by Nicole Fox
Eventually, we calm down again. I use the hem of my dress to wipe the tear tracks from my face. Nikita coughs and composes himself again.
“Too late at night, I think,” he says, answering my question. “Maybe there’ll be something in the morning.”
I nod. Then I realize suddenly how hungry I am. I reach into the back and grab the bag containing some food. Thank God the safe house had cookies. I grab the box and open them, shoving two into my mouth, not caring how bedraggled I look. I offer Nikita some but he just stares straight ahead. “You sure you don’t want one?”
“I’m good.”
I chew for a couple of moments, then swallow and pick out another cookie from the tray. “I’ve never been through anything like that before.”
Nikita glances my way. “Did you check yourself? Did a bullet hit you?”
“I ... I don’t think so.”
He presses his lips tight together and does a quick scan of my body. “Check. With all the adrenaline, you might not feel it right away.” There’s a caring tone in his voice that I’m not used to.
I put the cookies down and run my hands up my legs, over my torso, and down my arms. Nothing. Only tiny beads of glass cover me. I gently wipe them off. “I’m good. What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
I grab two bottles of water from the back and offer him one after I unscrew the top. He takes it and sucks down all the liquid without coming up for air and then tosses the empty bottle into the back. “Thank you.”
I smile meekly and shove another cookie in my mouth. “If it wasn’t for the bullets, I would almost say the car chase was kind of fun.”
“Excuse me?”
I take a sip of my water before continuing. “When I was really young, I used to watch action movies with my dad. Anything with a car chase would do. We’d watch them, then go running around the backyard, him chasing me so I could pretend I was the one escaping.” It’s a memory I haven’t thought of in a long time. Easy summer evenings, cicadas humming, my dad making vrooming noises as he chased me left and right, circling everywhere, until he’d finally snatch me up in his arms, squealing and giggling. I still remember what he smelled like. That was back before all the nightmares began.
“Who would’ve thought: the little bird is a closet speed demon.”
I quirk my brow. “‘Little bird’?”
Nikita looks uncomfortable suddenly, like he said something he didn’t mean to let slip. “Never mind,” he says gruffly. He looks down at the cookies in my hand. “I changed my mind. Can I have a cookie before you eat the entire package?”
His smile is infectious. I grin and place three in his hand. He chews thoughtfully. When he’s finished, he nods like he’s arrived at a decision.
“All right,” he says. “Time to go.”
“Where?”
He points. I follow his finger to the top of the mountain.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Up there?”
“Yes.”
“But ... why?”
He sighs with the exasperation of someone answering questions from a child. “The men following us will have radioed in a description of the car and the direction we were headed. It’ll take them time to cover the distance, but make no mistake—they’re coming to finish what they started.”
I swallow hard. I shudder to think what will happen if we get caught. I hope I never have to find out. “Okay,” I say. “So we walk?”
“Yes. Ditch the car, hide it, disappear until I can figure out what to do next.”
I try to put on a brave face. What he’s saying makes sense, but it’s not exactly what I was hoping for. I look into the shadows of the trees clustered close together off to my right. That’s where we’re headed. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Nikita opens his door and gets out, grabbing his bags from the back seat as he does. I follow suit. But when my feet hit the dirt below, I wince, my body tensing from pain. I clutch the door in an attempt to alleviate the pressure from my feet. Nikita hears me hiss and comes around the front of the car. He wraps an arm around me and lowers me back into the seat.
“We need to walk, but I need to take a look at your feet first,” he says as he gingerly removes the sneakers I threw on in our blind panic at the safe house.
The insoles are soaked in blood which has begun to dry, so when he peels them off it’s as if he’s also ripping new scabs away. I can’t help but cry out. While he doesn’t look up, I notice the way his face contorts and the way his thumb rubs gentle circles against my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I say, unsure as to why I’m apologizing.
He sighs and stands. “Where’s the bag with the supplies you took?”
“In the back.”
He opens the rear door and searches through the bag, returning with peroxide and gauze. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “This isn’t going to be pleasant.”
I brace myself as he squirts the peroxide onto my feet. But nothing prepares me for the burning sting. There’s hardly any skin left on my soles, and the peroxide is ruthless in seeking out every raw nerve ending and lighting it on fire. I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut to try to block out the pain as Nikita uses the gauze to pat at the cuts and pulls some pebbles from my wounds with a pair of tweezers.
When he’s done, he wraps clean gauze over the tender skin and slips the shoes back onto my feet. I think of Cinderella at the ball and laugh inwardly. I’m no princess, this is no fairy tale, and the man kneeling before me is the farthest thing from Prince Charming that there is on this planet.
Except, maybe not.
There’s a gentleness to his movements that I’d never noticed before, and the worry wrinkling his brow seems genuine. I think back to our frenzied romp on the table of the terrace and blush. Thankfully, he can’t see me in the darkness. I force myself to think of something else—I’m not ready to process that particular memory yet.
“Thank you,” I say as I gently lower myself to the ground.
The pain is still present, especially after the peroxide, but at least I won’t have to worry about an infection anytime soon. He hands me a couple of painkillers to take.
“Where are we?” I ask, slinging one of the bags over my shoulder.
“I used to come here with my father. We should be safe here for the night, but I have to ditch the car. Gino’s men will be looking for it.”
“Won’t they know to search here if we abandon the car?”
“Yes.” Nikita empties all the bags and supplies from the car. “That’s why I’m going to run it into there.”
I turn to see where he’s pointing and realize there’s a small lake I hadn’t noticed before. More of a retention pond, actually, just a man-made hole to collect water, but it seems deep enough to conceal the car, at least while it’s still dark.
My jaw drops when I realize what he’s intending to do, but Nikita is already swinging into action before I can even protest. He’s behind the wheel again, with the driver’s door swung open. He cranks the wheel around until the nose of the car is pointed at the lake, then guns it forward.
“Nikita!” I cry out involuntarily. I see a flash of movement. He dives out of the car moments before it crashes into the still surface of the water. He hits the ground and rolls in an elegant tumble.
By the time he’s regained his feet, the car is filling with dark lake water and bubbling as it sinks. I stand in place, horrified. He comes up to me nonchalantly, brushing dirt from his clothes. When he’s within reach, I slap him across the face.
“Don’t do that again,” I snap.
He looks stunned, and I don’t blame him. I’m not entirely sure where that impulse came from. It’s certainly not something I would’ve done even this morning. But right now, all I could think about was watching him drown, and for some reason that terrified me.
To my surprise, he looks embarrassed. “Sorry,” he mutters. I can only sigh in response.
/> We watch as the car disappears below the surface. When it’s gone, Nikita picks up his bag from where he set it on the ground before sinking the vehicle. “We need to get moving,” he says. I follow his lead as we forge into the trees standing sentinel at the edge of the forest.
The path ahead is loose rock, each one washed smooth by the river that brought them down from the mountain peak. Thickly dark green boughs arch over the path from each side. It winds ahead smooth and level at first, but soon it becomes narrow, steep, and rocky. Each footfall costs me more strength. I try hard to ignore the pain throbbing in my feet.
“You came up here with your father?” I ask.
Nikita pulls himself up over a fallen stump then turns and offers me a hand to help me over as well. “Yes, it was our annual trip before he died.”
We continue on. Nikita knows where to step as if he’s traversed this exact path billions of times. He knows when to help me and guides me where to step. Even in the darkness, this is second nature to him. In some places, the path grows wide where the soil is soft and we quicken our pace to almost a jog, and then it narrows in the rocky passes. Sometimes the path is no more than a faint suggestion in the dirt.
It’s one of these times when we stop that I notice Nikita is bleeding again from the bullet graze on his shoulder. I grab the bag from him and take out the peroxide and gauze.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re bleeding,” I say as I rip one of the holes in his shirt a bit wider.
“I’m fine.”
I meet his gaze. “Don’t care. You took care of me, so now I’m returning the favor, whether you like it or not.”
He sits back and lets me tend to his wounds. But there isn’t enough gauze to wrap around the deepest graze, so I grab the pocketknife from the bag and cut off a piece of the sweatpants I’m wearing to use as a makeshift bandage.
Nikita tracks my movements. I’m not sure if he’s worried I might stab him or if he’s impressed I’m taking care of him. That’s one thing I’m starting to hate about him—that emotionless mask he wears. Every time I think I’m getting a glimpse of the man behind the walls, he throws them up again before I can be sure. He’s a frustrating enigma.
I tuck the blade back into its sheath and return the multitool to the bag. Then I take the material I’ve cut and wrap it around his wound.
“Done,” I say after securing the material around his arm.
Nikita nods and stands. “Let’s go. We still have a long way to climb.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nikita
I sigh and my shoulders slouch as I stare off into the distance. This place ... it’s so beautiful and serene. Just like I remembered. My eyes wander along the small hills to the valleys, following the dry creek beds my father and I used to camp next to. How many times did I stand on this very ledge with him? My father used to breathe in the fresh air, puffing out his chest as we gazed at the jagged peaks of the mountains. And something always stirred deep inside of me, a satisfied feeling I couldn’t place or name.
Tonight, it’s different. I exhale slowly, my breath clouding from the frigid temperature. I feel hollow, worn out, like a dishrag used too many times. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel this way. I can’t remember the last time I felt anything at all, really.
Until Annie.
I’m aware of her in a way I’ve never felt with anyone else. Not just in tune with her feelings, with every sharp intake of breath or every awkward purse of her lips—though I feel those things as if they were happening to me. But I’m aware of her as I’m aware of myself. Her pain is my pain. Her exhaustion is my exhaustion. Her fear runs in me like it was my own, though it has been years since I was truly afraid of anything. I can’t explain it and I don’t like it, this sudden expansion of awareness that has taken me over.
I look over my shoulder to make sure she’s okay. Sure enough, she’s hoisting herself over a fallen tree and heading in my direction, grimacing with each step. What I wouldn’t give to take her pain away.
“Nikita, wait up. It’s dark and I don’t know the area as well as you do. I don’t want to get lost,” Annie says from behind.
“Take your time. Just trying to figure out what direction to head in.” I face forward and scan our surroundings. There was a place my father and I would camp out at when we came up this way: our secret hiding place, tucked away from the well-trodden main path, safe from all but those who already know where it is. I’m hoping it will keep Annie and me safe for the night.
“There should be a clearing to our left. It’s hidden from the trail.”
“Lead the way,” Annie says as she climbs the rest of the way to meet me.
I stop and study her for a moment as she approaches. Her hair is long and ragged, strewn with sticks and leaves from the hike up. I’ve chosen the less-traveled route wherever I think she’ll be able to handle it. Anything to hide our tracks from would-be pursuers. There is a weary slant to her shoulders and sweat is beaded on her upper lip despite the chill in the air. For a wild moment, I imagine kissing it away. Then the thought passes like a fever dream, and I remember once again where we are and what we are running from.
“You’ve handled yourself well tonight.”
“Because I had a choice,” she replies sarcastically.
“Few of us ever do.”
Apparently, it was the wrong thing to say. I can see a sudden clench in her jaw, a tightness in her fists.
“You had a choice,” she snaps. “You chose to drag me into this. And what’s happened since? Nothing I chose, that’s for sure. Bullets aimed for me, blood everywhere, the ambush on the terrace, a midnight car chase with our lives on the line, my feet scraped completely raw, and now this mad dash up a mountain in the godforsaken dark ... Would you like me to continue?”
“Earlier, you said it was thrilling.”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” she says. “Please tell me that’s a joke.” It’s dark, but I can still see the fire gleaming in her eyes, catching the moonlight and throwing it at me like a taunt, like a schoolyard dare.
“Would you prefer if I had left you on the terrace?”
“I’d prefer if you had left me to my old life, which I very much enjoyed, actually. Before I knew who you were or that any of this existed.” She throws a hand in the air at “any of this” and I know exactly what she’s referring to.
She means my life. My world. The empire my family has cultivated for generations, humming just under the surface of the city everyone thinks they know. But no one really knows it like I do. And once you learn what exists—how far it reaches, how ugly and depraved it is, run by dons like me and beasts like Gino—there is no going back. Annie knows that. Even if we make it out of here alive and Annie returns to her old life, it won’t matter. The knowledge that I exist has changed her for good. She can never truly return.
And she hates me for it.
But I still can’t shake the memory of her thrown across the dining table on the terrace, writhing and moaning. The soft swell of her lips against mine, the heat of her skin, the timbre of her begging whimpers. The thought alone gets me hard and makes my heart clench in an unexpected way.
I feel so many things attached to this woman, standing across from me with her hands on her hips, jutted out angrily. Responsibility and protectiveness and lust and fury at her constant insubordination. Why will she not just lie down and obey my orders, like everyone else in my life? Why will she not just do as I say? At every turn and in every way, she fights back, pushing at me, testing my limits. And yet, I can’t find it in me to get angry and stay there. Over and over again, I come back to the same thought:
She is different than the rest.
Even now, in this moment, I’d kill her if she were someone else. No one talks to me the way she is doing and goes unpunished. I’ve spent my life building up a reputation as a ruthless mob boss, and all it takes is one petite accounting student to unravel all of it. So, as much as one voi
ce in my head is screaming at me to make her pay for her sass, I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’m responsible for her. And I have to make things right. Even if she still hates me when all is said and done. Even if I was wrong about the random tender moments I thought we were sharing—bandaging her feet, laughing in the car. I must protect her, even if we are to part ways later and never see each other again.
I try to tell her all that with one look, because the words running through my head don’t seem to capture the weight of my remorse, of the responsibility I feel I’m bearing. So many things have changed in the last few days, but the walls I’ve erected around myself are still too tall to surmount. Sharing my thoughts out loud would mean turning my back on the legacy I’ve bled and sweated to create. So I can only look at her and hope she understands.
She crosses her arms and huffs. “Well? Anything to say for yourself?” Her words are angry, but her eyes are searching my face, trying to figure me out.
I cast my eyes down at the trail. “Let’s keep moving,” I say. “We’re not safe yet.”
The forest is dark and foreboding, but there is peace in its sullen ambience. I wonder how my father ever came to find the place where we’re headed. My eyes flicker over the thick, dark trunks of the trees that rise steadily into the sky, branches interlocking with their neighbors like giants’ arms linked together, protecting their home. The trees are densely packed together, leaving just enough space for Annie and me to maneuver through. I press my palm against the rough bark, and breathe in the scent of the forest. The musty scent of leaves after rainfall, the warm soil packed against the earth by scurrying animals, the scent of things in different stages of blooming and growth. The smell of life.
We round a crook in the path. Suddenly, behind me, I hear the tch-tch-tch of wood splintering. I whirl around, senses on high alert.
In an instant, I process everything, as if time had slowed to a crawl. Annie is on all fours, maneuvering up the steep, gravelly path. The heavy tree branch over her head is on its last few threads keeping it hoisted up against the trunk. There are mere seconds, maybe less, before it tumbles to the ground. It’s at least twice as thick as her. She’ll be pinned beneath it, probably hurt, possibly killed.