Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 Read Online Free Page B

daggers and crosses flexed as he leaned in close. “Who was he? Who was that man you were talking to?”
    “No one. He was no one,” Nadia said quietly.  
    Maybe she thought she could placate Ivan, but Vlad knew better. He had seen the devil in his father’s eyes tonight and caught the unmistakable scent of liquor on his breath, long before Ivan had starting pouring shots for himself from the bottle on the table.
    “Leave her alone.” Vlad’s voice started with the power of a man’s and ended with the sound of a squeaky child’s. Ivan didn’t even spare him a glance.
    “Who was he?” Ivan grabbed Nadia by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Tell me. Tell me!” When she didn’t answer, Ivan smacked her across the cheek.  
    Vlad felt the blow in his own body. “Get your hands off of her!”  
    He charged Ivan. He threw himself against his father with all of his strength.  
    Ivan flicked him off as if the whole of his weight and anger were a mere nuisance. With the barest flex of his arm, Ivan threw him flying across the small room.
    Vlad landed hard on his back and jumped to his feet.
      “I’m sorry,” Nadia sobbed. Was she apologizing for herself or for Vlad? She cowered against the wall, arms raised in a hopeless attempt to fend Ivan off.  
    “I’ll make you sorry.” Ivan rained blows on her small body. “You talk to no one. No other man. Only me. Only me!”  
    “Leave her alone!” Vlad was going to make the bastard stop, make him pay. He looked around for something—anything—harder than his fists.
    “Say it!” Ivan demanded, ignoring him.
    “Only you,” she choked.
    He grabbed a wooden chair and rushed Ivan.
    “Vlad, no!” Nadia pleaded. Pleaded with him, not with his abusive old man. “He’ll kill you!”
    He couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. They’d suffered too much at Ivan’s hands. Tonight, it would end one way or another.
    He swung the chair with all his might and landed a blow that only made Ivan grunt.
    Not hard enough. Not strong enough.
    With one hand, Ivan snapped the leg off of the chair and swung. Vlad ducked and blocked the blows with the chair until Ivan cracked the leg against his knuckles and wrested the broken chair out of his grip.  
    Ivan pounded him hard with the chair leg. He slammed it against Vlad’s legs and knocked him off balance.
    “You worthless weakling.” Ivan hit him on all sides with the stick, until he couldn’t stand, until he could hardly breathe for the pain in his ribs. Ivan smacked him hard across the head. The chair leg broke in Ivan’s hand.  
    “Hard-headed like me.”   He heard Ivan laugh. His father’s voice sounded far away. “Get this lesson through your hard head. When you take on the Devil, be sure you can win.”
      Unconsciousness beckoned. Vlad refused to close his eyes and give in.  
    “Please, Ivan. Leave him alone,” Nadia begged.
    “I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me. Even your son.” Ivan kicked him in the side with his steel-toe boot.
    “I love you, Ivan. Only you.”
    “That’s right. Tell him he’s nothing.” Ivan crossed the room, returning to Nadia in a matter of steps, like loud drumbeats. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine. Only mine. Say it!”
    He couldn’t let Ivan hurt his mother. Tonight, between the alcohol and the jealousy, Ivan might kill her, especially if Ivan learned the man she’d gone to see was a detective with the Brooklyn police.  
    He rolled onto his stomach. Each breath was agony. He panted with the effort to draw his knees beneath him.  
    He crawled closer to the table. Wincing with pain, he reached for the coffee table to lever himself up.
    His hand encountered the vodka bottle, lying on its side. He closed his fist around the cool glass and cracked it against the table. The end broke away, leaving a jagged weapon in his hand.
    Using the coffee table for support, Vlad struggled to push himself up. Half-blind with pain and desperation, he commanded his