Crossing the Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

whole new meaning,” Edgar said.
    Setter laughed.
    Tears dripped down her face and fell onto Vasily’s lips. She stared into his eyes. No spark of regret, only lust. She whimpered as Edgar pressed his cock against her backside.
    “Keep still or they’ll rip you apart.” Setter jerked himself off next to her face.
    Katya closed her eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, but they bit, licked, hit and fucked her until she couldn’t pretend she was anywhere but in a filthy shack being raped by dirty men. She had no strength to even scream. But something inside her changed. Defeat slipped back into defiance.
    Let me live.
    She repeated the new words over and over until finally her hold on reality slipped.

6

    When Vasily pressed his mouth to her ear, Katya’s eyes sprang open.
    “Irina’s dead.”
    He tried to shove his tongue into her mouth and she erupted, lashing out with her fists, trying to buck him off. She was no match for a man his size and he twisted her onto her stomach, straddling the top of her thighs. When he leaned against her back, he compressed her lungs. He slid his tongue into her ear, and she gagged.
    “You’re going to make me a lot of money. And if you don’t learn to play nice, I’ll feed you to the fucking dogs.”
    Her arm dangled down the side of the bed and knowing this might be her only chance, she slid her fingers under the edge of the mattress, touched the handle of the knife, and in one fluid movement, pulled it out and flung back her arm. She felt the blade connect with flesh, pulled back and slashed again, harder. Get off me, get off me.
    “Wha…a…uck?” he gasped.
    Vasily’s weight shifted and as she struggled to get free, the knife slipped from her slick fingers. When she turned, all she could see was blood, Vasily pressing his hand against his neck as a red river poured down his chest.
    She made a grab for the knife, and he wrapped sticky fingers around her throat. Her hand came away empty.
    “’itch,” he gurgled.
    As his grip tightened, Katya screamed at herself to do something. His hold on her didn’t slacken and she couldn’t breathe. Think! She let herself go limp and as he slumped onto her, she fumbled for the other knife. Black dots danced in her vision by the time her fingers connected with the handle.
    One chance.
    She dragged the weapon out and slammed it into his back. It shot so smoothly between his ribs that for a moment, neither of them understood what had happened. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto her face. His fingers slipped off her neck but his weight was crushing her. She watched in fascinated horror as he wrapped a bloody hand around the knife and pulled it from his back. He convulsed on top of her and blood gushed everywhere. As Katya watched the life leave his eyes, something left her too.
    I killed him. I killed—oh God.
    Pumped with adrenaline, she pummeled her way free and slithered to the floor. Scuttling backward, she kept going until she hit the wall where she curled in a ball and waited for him to get up and kill her.
    Didn’t happen. Vasily lay motionless in a sea of red, a knife still in his hand. Shock immobilized her. Her mind reran everything over and over, faster and faster until she thought she’d explode.
    Irina. Katya pushed herself up on shaking legs, and staggered to the other bedroom to find her aunt lying with a pillow over her face. Katya yanked it aside, looked into Irina’s glazed eyes and groaned. She’d gotten her aunt killed too. She’d come to visit all that was left of her family because she thought it was the right thing to do and she couldn’t have been more wrong. She reached out, brushed a lock of hair from her aunt’s face and left a smear of blood. The sight of it brought fresh panic.
    She’d been raped and killed in self-defense, but nothing was straightforward. The word of Americans against a Russian. She shuddered as she conducted a trial in her mind. Her head felt as