Chapter 7 To （Not） be a Damsel
Chapter seven
To (Not) be a Damsel
Otto nearly had a heart attack when Lina suddenly began shoving herself forward, climbing between the front seats and over the center console.
She was smaller than average, but not that much smaller.
He sucked in a mildly stabilizing breath and snapped, “Evelina Mikhailovna Nikolaev, get your fucking ass back in your goddamn seat!”
The infuriating woman froze, twisted sideways with one knee on the console and one hand braced on each of the front seats. Then she slipped the hand nearest him forward and slapped the backside of his head. “You know I hate my patronymic. Don’t talk to me like that.”
Otto spoke through gritted teeth, feeling significantly less than apologetic. “And yet it’s your patron that’s gotten us into this fucking mess. If we crash right now—”
“So don’t fucking crash!” Lina finally shimmied her hips through the opening, promptly twisting herself to the side and dropping with a huff into the passenger seat. “Wouldn’t have been a big deal if you hadn’t stuck me back there in the first place.”
“Lina,” he tried again.
She obliged at least a small portion of his concerns by reaching for her seatbelt.
“Look, I know you’re mad, okay? And we can talk about it.
But not while we’re dealing with whatever the hell this is.
” She clicked the belt into place and scooted herself into a seemingly more settled position. “You think it’s Artem?”
Otto spun them around another turn and checked his mirrors as soon as he dared. He hadn’t signaled or slowed, but his objective was probably predictable. “No.” Not to say he fully trusted Artem so soon. More that he doubted Artem had turned on the entire Nikolaev clan.
And there it was, the pursuing SUV spinning around the corner behind them only a couple of seconds away.
“I’m gonna need more than that,” Lina said, “because this is awfully convenient.”
“How many people do you think saw you leave?” Otto challenged.
He pulled a hand off the steering wheel to motion to the dashboard.
“You’re drivin’ a monitored car, for Christ’s sake.
Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen people with authority enough to demand the tracking information in a single call.
Not to mention you used GPS to get to the lawyer’s office, and you kept your phone on you. All. Fucking. Traceable.”
Lina sighed. “Yeah, okay. But you’re the one who brought in a new face, and only after that did this happen.”
“Neither of us knows how long these bastards were parked outside.” Otto glanced at the mirrors again. The SUV was closing in. The next turn he needed was still a few blocks away.
Filtered sunlight glinted off a distinct design welded into the SUV’s grill and Otto felt his insides clench.
“Artem claims he wants to support your bid for pakhan,” Otto said. “You have to decide whether you can trust him on that, but at least you can use him ‘til you make that choice. The one thing I am confident in is that if he’s workin’ for anyone else, that other person is your damn cousin.”
Lina popped open the glove box and pulled out a pistol. “I don’t see how that’s helpful.”
Otto eyed the upcoming turn in the road. “The bastards behind us are Morozov.”
Evelina nearly dropped the gun she’d just settled in her hand, her blood running cold at Otto’s words.
“What?” She bumped the compartment shut with her knee and tilted sideways, squinting through the window into the side mirror, trying to see whatever Otto had seen about their pursuer that made him so sure.
The SUV was close—closer than she liked—but they swayed outward almost as soon as she started looking, and she saw it.
The emblazoned steel ‘M’ in metallic silver paint that dominated the face of the otherwise standard grill. It was exactly the way she’d pictured every firm warning against getting into strange, suspiciously marked cars.
“Fuck,” Evelina muttered, years of trauma throwing her into a conflicting state of panic and rage.
For her entire life, the Morozov Bratva had been their enemies.
For her entire life, the Morozov Bratva had been the boogeyman lurking in the dark spaces.
For her entire life, the Morozov Bratva had been the explanation as to why she went to school behind solid gates, why she’d grown up with a stern-faced shadow, why she was forced into self-defense classes at the age of six, and why she had neither freedom nor privacy.
The Morozov Bratva had killed her brother.
The Morozov Bratva had killed her father’s previous wife.
Evelina dropped her head against the seat and closed her eyes. She’d researched therapeutic breathing techniques in lieu of being allowed to go to real therapy, but it had been years since she’d needed them as much as she had in the past month.
“Half a mile ‘til we’re back on a main road,” Otto said as the car pivoted so sharply her stomach rolled with it. “We won’t make it. I want you to get on the floor and make yourself small.”
His words slammed through her, her barely stabilized breathing spiraling back out of control. “What? No, no way—”
“Lina, for once, fuckin’ listen to me.” He pulled a hand from the wheel, shifted in his seat, and tugged his own gun from his waistband.
“Your goal is survival, not machismo. So do whatever it takes. As soon as this car stops, as soon as the bullets stop, you bail out the nearest opening and you run until you feel safe again. And for the love of fucking god, do not take your phone.”
She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his stupid plan, but shattering glass exploded into the cab of the car before she made a sound.
She jumped in place, her head whipping to the side, and stared in shock at what had become of the rear window.
Their windows were supposed to be shatterproof, she was pretty sure. “Bozhe moy…”
Otto slammed the breaks and twisted the wheel, spinning them entirely sideways with himself between the Morozov SUV and her.
More bullets pelted the side of the car before it even came to a stop. She realized jarringly that she could tell from the sounds of their impact that not all of them were the armor-piercing type—but some definitely were. Meaning there were at least two shooters.
Meaning Otto had just put himself between her and armor-piercing bullets.
There had to be something— My phone. She’d left it in the backseat, of course, along with everything else in her purse.
“I can’t buy you long,” Otto shouted over the cacophony of their car being shot up. “Go!”
He meant, of course, for her to duck out the door while it was still operational and bolt behind a nearby building. As if she were a coward. But she was no coward, and she wasn’t about to flee and abandon the only person she had left.
Evelina threw herself between the seats again, fingers scrambling for the straps of her purse.
Her heart raced faster and louder than the barrage of bullets, nearly deafening her.
It wasn’t even that he was who she trusted most. Otto was her life.
If he fell here, she didn’t know what she’d do.
Her throat swelled, and she wasn’t sure if she gasped from the pain of the thought or the sudden, burning sting of a bullet grazing her outstretched arm.
Nor did it matter as her fingers finally curled around one of her purse straps.
She gave a hefty tug, practically throwing it across the car in her haste to pull it forward.
Her sunglasses clacked pathetically on the dashboard, falling from the purse before she could adjust her hold.
She had no idea when Otto had started shooting back, only that she became aware he was as she let herself sink low in her seat.
“Lina!” He shouted at her over his shoulder.
Another bullet pinged against the metal of the car, lodging into the interior frame on the passenger side.
Evelina slid lower, wedging herself into the small space as she dug out her phone.
“I’m not abandoning you!” she shouted back.
“And if I want to be taken seriously as pakhan, I can’t act like a scared little girl, either.
” She needed to do what she believed her father might have done, at least more or less, if he had been caught and pinned as she had.
Her father would have called for his army.
So, she put her phone to her ear and dared hold her breath. Her eyes caught on a blooming spot of red on Otto’s arm, and the wound on her own throbbed.
Artem answered quickly. “Miss Nikolaev?” He barely finished the greeting before the unmistakable, raucous noise of her environment surely explained the problem for her. “I’m on my way. Do you know how many there are?”
“Morozov SUV,” she said, wincing as the back passenger window exploded in a shatter of glass. “Armor-piercing bullets, at least two shooters.”
Artem snapped something she only half-heard over her own crushingly loud surroundings and still-racing heart, something she didn’t think was aimed at her, then said, “Fight back as best you can. I’m tracking you now. Leave your phone on.”
“Always the plan. But fucking hurry.” She dropped her phone into her purse, shoved it again to her shoulder for lack of anywhere better to keep it, and forced herself to look past the increased destruction.
The car was shot to hell and getting worse. She thought she spied smoke curling up from the hood. Otto was changing clips in his gun, blood dripping off his arm and rolling down his cheek. Her own pain seemed insignificant, really, compared to everything else.