Free Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 by D. B. Shuster Page A

Maybe she’d been wrong.  
    The car sped down side streets. On a Sunday night, few pedestrians were out. With unease, she noticed they were leaving behind the rundown apartment buildings and humble single-family homes of Stan’s neighborhood and moving into a more familiar part of town. Mini mansions dominated nearly every inch of lot after lot.
    “Where are we going?” Her voice was embarrassingly tremulous. She thought she had already guessed the answer.
    Surely, Dato would take her home so that he could confront Artur. With his knives.
    She hadn’t confided in Artur nor consulted him, instead seeking solace in her secrets and choosing to manipulate him as punishment for his neglect. Another tactical error?
    With her as prisoner, Dato would be able to make all kinds of unreasonable demands, provided he took Artur by surprise and that her husband cared enough about her to make concessions.
    Fear ripped through her mind and heart, until all she could feel was the raw, animalistic clenching and tremors of her own body.  
    She had lost Artur’s love. She’d never be able to win him back or punish him. No, she was going to die, a victim of his apathy toward her.
    Dato was talking. She barely made out his words as she sank deeper and deeper into her own despair.
    “…pay a visit to your son’s nightclub,” he said.
    “My son?” she gasped. The fear took on new dimensions. Would Dato kill Aleksei the way he had Stan?
    Icy premonition crept from the tips of her fingers up her arms, raising gooseflesh. Jagged shards of desperation stabbed her belly. She pressed her lips together, determined not to say another word and to pretend her usual mastery over her emotions. She couldn’t let Dato see her appalling weakness.
    “I have a busy night planned. Starting with cocktails at Troika.” He bared his teeth. The gold across his bridge caught the light and set off his malevolence. “Molotov cocktails.”
    His evil grin widened as if he had amused himself with his own cleverness. When she didn’t react, he asked, “You do know what a Molotov cocktail is. Don’t you, Mrs. Koslovsky?”
    He reached over the front seat and grabbed a dark amber bottle. It looked like a beer bottle, except for the stopper and wick at the top. “Highly flammable liquid that explodes in a fire ball when lit,” he said. “Cheap and very deadly.”
    Her heart momentarily seized as she imagined this monster lighting her gorgeous son on fire. She had already seen the kind of carnage the man wreaked with his perilously sharp blade. She could scarcely contemplate what he might do with a blunt weapon designed for maximum destruction.
    “Troika will burn to a crisp. I’ll put it out of business for weeks. Maybe months.” He seemed to relish torturing her with a clear picture of the violence he planned.
    She could no longer control her breathing. Fear choked her until her breath came in almost sobbing gasps.
    Dato touched her cheek. His brown eyes glowed with a demonic light. Then he mocked her. “And here I thought you were an ice queen. Nothing and no one touches you.”
    His hand trailed down her neck and over her collarbone. She forced herself to endure his touch, knowing she had to if she hoped to survive, but she shriveled inside with each stroke of his fingers.
    He wrapped his hand around her throat and applied the gentlest of pressure, deliberately letting her know that he could choke her or snap her neck…or kiss her. Armed with his knives and firebombs, holding her prisoner, he could do whatever he liked, and she would be forced to bear witness to the destruction or suffer it herself as it pleased him.
    Her soul cried out for Artur.
    In this, her darkest moment, she doubted he would come for her. She doubted he would care. An icy wave of fear crashed over her and threatened to pull her under.  
    Artur didn’t know her or see her. He would never imagine that she was here in danger. Needing him in a way she never had before, she hated