Sights on the SEAL: A Secret Baby Romance

by Alexis Abbott

  Somebody is chasing us.

  Probably the same people who fired into our living room.

  “What are we gonna do?” I whimper, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “You’re going someplace safe, moya lyubova. Don’t you worry.”

  “Who’s after us?”

  “Bad people. You don’t need to think about that. Just focus on yourself and that little baby, okay? I promise everything will work out, just trust me.”

  Finally, the wild, sudden turns give way to an engine-roaring, pedal-to-the-floor increase in speed as we shoot straight forward down what I assume is a highway. I know we’ve got to be driving at least thirty over the speed limit, but Andrei doesn’t slow the car at all.

  “Did we lose them?” I ask, sounding very frail and terrified.

  “For now, yes. But we have to hurry,” Andrei answers. Then, in a more serious tone, he continues. “Listen to me, malyshka. I am going to take care of everything. You’re going ahead of me, and I know you’ll be scared, but just know that I will be right behind you. Everything is already set up and you have nothing to worry about. They already know you’re coming —”

  “They? Who? Where?” I ask, sitting up in the seat against Andrei’s orders.

  I see that we are pulling down a dirt road, barreling along the narrow path through the thick trees, branches scraping the sides of the Corvette. Andrei doesn’t seem to care; he is completely focused on the road ahead. Finally the car screeches to a stop in front of a small building with a massive black concrete field behind it. Peeking through the trees is what looks to be… a small airplane.

  “No,” I murmur under my breath. Andrei leaps out of the car, takes the duffel bag out of the trunk, and starts wheeling it away, beckoning for me to follow.

  I reluctantly get out of the car and hurry after him, holding my belly.

  “Mi prishli, Pavel!” he calls out as we run to the little concrete structure. A short, squat, bespectacled man with receding brown hair and a bearded face full of laugh lines peeks out of the door, gesturing for us to hurry inside.

  “Toropis!” the man barks at us. “Come on!”

  He ushers us in, takes the duffel bag, and starts waddling away toward the plane outside. But then suddenly he turns around and does a double-take, blinking rapidly as he looks me up and down. He adjusts his tiny, round-frame glasses and then frowns at me, shaking his head. He folds his arms over his chest and gives Andrei a dubious look.

  “What is it? We have to hurry!” Andrei hisses at him, his large frame towering over Pavel’s in an almost comical way.

  But the older man clucks his tongue. “Gospodin Petrov, you know I cannot fly her.”

  Andrei rounds on him, aggressively reaching for the man’s collar, but Pavel moves out of the way and points accusingly at me — more specifically, at my pregnant belly.

  “Slishkom opasno! She is too beremenna! Bad for the baby!” Pavel exclaims.

  Andrei’s face hardens and he looks at me with panic in his eyes.

  “Are you sure? Is there really no way?” he asks.

  The smaller man shakes his head. “Not safe, moy drug. I cannot take her in good conscience. The flight to Sibir is long and hard.”

  “Sibir?” I repeat, the word falling from my mouth awkwardly. Then it dawns on me. “Siberia? You’re sending me to Yakutsk?” I shout, backing away and holding my arms over my stomach instinctively.

  Andrei hurries forward to take me in his arms, even though I fight him in vain. He pulls me close and kisses the top of my head, soothing me with his stroking hands.

  “You would have been safe there to wait for my return, Cassie,” he assures me. Then, looking over at Pavel, he asks, “Is there no other choice? Is there nowhere else?”

  Pavel sighs and puts his hands on his hips, tapping his foot thoughtfully. “Well, I might have someplace you could go, for now. Moya sestra… she has a commercial property just north of here off the interstate. A warehouse. Pustoy. Funding fell through and now it’s just sitting there, unused.” He gives some directions in Russian I can’t even begin to follow.

  Andrei is already nodding and leading me out of the building to the car. He calls over his shoulder, “And you will tell her we’re coming?”

  “Da, da. Of course,” Pavel calls in response, waving his hand dismissively.

  We get back into the car and speed away down the dirt road back to the highway, crossing quickly onto the interstate. It only takes us half an hour to reach our destination, and it is a pure miracle that we aren’t pulled over for speeding on the way.

  Finally breaking my silence as he pulls me out of the car and guides me toward the big, looming gray warehouse, I spit, “You were going to just send me away like my parents did?”

  Andrei looks at me with genuine hurt in his eyes, and I immediately regret my accusatory tone. Shifting the duffel bag on his shoulder as he opens a weather-beaten side door, he answers quietly, “No, Cassie. I would never do that to you. I would have followed you there once it was safe to do so.”

  “Safe from what?” I press him.

  He closes the door behind us and flicks a light on. After a second of flickering hesitation, a fluorescent light hums to light far overhead. It’s still quite dim, but at least now we can see where we’re going. The huge building is musty and eerie, completely abandoned yet clean enough to indicate that someone still intends to make something of it. There are big boxes stacked in ten-foot piles, and Andrei leads me toward what looks to be a tiny, nondescript office.

  Once inside the office room, he sits me down on a dusty swivel chair and finally answers my question. “Cassie, moya printsessa, there are bad people who want to hurt me… and you.”

  “Who are they?” I ask, my heart pounding.

  “I’m sure you have guessed by now that I do not have a, ahh, traditional job.”

  I cock my head to the side and look at him critically. “I know that sometimes you leave in the night and come back in the morning looking… different.”

  Andrei stares down at the ugly brown carpet. “Yes.”

  “I always worried that it might be something dangerous.”

  “Yes.”

  I pause, searching his face for answers. I am scared to ask anything else, scared to shatter the quickly-dilapidating illusion of our stability, our happy life together.

  “Andrei, just tell me. What is going on?”

  Finally, he looks up and meets my eyes. He looks impossibly sad.

  “Ubiytsa. That is the word for what I am.” The word is heavy, but I don’t understand it.

  “But what does that mean?” I press, my hands absently rubbing my belly.

  “It means that for many years I have killed men for money,” Andrei answers simply.

  My heart stops for a split second and I feel myself go cold, my head turning fuzzy, as though I might faint. Surely he doesn’t mean that. It’s ridiculous. My Andrei, my Prince Charming, my doting husband — he cannot be a cold-blooded murderer.

  “No… that’s not true. It can’t be,” I say, my voice scarcely above a whisper.

  Andrei nods slowly. “Yes, Cassie. It is true. I am sorry for keeping it from you, but I did not want to involve you, and I did not want you to fear me.”

  “Fear you?” I repeat, starting to cry. “I… I am starting to wonder if I even know you.”

  He looks paralyzed with remorse, with hurt. But I cannot take back what I’ve said.

  “No, no, malyshka, you know me. The real me. I swear to you I have never shown anyone the side of me that you have seen. And you have changed me for the better,” he says quickly, moving forward to kneel in front of me, reaching for my hands.

  I snatch them away and he looks heartbroken.

  “How can I trust you, knowing that you have committed the most terrible sins?” I ask him honestly. “You are the father of my child, this little innocent inside me. But you… you hurt people for a living? Kill them?”

  “Only the bad ones, I swea
r. And I have found my calling, Cassie. I have vowed to protect those who are good, who are victims, and those who are innocent. Like our son.”

  I look at him hard, weighing his words against the screaming voice in my head telling me to condemn him, to turn away and never look back.

  But I can’t do that. Because I love him. And because he is right: I do know him. I know the real Andrei Petrov, the man who rescued me from that awful basement and made me happier than I’ve ever been. I never told him but I’d heard the things the people in that crowd were saying to me, and now I have the understanding to know what they meant. They wanted to assault me, to hurt me. They laughed about it. But Andrei has never even raised his voice to me, even though I’ve been abandoned by everyone else I know and love. There’s no one to protect me from him, but I’ve never needed protection from him.

  He is the man I have been waiting for, even though I never knew it. And I must accept him, no matter what, as he has accepted me.

  “I swear to you, Cassie, I only do this now to rid the world of evil. I want to make the world a safer place for our child to grow up in. I want to shield you from pain and danger, and I will never stop protecting you, no matter what. Please let me prove myself to you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I reply. “I know exactly what you are.”

  There is a long pause before I take a deep breath and continue.

  “You are my husband. And I will follow you anywhere. I took a vow, Andrei, and I will not turn my back on that promise. I love you more than you can ever know, and I will stay with you through thick and thin. But you must swear to me one thing.”

  Andrei takes my hands in his and kisses them. “Anything.”

  “Don’t send me away,” I say, my voice cracking as tears spring to my eyes.

  My husband stands up and takes me in his arms, cradling me to his chest.

  “Of course, moya lyubova,” he assures me, kissing the top of my head. “Never again.”

  Andrei

  “So, Kasym, h-he’s really dead, then?”

  “Yes,” I answer, taking a sip of coffee as I stare intensely at the man whose life I’d spared just a few nights before meeting Cassie, “and now it’s time for me to call in the favor, Mr. Jackson. A life for a life.”

  Jackson runs his hand through his hair, striding around the room of the safe house he’s been living in since I put him there all those months ago. And soon, he won’t have to live here ever again.

  “And you’re sure Kasym is the one who...who…” Jackson swallows, wringing his hands. Even in hiding, he’s only become a more nervous man than he was before.

  “Who ordered the hit on you, yes,” I answer calmly, “he acted through an agent to hire me. I only found out more when I was digging up dirt on the man himself before carrying out the act. All I found out about you was that you were an innocent cab driver. Now, I need you to think very carefully. Why did Kasym want you dead, Jackson?”

  I’ve been bringing food and water to Mr. Jackson at this unassuming safe house far upstate, far from anywhere the Bratva would care to stick their noses, ever since I faked his assassination. He was an innocent man, certainly not deserving of the death my client at the time had asked for him. Most of my targets had been dregs who deserved such punishment, in one way or another, but Jackson...he was totally benign. Just a bystander someone wanted slain.

  And now I see why. Kasym’s arbitrary cruelty knew no bounds.

  Jackson wrings his hands and sits on the couch, biting his lip as he speaks. “I...I think...the only thing I can think of seems too absurd-”

  “Nothing is out of reason for someone like Kasym.” I’m trying to prove a specific piece of information with Jackson’s account. I’m almost sure of the answer, but I need to hear this from a witness before I act on something this big.

  “Well,” he hesitates, “the only time I met him was when I drove him from the airport to the apartment complex he was going to. He was completely trashed when he got off that plane, I mean absolutely blitzed. His bodyguard had to practically carry him.”

  I nod, taking a few paces around the room as I drink my coffee and he speaks.

  “H-he kept rambling drunkenly on the way, like he was bragging. His English was broken, but he kept talking about how he was going to ‘rule this town’ because of his dad.”

  Now I know I’m onto something, and I watch Jackson intently.

  “He went on and on about how rich they were, and he said his dad was bringing him home so he could take over as the next ‘king of the whores’ and that he was going to spend all his time here enjoying his ‘dad’s empire.’ ”

  My face goes pale as I hear the piece of information I need to hear. It all makes sense now.

  “So,” I say slowly, “Sergei Slokavich isn’t as much of a buffoon as he lets on — he’s the kingpin of the local sex trafficking ring.”

  “Oh my god,” Jackson says, his head sinking into his hands, “I drove around the son of a crime lord?!”

  “And he wanted you dead after he realized how much he’d said when he sobered up,” I explain before finishing my coffee and setting the cup down. “You’re very lucky to be alive, Mr. Jackson.”

  “But for how long?!” he splutters, and I hold up a hand to silence him.

  “Patience, Mr. Jackson. You’ve been a very great help to me here. I know what needs to be done now. I will contact you as soon as it’s done, but know that you’re going to help a great many people by your actions.”

  Jackson looks at me for a long time, then nods slowly, sitting back on the couch and resting his head on the back of it. “That’s all I know. I swear.”

  “Rest easy, Mr. Jackson,” I say, heading towards the door and starting on the dozen or so deadbolts, “your would-be killer is on your side, and the man who gave the order is dead — and what’s more, I’m about to pay the true mastermind a long overdue visit.”

  But first, I think privately, there’s someone far more precious I must see to before putting myself in an incredibly dangerous position.

  Cassie

  In the three days I’ve spent in the safehouse, I have been surprisingly okay. Despite the looming fear of being found and the constant surroundings of an abandoned warehouse, Andrei has managed to keep me from going totally mad. He’s only left my side once, and not for very long. I did not ask him what he did when he left. It’s easier this way.

  It turns out that he has always had some form of a back-up plan like this stored away for quick use, and therefore we are shockingly prepared for this kind of situation. From his Corvette, which he keeps under a black tarp outside, he retrieves a laptop with a built-in Internet access device, bedrolls, blankets, bottled water, non-perishable snacks, and a rudimentary hygiene kit. To his surprise and my infinite relief, we discover that the safehouse has a utilitarian shower stall in the bathroom. Thanks to the fact that Pavel’s sister stubbornly refused to let this building fall completely into disrepair and uselessness, the water still runs. It’s icy cold water, but it’s certainly preferable to going indefinitely without washing.

  We have wiled away the time by watching soap operas (which I have grown very attached to) on his laptop, cuddling, and experimenting with trying to make palatable meals out of the basic foods Andrei’s kept stashed in his emergency rations. I have been increasingly hungry as time goes on, with the little life inside me getting bigger and bigger by the day. Sometimes my body hurts so badly that I want to cry, but Andrei comforts me, tending to my every ache and complaint like a trained nurse.

  In the long, dull hours since we first showed up here, we have talked more and had deeper conversations than we have in the time we’ve been married collectively. He tells me about his difficult childhood growing up in the world’s coldest city, and I tell him about my own repressed youth.

  Lying on our bedrolls, which we have lined up beside each other to make a sort of makeshift double bed, Andrei asks, “You never went to school like other children?”


  “No,” I reply, shaking my head. “My parents… they insisted that public schools were dens of temptation and sinful thought. My father used to say that the Board of Education was staffed entirely by soldiers of Satan.”

  Andrei laughs, a sound which I’ve heard more of in the past three days than I ever have before, despite the grimness of our situation. “I don’t know how public schooling is here in America, but back home it was one of the few places where I could feel safe. And warm.”

  “I don’t know how you survived it,” I murmur, in awe of his tenacity.

  “The streets of Yakutsk are not a suitable home for a young boy, it is true. But at least I did find a few people who were helpful. Sonya’s mother, the owner of the fish market, made sure that I ate on the coldest winter nights when I could not afford food. I feel guilty for stealing from her market, but she always knew that I did it. She watched me from a distance, and did not stop me when I stole fish or rabbits from her stands.”

  “I hope that someday she will get to see Sonya again,” I muse aloud. “I know she must miss her daughter terribly. And Sonya is so wonderful.”

  “Da,” Andrei agrees. “She takes after her mother in that way.”

  After a pause, I say slowly, “I wonder if I will ever see my family again. Well, mostly I just miss Isaiah.”

  “Your dorogoy bratik,” he says, nodding. “Well, perhaps someday.”

  “But I wouldn’t even know how to keep us safe, much less protect him from whoever is after us,” I lament, fidgeting with the blankets. Andrei suddenly sits up.

  “That reminds me,” he begins, getting to his feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The car. I will be back. Stay there.”

  I lay back on the bedroll, rubbing my stomach, feeling around for the familiar kick of my unborn son. “How are you doing, little one?” I coo. “Everything is going to be alright, I promise. I love you more than you will ever understand.”