by Nicole Fox
My blood boils. It means that someone from inside my own circle betrayed me, just like they betrayed my father. The only difference is that I got out alive. When I have time to plan, I will rain hell on everyone involved with this mutiny. But right now, Annie and I need to get to safety. We need to get away from everyone until I can figure out how deep the betrayal goes.
Annie takes off down the hall once more.
As soon as she disappears, a new thought pops into my head. Is she involved? She was different from the other girls, too smart for her own good ... Have I been a fool? Did I buy my own betrayer? The idea makes my blood run cold. I squeeze the gun between trembling hands and raise it.
When she comes back around the corner, I’m going to put a bullet between her eyes.
I hear her footsteps approaching. I release the safety and level the sight. Three, two, one ...
She reappears mid-sentence. “If you aren’t going to let me fix your wounds now, then I was grabbing some supplies to fix them up when we get to wherever ....”
She freezes. The gauze and ointment she was holding—supplies to take care of my wound—clatter to the floor.
And in that instant, I realize I was wrong. The terrified innocence in her eyes says this is as much a nightmare for her as it is for me. She isn’t the one who stabbed me in the back. She’s just another frightened bird, caught in a thorn bush she can’t escape.
The feeling that rushes into my gut almost makes me vomit. It’s shame, the kind of shame I haven’t felt in God knows how long. I lower the gun and turn away before she can see the embarrassment surging in my face.
Her voice trembles. “You were going to shoot me.”
I don’t face her as I reply, “I thought you might have been responsible for this. I see now that I was wrong.”
She says nothing. A few moments pass, pregnant with tension. I wish I could take back my actions. Regret, shame, emotions that are so foreign I don’t even know where to begin with processing them, are clouding my brain. I swallow hard and turn to face her. She hasn’t moved.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
A single tear drips down her cheek.
I cross the room and grip her shoulders between my hands. My gut twists again. I look her in the eyes and say with all the seriousness I can muster. “Annie, no matter what, I promise to keep you safe. I will not let you die. I promise on my father’s name.”
She nods, once, unsure whether or not to believe me. I can hardly blame her, but there is no time for anything else. I stare into her eyes for a second longer, searching for something—forgiveness? Trust? I’m not sure.
I stoop and grab the things she dropped. “Thank you,” I say.
Then we leave, running out the door and racing for our lives.
Chapter Thirteen
Annie
I don’t want to die.
Nikita’s grip on my shoulder is tight as he propels me down the hallway. Every step sends a stabbing pain into the sole of my feet. I’m doing my best to ignore it, but the painful heat is growing step by step. We make it outside, and the concrete steps on my bare skin are the last straw. I can’t suppress the whimper that comes out of my mouth.
Nikita whirls around, keys in hand, to study my face. After a quick once-over, he takes a quick step towards me and hoists me over his shoulder.
I yelp. “Are you for real?”
“You can’t walk and we need to move. This is our only option.”
I just close my eyes and try to ignore the pain. Each step we land on jars my body against his broad shoulder as we round the street corner.
“Where are we going?”
“We need to get to the car,” Nikita says. He doesn’t stop moving.
“Wouldn’t it just be safer to stay here and wait for backup? Or the cops?”
Nikita sighs impatiently and I realize it was a dumb question. Maybe a mob boss calling the cops and having them arrive at the safe house isn’t the best idea. God only knows what Nikita has hidden in there, besides the guns spilling out of his pockets.
For the umpteenth time, I wonder what world I’ve fallen into, what crazy nightmare this has all been. I never even knew that this stuff—mob bosses and turf wars and sex slaves—existed in my city to this horrifying extent. It was right under my nose all along, just out of sight. And when I wasn’t paying close enough attention, it reached out and dragged me down into its depths. I’ve tried to fight it every step of the way, but things have only gotten uglier. I thought being a powerful Bratva boss’ prisoner was bad.
Being his hostage on the run is looking to be much, much worse.
Nikita must be able to tell I’m lost in worried thoughts, because he lowers me gently to the ground, draws a deep breath, and gives me the benefit of an explanation.
“They wouldn’t be the only ones we would have to worry about if I called the police. Every other family would be after our heads. They all have contacts on the force, and they smell blood in the water. It’d be like sending up a flare to let everyone know where we are.”
I furrow my brow. I was always taught to find a cop if you’re in trouble. Coming to grips with the realization that they’re as dirty as the mob is a struggle for me. I cross my arms across my chest, wincing once again at the pain in my feet. Think, Annie, think, I tell myself. I’m smart, and Nikita is the king of the city—or at least, he used to be. We can get out of this.
“Okay, so what’s the plan then? You do have a plan, don’t you?”
He rakes his fingers through his hair and closes his eyes. And just like that, my heart falls. This whole time—from the moment Nikita noticed that the music had stopped on the terrace—I thought that it would be just another test of Nikita’s control over his world, a test he would pass with flying colors. He’s been unstoppable since the second I first laid eyes on him in the club. Unyielding. Like a mountain against the storm.
But this look in his eyes is a sign of something different. It wouldn’t be fair to call it fear. I don’t think a man like Nikita even knows what fear truly is. But it’s something similar, a cousin of fear—desperation, maybe. He wasn’t ready for this. And he knows the stakes of the games he plays. It doesn’t take much for me to understand them, either. We might very well die tonight. Because he doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t know what to do or where to go.
And that’s the scariest thing that’s happened yet.
Seconds tick by and he doesn’t say anything. Maybe I should just run. Maybe I’ll have a better chance of surviving on my own. He’s the target, after all; I’m just an innocent bystander. Right?
“Let’s just get in the car,” he finally says and gestures to a nondescript black sedan parallel parked a few spots down.
He helps me limp over to the passenger side and struggle into the seat. I throw my bag in the back as Nikita comes around the other side and clambers in.
“Seat belt,” he says.
I almost laugh, but he isn’t kidding. If things weren’t so grim, I’d find this a lot funnier. He raises an eyebrow as he looks at me expectantly and waits for me to follow orders—almost like a dad with a feisty daughter. It’s so unlike him and almost ... cute? Protective, caring. Not qualities I’m used to seeing in him. “Are you serious?” I ask.
“Better to die by the gun than flying through a windshield.”
The moment of cuteness passes and I remember once again where we are and what we’re fleeing from. I gulp and do as he says.
Satisfied, Nikita turns the key and the ignition starts. He pulls out his phone and thumbs through messages but doesn’t make a call. When he’s done, he powers it off and removes the battery. “They can track it,” he says by way of explanation.
I shudder. These mob types have far more power than I ever realized before.
The neighborhood outside is dark and quiet. Nothing moves, nothing stirs. Nikita slides out of the parking spot, but before he can even straighten out, two cars screech around the corner, tires squealing, and stop in front of us.
> They’ve found us.
Headlights shine in our direction, blinding us from seeing the driver or any other possible passengers. But the unmistakable click of doors cuts through the air. It sounds weirdly ominous.
For a moment, everything is silent. Then the world explodes.
“Get down!” Nikita shouts. He reaches across the console and shoves my head low just as bullets rain through the windshield. Glass splinters in a million directions, peppering my scalp like tiny needles. Nikita smashes the gas pedal and the tires screech against the asphalt. We careen into one of the enemy vehicles, but manage to slide through the gap and move down the street.
With one hand on the wheel, Nikita uses the other hand to grab a gun from his belt and fire out the broken driver’s side window at the cars pursuing us. The shots come rapid-fire, one after the next. It’s enough to keep the enemy shooters at bay, until I hear the metallic cough of the empty clip catching against the trigger.
“Fuck,” he growls. “Annie, grab another clip from my bag.”
I reach into the backpack on the floor in front of me and do as he says, handing over the metal sleeve with fresh bullets. He grabs it from me and reloads before sending another round of ammunition in the direction of the cars behind us. We’re whipping around corners, clipping parked cars, swerving all over the road as Nikita alternates between looking ahead and aiming behind.
A hard right, a sharp left, we’re flying now, doing sixty or seventy miles per hour in a crowded residential district. Thank God it’s nighttime, or else we’d have a dozen dead pedestrians smeared across the front bumper already.
But no matter how fast we go, the men behind us stay close. Their bullets fly near, their whine like deadly bees zipping past my ears. Occasionally, one hits the frame of the car and lodges there. I try to stay low and keep my heart from bursting out of my rib cage.
We bowl through another intersection. Nikita is down to the last couple bullets of this clip. He fires one and manages to hit the tire of one of the cars behind us. I look over my shoulder and see the driver struggling to keep it aimed straight as he fishtails all over the breadth of the road.
But when I turn back around to face the front, I scream.
A man with a hot dog cart is idling his way across the crosswalk. Our headlights catch his face and reflect off the wide, terrified whites of his eyeballs.
“Nikita!”
He looks up, sees the cart, and cranks the steering wheel hard to the right. For a brief moment, it feels like we’re flying. There are at least two wheels off the ground.
Then we smash down with a heavy crunch and an angry retort from the car’s suspension. We’re on the sidewalk now, tearing down branches of bushes and trees that drape over the low wall separating the apartment complexes from the street. Leaves and bits of wood fly in through the shattered windows, stinging my face. A loud bang on my side of the car sounds when we clip a mailbox.
Nikita sees an opening and twists us back onto the road, narrowly avoiding a pair of midnight dog walkers who look like they might’ve peed themselves at the unexpected sight of a sedan barreling down the city sidewalk with bullet holes in the windshield.
I look behind us. The pursuers aren’t visible. Did we lose them? I’m cautiously optimistic. Stay calm, I remind myself. This is just a bad dream. I want to click my heels like Dorothy, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.
Nikita checks the mirrors repeatedly and continues to take as unpredictable a route as possible. Left, right, straight, down an alley and out again onto a main drag, lit by harsh streetlamps. “Stay low,” he orders. He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
I slink low in my seat and bring my knees up to my chest as if they’re a shield that will protect me. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in real life. Shootouts and car chases are for action movies, not for the city where I grew up. And yet, here I am, with the bullet holes in the windshield and the terror coursing through my veins to prove that this is all far too real.
But for now, it seems like the worst has passed us. The night is quiet again, aside from the occasional groan from the beat-up metal exterior of the car. God only knows what we’ve run over or through in our mad dash from the safe house. I find myself thinking about how much it will cost to hammer out all the dents, and I have to catch myself and wonder why I’m focusing on such a ridiculous detail. I should be worried about surviving, not ding repair.
“Goddammit,” Nikita snarls under his breath.
In the side mirror, a set of angry headlights has reappeared, not too close behind us but gaining speed fast. The sharp ping of a bullet slicing through metal and glass explodes inside the cabin once more. Nikita presses down on the gas pedal. We lurch forward, back to top speed. We’re approaching a Y-shaped intersection that I’m familiar with. The right-hand lane leads back into the grid of the city. The center takes us onto a highway, one that’s sure to be busy, even at this time of night. And the far left is an exit ramp of traffic flowing in the opposite direction. Surely ...
Nikita accelerates again and takes us into the left, oncoming lane.
I scream wordlessly, white-knuckling the center console, as the cacophony of pissed-off drivers erupts around us. Nikita growls through clenched teeth as we dodge left, right, left, into the bare shoulder of the road, back in the middle again. Headlights glare into our bullet-riddled cabin, with shouted curses flitting in from the cars we’re barely missing as they stream past us.
The enemy car behind us keeps up, though thankfully the bullets have stopped for now. My head is on a swivel, looking ahead and behind. There’s danger in every direction, but Nikita handles the wheel expertly, narrowly avoiding a collision every moment. Spying an opening, he cuts across three lanes. Our enemies are right behind us.
Time slows to a crawl. I see the semitruck coming from the left-hand side before Nikita does, but there’s nothing either of us can do. We’re committed now, helplessly in the hands of gravity and inertia. Either it hits us and we die, or it misses and we live. It’s that simple.
I hold my breath as our vehicle glides through the gap. A space of no more than an inch or two separates us from getting clipped by the eighteen-wheeler.
We make it.
Our enemies are not so lucky.
The sound of the massive truck T-boning them is a scream of metal. Sparks fly through the smoke of destroyed engines and the stench of rubber melting on concrete. Watching over my shoulder, I see the momentum of the eighteen-wheeler drive the sedan into the concrete barrier separating lanes of the highway. There’s another sickening crunch, and then everything stops.
But we keep going, swept away in the flow of traffic heading out of the city. The scene of terror recedes behind us, becoming smaller and smaller, until a bend in the highway hides it from sight. The only sounds now are the whispered wind streaming through bullet holes and the ragged pant of my own breath.
“Those poor people,” I say.
“They were trying to kill us,” Nikita says.
“Not them,” I whisper. “The innocent ones.”
Nikita re-grips the steering wheel. “No one is innocent,” he says in a strange tone. I’m not sure if he’s even talking to me, but it doesn’t really matter. Instead, he continues to speed down the highway.
Neither of us talks for a long time.
***
I can barely see the city lights in the distance behind us anymore. The traffic has dissipated for the most part, filtering out into the various veins of highway that lead into the heart of the suburbs. We keep going. Skyscrapers become strip malls become housing sub-developments and eventually are reduced to the scrubby forest lining the highway. The steady hum of the engine is like a lullaby. At some point, I’m not sure when, I fall asleep.
“Annie, wake up.”
I open my eyes to find Nikita gently shaking my shoulder. We’re stopped on the side of the road now. Outside the window, mountains stretch up to stab into the night sky. They domina
te the dark horizon every which way I look. The range is high to the west and low to the east, curling at the end like a tail.
I blink the sleep out of my eyes. Silence fills the car like a heavy cloud. The fear that had gripped me from the moment the soldiers had appeared on the terrace is gone now. No more panic firing like a cluster of spark plugs in my abdomen. No more tension seizing hold of my limbs. My breathing is low and slow, and the only sensation in my body is an overwhelming ache, tinged at the edge by a hint of pain lingering in my feet.
Nikita remains silent so all I hear is my breath. He doesn’t look at me, just stares straight out ahead into the night.
I turn to Nikita. “You think we made the news?” I ask.
He looks back at me, that familiar stern arrogance wrinkling his brow. He appears to consider my question seriously for a moment. Then, to my surprise, he bursts out laughing.
It catches me off-guard. Since the second I entered his company, he has been powerful, in control, deadly serious. But the last few hours have been the exact opposite—he’s been a man running for his life, unsure of how this will all play out. And somehow, my question made him laugh.
I didn’t mean it as a joke. Part of me is curious if our high-speed chase will end up on the TV. Maybe deep down, I’m hoping the cameras caught my image so that my friends and family know where I am. That they’ll inform the cops of my identity and that I need help.
But Nikita is laughing, and soon, I am, too. It’s the kind of laugh, half desperate and half overwhelmed, that starts suddenly and doesn’t end soon. We’re laughing and laughing and laughing, until we’re clutching our sides and tears are pouring down our faces. The crickets in the night and the occasional whizz of a passing car fill in the gaps when we finally stop to draw breath.
A voice in the back of my head wonders what the hell has happened to my life. I’m in a bullet-ridden car, miles outside of the city, with a powerful Russian mob boss who says he owns me—and we’re laughing like it’s been a grand old adventure, a real knee-slapper of a time. What’s wrong with me?