,” he whispered. “Go out the front while I draw them back here. Meet me in the woods behind the church.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t argue, but she couldn’t imagine how he expected to escape. She was going to be a widow before she got her freedom, dammit!

Twisting her body, she rolled onto her back and grabbed the underside of the pew. She scooted herself underneath and began working her way toward the church’s front entrance. She could hear Grigori as she maneuvered herself away from the action.

Grigori shouted something in Russian, and then there was a crash. The pastor shrieked and began screaming obscenities at her father’s men. If the situation hadn’t been such a vital one, she would have laughed. As it was, she only needed to get two feet farther before she was home free.

Laboriously using her arms to squeeze her body out from under the pews, she rolled to her tummy and lay still for a moment. She could hear nothing over the cacophony going on at the front of the church. Grigori was apparently an expert at diversionary tactics because there was no way anyone wouldn’t be drawn to whatever was happening.

She didn’t see a nearby threat, so she got to her knees and then into a crouch. Using the pews as cover, she bolted toward the front doors of the church and out onto the porch. Unfortunately, she ran right into the arms of her father’s head security man, Teller.

Chapter Five

Grigori held the plain wood podium like a battering ram and used it to cut a swath through the men attempting to take him down. He’d already knocked two of their guns right out of their hands, sending the weapons spinning uselessly across the room. Two men were lying senseless on the ground. He had bashed their heads together when the brawl began.

“Grigori!” Anson called out. “Behind you!”

Grigori spun around, letting his momentum pull the podium with him until the thing was whizzing through the air like a giant club. The impact of his weapon on the beefy security man sent a jolt up Grigori’s arm. His hand went numb. But it didn’t matter. Nothing did. These guys were trying to catch him alive for some reason. That couldn’t be a good thing.

The man he hit flew backwards, flipping over a pew and knocking it sideways. The pastor shouted so loudly and in such a high pitched voice that Grigori’s eardrums crackled.

“Stop!” the pastor cried. And the guy was actually crying. He dropped to the floor and covered his head with his arms. “This is a house of
God
! You can’t fight in here!”

“Sorry, Pastor,” Grigori said with a grunt as he knocked over yet another flunky. “These guys don’t seem to follow that rule.”

“Get. Out! All of you, get out!” the pastor squawked.

Grigori waved Anson on, hoping the man would follow Igor. He needed them outside to make sure that Flynn didn’t run into any trouble while she was attempting to escape out the front exit.

A splinter from the podium worked its way into Grigori’s finger. Funny how that hurt far more than the scratch he’d received from the initial gunfire. Abruptly deciding he’d had enough, he took the podium and used it to clear a path to the door. He should have given the others plenty of time to get clear of the building by now.

Grigori threw the podium at the final remaining flunky. The guy’s eyes went wide as he tried to deflect the heavy missile. He missed, catching it inside and falling hard on his backside. His groan went right along with the pastor’s silent weeping.

Seeing the marriage license on the floor, Grigori swiped it up and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Then he headed for the side door. It opened into an office. Papers fluttered to the floor as he slammed the door closed and locked it. Seeing a back entrance, Grigori grabbed the desk and pulled it over to block the doorway. Papers and pens fell to the floor along with a flat screen computer monitor.

“Oops,” he muttered. “I suppose I’ll burn in hell for that.”

Something heavy hit the door, causing the desk to shiver and shake. It was time to get out.

Grigori bounded through the outer entrance, spilling into the bushes at the side of the building. He could hear someone trying to get into the pastor’s office on the inside, and also men yelling in the main part of the church. What he didn’t hear was a woman.

Grigori whistled, trying to hail Anson and Igor. He got no response. Running around the front of the building, he quickly discovered why.

“Don’t move.”

The man holding a gun on Anson, Igor, and now Grigori was a tall, thin fellow with a shaved head and bulging eyes. He stood beneath a light, holding Flynn in front of him like a shield. Grigori put his hands out to his sides, feeling the knife strapped to his wrist begin to slide down into position.

Flynn seemed very calm, all things considered. She also looked annoyed. “Teller, just go home. This is bullshit. I’m here of my own free will. Go back and tell my father that.”

“No thank you, Miss Callaghan.” The man named Teller did not look particularly happy. “I don’t care to reap the consequences of your actions.”

“It’s not my fault that my asshole father would rather shoot the messenger than deal with the problem.” Flynn was staring right at Grigori.

If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was trying to signal him or something. Unfortunately, he had no idea what she was trying to convey. He inched closer, trying to get the perfect angle. With Teller’s gun hand outstretched and his finger on the trigger, there was only going to be one opportunity to get this right.

“I’m sorry,” Teller said to Anson and Igor. “The two of you are just going to have to die. Three to one is not a set of odds I like.”

It all happened in slow motion. Teller began to pull the trigger at the same moment Grigori let fly with his throwing knife. The blade sliced right into his hand and stuck tight. Teller gave an agonized cry that ended in a grunt as Flynn buried her elbow in his gut. Then she spun on her heel and executed a neat front snap kick that caught Teller right between the legs.

Grigori, Anson, and Igor all cringed at the sound of her foot hitting the man’s balls. Then Teller collapsed to the ground. Flynn wasted no time. She smashed her foot into Teller’s throat then went running past Grigori.

“Are you coming?” she called over her shoulder. “I don’t have good shoes on for actually crushing a windpipe!”

Grigori stared at his men. “What did I marry?”

Anson shrugged. “I think she’s hot.”

Igor was already running after her. Grigori had no choice but to turn and follow with Anson on his tail. Stretching his longer legs, Grigori caught up to Flynn and took her hand in his. The warm tingle from their contact was a surprise, as was her willingness to follow his lead through the trees.

FLYNN HAD NO clue where they were going. She only knew she had to get away from her father’s men as fast as possible. If that meant Grigori was her new best friend, then so be it. It was pitch black and they were dashing through a knot of trees with nothing but the light of a low hanging moon to see by.

“Quietly,” he ordered the other two men in Russian. “We’re close.”

“I left the car over here.” Igor gestured vaguely to a spot in the darkness.

Anson grunted. “We can’t see, you moron. Where is it?”

“It was right here.” Igor was pointing, but there was no car.

“Are we lost?” Flynn asked Grigori. “Because we really need to get out of here before Teller gets up off the ground.”

“We’re not lost.” Grigori spoke in English while he turned in a circle, glancing up and then turning his attention to a point somewhere to their left. “It’s right over here. See that irregular blob?”

“A blob. Great.” Anson did not sound thrilled. “We are going to die because Igor lost the fucking car.”

“Your negativity is wearing on my nerves,” Flynn told him. “Shut up or I’ll kick
you
in the nuts.”

Flynn wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Grigori chuckle. Then he started walking energetically in the opposite direction, tugging her along with him. She saw his blob and realized that he was right. It was a vehicle.

“Is there a road?” she asked dubiously. “How stupid to get caught because we’re lost. Did you guys plan this at all?”

“Next time we’ll let you do the planning,” Grigori told her. “You seem very adept at this sort of thing. I’m starting to think you’ve got more up your sleeve than you’re telling.”

“What woman doesn’t?” she suggested vaguely. There was no way she was telling him everything. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“Just get in the car,” Grigori told her. He opened the passenger door. “And keep your head down. You’re useless if you get it blown off.”

“You’re just so romantic,” she said.

She got into the vehicle, realizing in the process that it was actually a Jeep. So they were prepared to go off road a little. At least that’s what the big tires, aggressive grill, and roll bars suggested. That was good, because she was sure Teller wasn’t about to give up.

Anson and Igor climbed in the back seat, and Grigori got in behind the wheel. He started the engine. The sound seemed deafening in the forest. In the glow of the dash lights she could see lines of worry on his face. So he knew what the stakes were here. Good.

“Keep an eye out,” he told Anson and Igor. “And for pity’s sake, don’t accidentally shoot me in the back of the head.”

“You got it, boss,” they muttered.

Flynn was starting to feel the strain of the evening. Her arms were scratched from the cat, along with her cheek. The areas were throbbing. Hopefully she didn’t come down with rabies or cat scratch fever.

“Are you all right?” Grigori glanced over at her. “You’ve had a long night.”

She held onto the roll bar as they bounced over a rut to get back to the main road. “My face hurts.”

“We’ll have a doctor look at that when we get home.”

“Where the hell is home?” She yawned. How crazy was it to yawn at a time like this?

He shrugged. “You don’t have a place. I do. Does it matter where it is?”

“I guess not,” she murmured. “Do you see that?”

He was already peering into the rearview mirror, so she knew he did. He pursed his lips, looking pissed off. “Anson, shoot the tires out of that thing when it’s in range.”

“All right, boss.” Anson pulled a rifle out from under the seat and rested the barrel on the back of his seat.

The shattering of the side view mirror right next to Flynn followed the echoing report of gunfire. She squeaked in surprise and leaned closer to the middle of the vehicle. Grigori gently touched her hand. She snatched it away. She didn’t want or need comfort right now. Did she?

“They’re just looking for targets,” Grigori explained. Then his side view mirror shattered too. “See? Reflective things.”

“Oh, I feel so much better,” she said as Anson returned fire.

There was a muffled shot, and then the lights behind them twisted in a crazy arc as the pursuing vehicle flipped over and over. Flynn watched in shock as it landed on its side and came to a screeching halt in the middle of the dirt track.

“Next!” Anson chorused.

“Don’t get cocky,” Grigori warned. “There’s another one coming right at us.”