In the rear-view mirror, I see the car in the back looking half-melted around the telephone pole, smoke rising from it, and I turn my attention back to the front, where I realize Will is taking the nearest road off into the forest, onto a dirt path leading through thick foliage.
My face sours into a grimace. This isn’t an accident — I’m driving right into whatever they have planned, and I know it. But I’m going to press on.
I’ve taken a bullet for a student I hardly know. For Liv, I’d give my life.
For a moment, I see her in the back of the car, and my heart leaps into my throat. I want to blow out the brains of every man in that car with her, and I will. But one wrong shot, one slight movement at the wrong time could make the unthinkable happen, so I have to stay my weapon. My blood boils as I see the man holding her down bring his hand across her face, though, and I raise my weapon and let out a shot that takes off the left side-mirror. I can almost feel Will flinch, and it gives me a special pleasure.
Then the man in the back leans out the side window with an Uzi in hand, and I nearly have to drive off the road to avoid the spray of bullets that flies out. We drive towards a pair of thick trees, and I brace myself to go off-road when the man is suddenly jerked back into the car, and I realize Liv has got a hold of them, and they’re grappling in the backseat.
My whole body tenses at the sight, fraught with concern for her. I’ve started to train her well, but if she angers the men too much, I wouldn’t put it past them to do something drastic before reaching their destination. I’m so concerned with the sight that I don’t fully notice his sudden acceleration, and it’s too late when I notice the man by the side of the road rolling a small, round, metal object into the road in front of me.
I feel fire under me as the grenade goes off below the car, glass shattering all around and smoke and dirt billowing up in every direction as my ears are deafened to a harsh ringing. Bits and pieces of the car go flying, and the driver’s side door is lost, leaving the smoke-filled air to fan the flames within the vehicle as I charge forward.
In truth, the pain hardly registers with me. I feel it like a thought in the back of my mind, but I’m so driven by adrenaline towards my goal. Up ahead, I have just enough time to see Will’s car coming to a halt before another grenade goes off in front of me, sending up another wave of smoke and dirt, and the sound of metal clinking tells me bullets are peppering the vehicle like a thousand angry wasps, and there’s a burning sensation under my feet.
26
Liv
I hear the second explosion go off, but the brute on top of me has his knee on the back of mine, and he’s pinning my arms behind my back, pressing my face into the seat, and I all I can do is feel my heart leap into my throat again.
“Much better,” I hear Will’s insufferably cruel voice say, and that pushes me over the edge. Feeling the slightest slack in the henchman’s grip, I wrench my arms free the way Max taught me how, and in a flash, I push myself up, and an elbow shoots back to smack the man in the mouth, and I feel teeth crack under the blow as he howls and I turn my eyes to the rear window.
I wish I hadn’t.
Out of the smoke, I watch Max’s car roll forward, the once-splendid vehicle we’d planned to drive away to a new life inside, coasting across the French countryside away from all this terror. Instead, I watch it sputter forward, smoke billowing from every opening, and as we come to a stop, the men who’d been hiding in the forest on the sides of the road step out, guns blazing as they riddle the sides, the back, and the front with bullets.
I let out a scream, tears streaming down my eyes as I slam my fist into the rear window, not even caring that the ogre-like man beside me is pinning my arms again. I can’t even feel the pain compared to the sight of Max’s car, and visions of what he must look like inside flash in front of my mind’s eye unbidden. I clench my eyes and look away, tears stinging terribly.
It isn’t fair. This can’t be real. This isn’t real. Absurdly, I become vaguely aware that I’m still in my wedding dress, half-torn and filthy by now. This was supposed to be the best day of my life, a day I’d dreamed about since I was a little girl, even if I’d never imagined it taking place in such a place as this.
This whole time has been a kind of dream turned nightmare. And just when I think Max had woken me from the nightmare and brought me back into the real world, into my real life, I just slipped back into the depths, getting dragged down as I watch my last glimmer of hope get gunned to pieces on a dirt road in the woods.
My mind flits to everyone back at the wedding. Did the bastards take anyone else? Oh god, what about Maggie? She saw them all again, she saw Will, she relived the trauma. Was she okay? What if they took her? Could she stand the pain of being plunged into darkness all over again?
Then there’s a third explosion, and as Will laughs, I realize one of the shots must have hit the car’s gas tank, as I open my eyes and see the car hitting the ground with a metallic thud a moment later, upside-down.
There’s a tug at my hair, then a sudden jerk as Will pulls me close to him, his hands forcing me to look at the burning remains of the car.
“Take a good look, ma chérie,” he taunts me, “I don’t want you getting the wrong impression. Maksim Pavlenko is somewhere in there — or at least, bits and pieces of him are.”
I hate myself so much for having ever trusted Will, for having ever come close to letting myself feel attracted to this devil wearing human skin.
“What are you?” I say through choked sobs as Will strokes my hair. I want to kill him. I want so dearly to break that snide nose of his and toss him into the inferno along with the love of my life. I want so much, but I can do so little.
“Merely a man,” says Will, purring the words into my ear as I try to pull away. He glances to the man with me in the back, and he nods to him out the door. “Take a hold of her and get out. Confirm the bastard’s death.”
I’m pulled out into the smoky air, the smell of the burning car and gunshots mingling toxically with the otherwise pleasant scents of the French countryside in autumn. This is the kind of place bikers come careening through, or lovers come walking. I might have come here with Max one day, walking hand in hand with him without the faintest care in the world. Never in my darkest nightmares would I have imagined knowing such a forest as a place of death.
I try to pull part of my dress back up over my shoulder to cover myself. My shoes are long gone, and my captor’s sweaty hands have stained my ensemble. He yanks me with him as Will gets out and spreads his arms out wide, beaming. Men are stepping out of the woods now, guns pointed at the burning remains of the car as the shooting finally stops.
“I should say, Olivia,” Will says as the men approach the car and he turns to face me, stepping forward with a smile, “I’m genuinely sorry you became so personally involved in this business.” He reaches out and takes my chin in his hand the way Max used to, and I want to bite his fucking fingers off, but my face is swollen from crying and I can only stare into those heartless eyes.
“You know nothing about human caring,” I spit at him.
“Me? I know more than anyone here,” he practically hisses back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Do you think it’s for the money that I work with all these Chechens? Well, partly, but I find in them a lot of empathy in their hatred of the Russians, particularly of these Russian assassins.” Will flashes a quick smile to the man holding me, who nods back curtly. “But I must say, Liv,” Will goes on with a sigh, looking me up and down with ravenous eyes, “you do look lovely in your wedding gown, so it would be a shame to let you go through the whole day without the comfort of a man. Maybe I will be your groom instead? You seemed to be keen on that when we first met,” he says with a silky smile, and I want to burst with fury, my jaw clenched. “But I should introduce myself properly, first. My name is Guillaume Bouchard, and my brother Jean was murdered by a Russian pig, just like your late fiancé,” he growls, clenching his fist as he shoots a glare b
ack at my lover’s fiery grave.
The men near the car, poking around different parts of it, and one of them holds up a burnt jacket —the tuxedo jacket Max was wearing. I’m unable to hold back another wave of tears, my head hanging.
“Fuck you,” I sob, “fuck you, fuck you.” I try to come up with something more biting, but I’ve had to be strong against these men so long that I feel utterly spent. Will — Guillaume — frowns, rolling his eyes at me.
“Stupid girl. You really are in love with him, aren’t you? Well, maybe your love for the Russian has ruined you for me. It’s a shame. I was looking forward to letting you live, but I see he’s made you far too much of a liability. So before you go thinking this is something personal on your part, dear Olivia,” he says, stroking my chin before taking his pistol out and pointing it at my head as my eyes focus on the barrel, my short life flashing before my eyes, “You can blame Mother Russia.”
A gunshot splits the air, and for a second, I wonder if this is what death feels like. Silent and like all the air has been sucked out of the world.
But then Will spins around, eyes wide, as one of his men near the car falls to the ground, dead. Shouts in Russian ring out in the forest, and men start taking cover as a firefight breaks out by the ruins of the car, and Will swears, ducking. The man holding my arms back jerks me to the side as he takes cover, but my heart jumps as I see a glimpse of something in the forest beyond the smoke, a tall, dark-haired figure, clothes half-burnt off and smoke staining his face, his piercing eyes unmistakable.
“Max!” I cry out, my lungs unable to contain the joy welling up in me.
“Kill the bastard!” Will barks hoarsely, aiming his pistol and taking a few shots into the woods where my lover disappeared. “A half-mill to the man who lands the killing shot!”
Immediately, the men seem emboldened, and bullets spray the trees, but two more thuds signal the deaths of two more of the Mafiosi. The men are looking around wildly, not even sure where the shots are coming from now. Before they can react, I watch a man standing in front of a fallen log get yanked behind it with a shout, and there’s another gunshot before Max leaps from cover, firing the dead man’s Uzi into the crowd of shooters by the car. His tuxedo shirt is mostly burned off, but his face is unscathed, fury in his eyes as he guns the men down. Then his eyes meet mine.
A thousand words could have passed silently between us in that split second. I forgive him for letting me think he was dead before he could apologize for having to torment my heart so. He tells me how much he loved me and that I was unharmed. We tell each other how dearly we wanted to put these wretched men down, permanently. All that in a look.
The brute holding me pulls me close, holding his gun up in Max’s direction, but before he can even aim the gun, Max draws another pistol from his side, the same weapon he used to save me from the apartment, and I hear the bullet whiz past my head as it lands true in the gunman’s throat, and his grip on me slackens as I recoil and he hits the ground.
More gunshots as the remaining men react. I can hear the screams of the Chechens as Max dashes through the smoke of the car again, and for a moment I see him flash past the trees, taking on one of the men with his bare hands.
Gathering my bearings, I reach down to pick up the weapon of the dead man at my feet, and my hands nearly wrap around the handle of the gun when I feel a strong grip on the back of my dress that yanks me up, and before I can react, I feel cold steel on my temple as Will wraps his arm around my neck and stands me up, and his pistol cocks.
“Pavlenko!” he roars, and in an instant, the forest falls silent, save for the rustling of the leaves in a gentle breeze. The wind parts the smoke, and I see Max less than ten feet away, pistol raised to Will, all the rest of the Chechens dead on the forest floor all around us. “Put. The weapon. Down,” Will growls. I don’t need to look at him to feel his wide, wild eyes, truly on the edge of doing something drastic.
I can see Max recognizing that look. “Max,” I whisper, but Will tightens his grip at my throat.
“Quiet, bitch,” he hushes me, and Max tenses. “Alright, assassin, weapon on the ground now, or I’ll decorate the woods with this cunt’s brains.”
Max looks ready to shoot, but Will’s finger is on the trigger, his voice steady, his hands not shaking. But is he willing to take that chance?
“Now, Pavlenko!” Will barks, and finally, Max nods, taking his hand off the trigger and holding the gun out in front of him, slowly setting it on the forest floor. “Everything else,” Will says, and Max turns around slowly, displaying the two more pistols he has strapped to his back. My heart sinking, I watch him do the same with those, then the knife on his leg, and the pistol on the other leg, and the smoke grenades in his pockets before he raises his hands and puts them on the back of his head.
“I’m yours, Will,” Max says calmly, his voice as even as if he were chatting casually with me. “Release Liv, and I’ll come with you. It’s me you want more, after all, isn’t it? I can think of a lot of people who have a high price on my head.”
“I was going to kill you,” Will says, “but perhaps you’ll have better uses. Bitch,” Will addresses me, giving me a squeeze, “I’m going to let you go and turn the gun on your Russian lover-boy. Then you’re going to walk far away and get a cab to wherever the fuck you want. Call the police, they won’t catch us.”
Max nods significantly to me, and I take a deep breath before I nod my head a little, the metal of the gun barrel still pushing into my skin. “Okay, Will. Okay.”
Next thing I know, Will shoves me to the ground roughly, and he starts to step forward to Max, pistol now turned on him. My hand tightens around the torn dress draped over my thigh. Then it slides the dress up, and my fingers wrap around the knife in my garter.
The motion is quick and fluid. I draw the blade, leaping to my feet and diving for Will, and before he can turn around, eyes wide, I drive the blade with all my strength into the side of his head, and as his reflexes fire the gun wildly into the forest, his balance gives out, and his weight carries him to the ground, the blade lodged in his head breaking off the knife as Guillaume Bouchard hits the dirt, dead.
I let the handle slip from my fingers as I turn to meet Max, who’s rushing forward to catch me in his arms as we melt into one another, his strong muscles lifting me off my feet and swinging me around as he squeezes me tight into that strong, comforting grip.
“Oh my god,” I sob into his chest, “oh my god, Max, I thought I’d lost you.”
“Liv,” he says back, his own voice choked with joy as he sets me back down and looks into my tear-stained eyes, “it’s over, Liv, truly over. He’s gone, my love.”
“How did you-”
“I leaped from the car before the gunmen started firing,” he said, “into the ditch, then dashed to the forest. I killed one of the men I landed near and started from there.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Only that your wedding day was ruined, lyubov moya.”
A smile tugs at my face involuntarily, and I hug him back as hard as I can, meeting his lips for a kiss. “Alongside you, Max, no day can be ruined.”
We look at each other a long time, our hearts sailing together out of the darkest storm of our lives, and even in the smoke-filled forest, tattered and battered, for the first time in so, so long, we share in each other’s peace. “Come on,” he finally says, his voice low. “Let’s get out of here.”
I glance back at Will’s car, by now a shot-up mess. “I’m not sure bullet holes are street legal in France.”
“No,” Max admits, glancing at the road behind us, then flashing me a coyly raised eyebrow, “but didn’t you mention wanting to take a walk through the French woods some time?”
My smile broadens, and I burst into laughter, punching him playfully in the side of the arm before giving a yelp as he sweeps me off my feet, carrying me back down the road and through the autumn woods, leaving everything else behind us at last.
Epil
ogue
When I first came to Paris, it was something like a dream come true, some kind of wild fantasy I’d only imagined being thrust into. My outlook might have changed a lot since then, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the surreal beauty of Monaco from the balcony of our hotel suite any less. Over the past few minutes, I’ve been losing myself as I gaze out onto the sunset that’s casting a pink light over the Mediterranean, thinking about what a storm the last month was, and what a breath of fresh air these past few days have been.
The firefight in the forest is still burned bright in my memory. The first few nights afterwards, I woke up in a cold sweat next to Max, forgetting he was right there beside me just like that first night we spent together. Remembering that first night always dispelled the night terrors, though, as I recalled the feeling of him curling around me protectively. I smile, remembering how embarrassing that felt, asking him to sleep beside me. He was my teacher, for goodness’ sake! My towering, muscular Russian teacher. That all seems so far away now.
“What are you smiling about, lyubov moya?” Max’s voice is like silk behind me as he strides out of the open glass doors to the balcony, slipping his arms around me to give me a hug and stroke his hand over my stomach, feeling the baby that’s yet to start showing visibly. I smile as I turn my head to kiss him, letting out a soft moan as he presses into my back and slides his hands to my shoulders to start massaging gently.
“Hm, just you,” I say, turning my eyes back to the glittering water out there. I hear him chuckle as he rubs my back. That sound has been a pleasant new experience — a genuine, mirthful chuckle, free of all the worries that burdened him down back in Paris. Not that the city itself held too many bad memories to bear. Our little house on the outskirts of the city is a testament to that.
We even had the wedding in the city, both to enjoy the living spirit of the city that could at least for a little while be free of the pall it had cast over us and to send a message to onlookers that we would never be cowed by our enemies. And now, all of that is put to rest. The second ceremony was even more beautiful than the first one was going to be, and it was everything I could have hoped for. The light at the end of the darkest tunnel of my life is turning out to be the brightest, now.
Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 21