Chapter 16
Chloe
My lungs burn with each gasping breath as Kolya drags me into another backyard.
Shadows stretch like grasping fingers.
This can’t be happening.
People don’t get shot at in Willow Creek. They don’t flee through backyards half dressed with a strange man’s hand locked around their wrist.
My bare feet slap the cool grass and scrape over gravel as we flee from the gun-wielding man or men.
All while Kolya’s flavor still lingers on my tongue.
With an iron grip, he hauls me through Mrs. Hooper’s vegetable garden. As we smash her tomato plants, the acrid scent of crushed vines rise into the night air.
A week ago, this would’ve mortified me. Now I just concentrate on staying upright as the hastily buttoned pants I’ve just thrown on without slowing down slide down my hips with every desperate stride.
We hurdle a low fence and duck behind a plastic playhouse.
Sweat and fear mingle on my skin. My chest heaves.
Kolya crouches beside me, his body taut as a drawn bow.
He doesn’t pant or sweat or even appear especially disturbed by the bullets or nighttime chase.
Simply acts like this is just another day for him.
“You hold that gun like a pro.” I gasp for air. “Who the heck are you?”
He responds by squeezing my wrist and pulling me forward again. While I may not understand what’s happening, I know the safest place is next to him.
We dart between an expensive gas grill and patio furniture that probably cost more than my monthly salary. The surreal normality of these backyards—the wind chimes, the garden gnomes, the abandoned Big Wheels—twists my current reality into an even more disorienting nightmare.
I’m stuck in a terrible, straight-to-streaming thriller where the ditzy girl falls for the mysterious stranger, then acts shocked when he reveals himself as dangerous.
Yup, that girl. The foolish one who gets murdered right after she gets down and dirty with the bad boy character.
My throat still burns from how eagerly I took him in my mouth. My inner thighs are sticky from his tongue. This time, shame rather than desire triggers the heat flushing through me. How had I been so easily fooled? So willingly blind?
That electric current that runs from my core to my fingertips every time he touches me must’ve fried my brain.
My body’s betrayal.
“Stop.” I dig my heels into soft soil as we pause in the shadow of a storage shed. “Just stop. Tell me what’s happening.”
His face sharpens in the darkness. “We need to keep moving.”
“Why? Why are people shooting at us? Why are we running through people’s yards? Why are you here?” Each question rises in pitch, my hysteria threatening to boil over. “Who are you?”
He scans the trees behind us, the houses, the street beyond. Always checking. Like he expects danger from all sides.
“Private security.” With his clipped, automatic reply, he doesn’t even try to sell his cover story convincingly.
“Bull. Private security doesn’t get people shot at. Private security doesn’t know how to break bones with one move. Private security doesn’t—” My voice cracks. “Doesn’t do what you did to me.”
His glittering eyes snap to mine. “You wanted what I did to you.”
He’s right.
I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life.
Only I desired those intimacies from someone who doesn’t actually exist.
Stupid, stupid girl. “You’re not even Manny’s father, are you? Or his uncle. Or whatever you claimed to be.”
In the dim moonlight filtering through the leaves, I spy the confirmation in his expression.
Oh my god.
Everything inside shatters. The pieces of my scrupulously constructed world crack into even tinier fragments.
That morning at the farmers market, the incident with my phone, my flat tire, the craft store… Kolya materializing like some dark guardian angel.
He targeted me and engineered every single moment. For what?
“You lied to me from the start.” My voice breaks.
His hand tightens on my wrist. “We need to move.” He’s cold and remote, nothing like the man in my living room twenty minutes ago.
I wrench my arm free from his grasp, surprising us both. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re…some kind of criminal. Men are shooting at you. If I just—”
I spin, preparing to bolt back toward the street to find help. His arm snakes around my waist, yanking me against his chest. His heated breath fans my ear.
“If you run, you die. Look.” He points at the dark sedan cruising beneath the streetlights. “They’re not just after me.”
My B-movie theory dies a quick, brutal death. This is an A-list nightmare. The kind where the supporting characters don’t survive to see the credits.
I go limp in his arms, the fight rapidly draining out of me. He loosens his grip but keeps one hand firmly on my arm like he’s afraid I may bolt.
Those men, whoever they are, have guns, and I have nothing. No weapon, no phone, no plan. Just an armed man I barely know. My only chance at survival.
I suck in a breath, inhaling the scent of pool chlorine and fresh-cut grass. A small part of me always knew this day would come. “Where do we go?”
“Somewhere they won’t find us. Somewhere I can think.”
I glance back toward the street, then at Kolya, this stranger who’s dragged chaos and violence into my meticulously ordered life.
I’m not fine, but I am alive. For right now, that has to be enough.
The dark sedan crawls across the asphalt like a predator scenting blood. Its headlights cut through the black, sweeping over manicured lawns and cookie-cutter houses. I press myself deeper into the shadows between the Millers’ azalea bushes and hold my breath until my lungs burn.
Kolya’s body shields mine, his back muscles taut beneath his shirt.
He’s prepared to kill if necessary.
That knowledge terrifies me, but for the first time since bullets started flying, I also feel secure.
The car slows, and the window slides down with an electric purr. A silhouette—a shadow against shadows—hangs out. Even from here, I can sense the ill intent.
Kolya digs his fingers into my flesh. “Don’t move,” he whispers.
I freeze, not even daring to blink.
The sedan idles, engine humming with menace.
Beneath the pale moonlight and anemic streetlamps, I can make out sleek lines and the gleam of freshly waxed paint. Such a nondescript car.
A porch light from a house across the street flicks on.
The car’s engine revs before resuming its prowl.
Kolya shifts beside me, his head tilting as he surveys our surroundings. His eyes land on the Escalade parked in the driveway next to us. The kind of vehicle that screams “successful middle manager with a trophy wife and perfect kids” like a monument to suburban wealth.
“Stay here.”
Keeping low, he swiftly glides across the driveway toward the SUV.
My heart stops. What’s he doing? Stealing it? Is that our escape plan?
His hand slaps the vehicle’s side panel with a resounding smack.
Whoop-whoop-whoop!
The alarm blares against the backdrop of an otherwise quiet night. Lights flash, strobing the driveway in amber and red pulses.
Like falling dominoes, more porch lights snap on.
One, then three, then a dozen houses begin to glow. A dog starts barking and another joins in, a discordant suburban chorus accompanying the mechanical wail.
Tires squeal as the sedan accelerates, roaring past our hiding spot and disappearing around the corner.
Kolya’s beside me again, hauling me deeper into the shadows. Across the street, an elderly man in striped pajamas peers out a door, squinting into the night.
Kolya leads me around the side of the house toward the back fence. “Go. Now.”
We sprint across another lawn, leaping over a child’s tricycle and ducking beneath a clothesline.
Behind us, the alarm continues its relentless shrieking.
Sirens soon accompany the chorus.
My thoughts spin faster than my feet can carry me. I’m not just fleeing from the men in the dark sedan anymore but also from cops who might help me.
I’m running with the very man who lured this danger to my door.
And now, I have nowhere to go.
Panic claws at my throat as I grapple for some tiny shred of control in this spiraling chaos.
“Wait.” I stumble to a stop. My legs tremble, threatening to buckle.
The blue-and-red beams of approaching police cars flash through the trees, illuminating Kolya’s hardened features like a demonic light show.
“My friend. Bree. Her house is two streets over.” The idea tumbles out in desperate gasps. “I know the code to get in.”
“No civilians.” He responds with finality. A decree from a rulebook I can’t even imagine.
“She won’t be there!” Despair sharpens my voice, which is too loud for our precarious situation. I force out an urgent whisper. “She’s a night-shift nurse and won’t be home until after seven tomorrow morning. Her house will be empty. Please. I know her key code. We can hide there for the night.”
He stares at me, clearly weighing options. I can almost see the calculations running behind those dark eyes. Risk versus reward. Exposure versus shelter.
The sirens draw closer, their wails cutting through the night.
“No civilians.” He speaks slower this time. A warning.
“No one will be there.” I cross my heart. “Just us.”
He gives a single nod. “Lead the way.”