Chapter 28
MATVEI
In my dream, voices are speaking—too many voices, talking too quickly with words my brain can't understand. Lights flash painfully through my closed eyelids, a headache pounding in time to the pulses of light.
When I crack open my eyes and shut them again quickly, I realize this isn't a dream. Memories seep back in, fuzzy and fragmented—the crash, the sound of glass breaking, iron squealing and crunching, screaming and darkness.
Sonya—
I try to form words, to say her name, but nothing comes out. I try to reach for her, but everything hurts.
Now someone is shouting, but I still can't understand the words. Another, deeper voice is shouting too, in Russian. I try to respond, but again, all I can manage is a groan as I try to pull myself out of the blackness threatening to pull me under again.
There is more yelling, the flashing lights are getting brighter, the sound of sirens closer. Someone's pounding on the car door, yanking at it.
“Don't touch him,” the other voice hisses. “His neck could be broken.”
“Boss, is your neck broken?”
It takes me a moment to understand the question, and another to get my body to move at all. It hurts, but I can at least move my neck, followed by my hands.
“No,” I croak.
“He says he's fine.”
“He was just in a car accident, and it looks like he's hit his head, look at all the blood. You really think he's coherent enough to know how he feels?”
“If he says he’s fine, I believe him.”
As the bickering continues, I'm finally able to blink open my eyes. My vision is blurry, but I manage to clear it enough to look around at the ruined interior of what was once one of my cars. Glass and blood are everywhere.
The passenger side seat is empty.
“Sonya. Where's Sonya?” My voice is a rough whisper.
“What do you mean?” It's a female voice—Kelly's voice—her face peering in through the broken driver-side window.
“Where's Sonya?” I ask again, my voice rising with my adrenaline.
“What do you mean, ‘where's Sonya?’” Kelly demands again.
“Are you telling me she was with you? I thought she found her own way home.” Her voice rises with panic before her face disappears from the window.
I hear her calling her sister's name, each time higher-pitched, louder, and filled with more terror.
My adrenaline cancels out any pain I feel, save for the throbbing in my head that makes it difficult to think.
“Help me get out of here,” I tell Evgeny, trying to get my fingers to work enough to unbuckle the seat belt that won't seem to budge. “Help me get out!” I shout Sonya’s name several times, but there's still no answer.
“Maybe Kelly's right, Matvei,” Evgeny's voice comes from beside me. “You hit your head pretty badly. Maybe you should—”
“Get me the fuck out of here. I need to find Sonya!”
I'm fumbling at the seat belt clip, tugging frantically as I try to push away the airbag in my way, panic filling my veins, hot, wild, and raw.
“Will you stop fucking thrashing?” Evgeny grunts. He reaches through the shattered window, the glass scraping and catching on his jacket. He saws through the seat belt with a knife. I can instantly breathe better when the restriction eases.
“Get me out of here!”
“Calm the fuck down,” Evgeny says as he pulls and pushes, all while cursing under his breath in Russian. With a horrible scraping and the squeal of metal on metal, he pries the door open enough so he can reach in and pull me out.
“No, no, no! Don't touch him!” Paramedics and police officers, dark shapes outlined by flashing lights, are running toward us.
But I'm already out. My body is screaming in pain, and the agony in my head threatens to make me black out again.
I hang on to the car and my consciousness, willing myself to stay present.
“Sir, let me check you. You've been in a serious accident and I need to—”
I wave away the paramedic's concern as Kelly returns, panting and out of breath, her eyes wild.
“Where is she?” The question comes with a fear unlike I've ever known before as images of Sonya lying in a puddle of blood on the pavement, her body broken, assault my mind. “Kelly, where is she?”
She shakes her head, bewildered, and grabs for Evgeny as though she needs something to help keep her upright. “I don't know. I don't know where she is. There’s no sign that she was ejected from the car, but she's not here. She’s not anywhere around here.”
It's a fast tumble of words that tells me nothing, and I bat away the paramedic who’s still trying to get me to go to the ambulance.
“It looks like someone pried her door open and cut her seat belt,” I hear one of the officers say.
My head snaps toward the car, a choice I regret immediately as a lightning bolt lances through my skull. I place my hands on either side of my face and bend down.
“Sir, you have to let me check you. You could have an intracranial hemorrhage or other serious damage—”
I ignore the paramedic, because in the second before the explosion of pain, I saw the crumpled car that hit us, and I distinctly remember that out of all the sounds I heard, the squealing of brakes was not one of them.
It's an old green Buick with bullet holes in the side.
This crash was intentional.
“Kelly,” I grumble through the pain. “Get Captain Quinn on the phone. He knows the car that hit us.”
“On it.” Her eyes widen as she pulls out her phone and calls her superior.
“Is the guy still in there?”
Evgeny frowns. “No. He's gone.”
Evgeny and I exchange a look because we both know exactly what happened.
“We have to go. Now.” I straighten, ignoring the screaming pain in my side.
“Sir,” the paramedic tries one more time, gesturing to her partner for help. “I have to look at you. It isn't safe for you—”
I ignore her and her partner yet again, as well as the police swarming the scene, managing a slow, painful walk to Evgeny's SUV.
“Tell the other officers to talk with your captain. He'll have the answers they're looking for,” I tell Kelly as Evgeny opens the door for me.
“What the ever-loving fuck is going on?” Kelly demands. “Don't you dare leave without me. I'm coming with you.”
Evgeny and I exchange another look. “No. You don't want to be a part of any of this.”
“Like hell I don't.” Kelly's eyes burn with anger, her face set with determination.
It's a look that reminds me too much of Sonya—both women have indomitable spirits.
“Don't you two assholes dare leave without me.
I'll be right back.” Kelly addresses us both, throwing a second look at Evgeny before jogging off to speak with an officer who appears to be in charge.
I get into the car, gripping the handhold as I ease myself down into the seat. I taste blood as I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning in pain.
Evgeny shuts my door, then walks around and slides into the driver's seat. “Where are we going?”
I lean back against the headrest, closing my eyes against the way the world is spinning while trying to organize my thoughts through the pain and panic.
I'm about to tell Evgeny to find Kelly when she yanks open the door and jumps into the back seat. “Captain Quinn is going to call me with more information, but he said to start at the place you last saw the car. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? I think you know what we're going to do and what's about to happen. And nothing about it is going to be legal.”
Kelly's response is a statement. “I'm going to do whatever I have to do to get my sister back.”
“Okay.” I have to accept her decision; there’s no more time to argue. “Evgeny, go.”
I look back as Evgeny peels out from the accident scene. The twisted metal, the shattered glass, the sounds of the accident, and Sonya's screams still ringing in my ears.
Like Kelly, I'm also going to do whatever it takes to get Sonya and our children home safely. I don't care if I have to wade through a sea of blood and bodies.
I will bring them all home.