Chapter 26 #2
He doesn't ask me how I know there's a bomb or why I'm bleeding or where I've been. He turns to the men and barks, "Clear the building. Everyone out. Now."
The two men turn and run toward the back of the building at his command, and Kazimir wraps his arm around my waist, dragging me with him after them.
My feet can barely keep up, and my heart is racing so fast it feels like I'm having a heart attack.
I've never seen him like this, and I've never felt his arms around me so strongly.
We pass through the offices he brought me to before and down a long hallway, and just as we're on the heels of his cousin, heading out the back door, the building belches us out.
Something explodes, tossing us several yards and separating me from Kazimir.
The sound is a deep, concussive boom that I feel in my chest before I hear it in my ears.
The ground shudders under my feet as I stumble and fall, finding Kazimir toppling down after me.
He covers me with his body, sheltering me as a wave of heat and light rushes over us.
I clamp my eyes shut and cling to him, screaming as the blast consumes us.
Glass shatters somewhere above us. Debris rains down on the roof of the cars around us.
It sounds like hail falling during a thunderstorm, but everything that falls is on fire.
And the air fills with the acrid chemical stench of fire and accelerant, coating the back of my throat and making my eyes water.
The ringing in my ears is high and constant, but I can hear car alarms screaming and people shouting.
My whole body shakes in violent tremors that make it hard to move.
For a moment Kaz doesn't move. His weight is almost crushing, and I'm so afraid something hit him and he's hurt, but he slowly lifts himself off me, holding himself on his elbows to remove most of his weight.
His face is covered in dust and there's a cut above his right eyebrow that's bleeding into his eye. His eyes are locked on mine so intensely, it pins me to the ground under him.
"How did you know about that?" The confusion and pain in his eyes almost kills me, and I know I can't keep lying to him.
"It's my fault. Kaz. I mean… It's not but it is. And I need you to listen to me." He sits back on his heels as I mumble and slur my words together. The building burns to my left and Kazimir's family is struggling to their feet, pulling debris off each other.
"They put a tracker on my purse, Kaz. When you brought me here, they were tracking me. I didn’t know. And—"
"Why are they?"
"My brothers," I say, feeling my cheeks burn. "They wanted me to—"
"Who are your brothers?" he says angrily, dusting his pants off and standing up. I think maybe he'll offer me his hand, but he doesn't. I shove myself to my feet and look at my bleeding palms, now covered in dirt, which cakes to my hands in the blood. "Tell me who your brothers are, Zora."
This doesn't sound like my Kazimir. He's angry, glaring at me as his family walks over to us. Stepan has his eyes narrowed on me, and Timur, face covered in blood, is glaring.
"Kaz, please, you have to believe that—"
"Fucking tell me who they are!" he roars, making me jump. The two guards who tried to stop me from getting into the building stand behind me and I hear the wail of sirens in the distance.
"Bogdan, Makar, and Yefim Volyn…" I say sheepishly. "But Kaz, you have to believe that I love you and—"
"Get her out of my sight," he snarls, looking at the man behind my right shoulder. "Radimir, take her the hell away from me."
"Kaz, no!" I wail, reaching for him. My blood smears down his left arm and he jerks away from me.
"You lied to me!"
"Kaz, listen to me, I need you to—"
"Get her off my property." He doesn't look at me when he says it and I know it's done. I've done it. It's over.
"Let's go," the burly man named Radimir says, grabbing my elbow.
"I love you, dammit!" I shout, but he still doesn't turn around, and then I'm being dragged around the side of the building away from him.
My will to fight is gone, and the pain of my injuries makes it difficult to fight him now.
I look over my shoulder at the burning building, watching flames lick up the entire southern side.
I don’t know where everyone was in the building, but it appears the charges were set to cause maximum damage. The building is a total loss.
"I didn't mean for this to happen," I whine, swiping at my tears, but the glass shards embedded in my palms, which I only just now noticed, scratch my cheeks.
"Get the hell out of here before he decides to give me different orders," the gruff man says, and he gives me a shove so hard, I stumble several feet.
The sirens are louder now, getting closer by the second.
I can't stay here. I know that. If I do and Kazimir tells them I had anything to do with this, I'm risking prison.
So I turn and start walking, rushing as quickly as I can away from the building, and I'm only two blocks away when a car rushes up beside me, stopping quickly.
I turn, thinking maybe Kazimir has shown up to ask more questions or fight with me, but it's Makar, driving Yefim's SUV. He flings the door open and shouts, "Get in the fucking car, Zora. Now."
"Fuck you," I snarl, not wanting anything to do with him. They're the reason I'm in this mess to begin with.
"You want to be arrested? Your back is soaked in blood and the first cop or firefighter who sees you is going to know you were near that building. Get in the fucking car."
I look up at him, then back at the building, now farther away, squatting under a cloud of thick black smoke. And the sirens do the trick. I don't want to be arrested, and I don't have any other place to go now anyway, so I climb in the car, surrendering to my fate.
Bogdan makes threats, but he doesn’t make empty ones. He told me they'd ship me off to Eastern Russia to marry one of their farmers, probably who supplies them drugs, and I'd be married off. I know he meant it too.
I don't know what else to do.
My life here is over, and even if I could tell Kazimir I'm having his baby, he wouldn't want me. I messed things up too badly.