Chapter 26 – Ilya
For the first time in days, we had a solid lead. Our team had found a courier tied to the foreign organization that’s attacked us twice already.
Boris had the tablet open on the table in the dimly lit room, a satellite feed frozen mid-frame.
“How many?” I asked.
“Four, maybe five. Light arms. Nothing we can’t handle.” Boris tapped the screen, zooming in on a stretch of road flanked by warehouses. “Extraction window’s tight. Once they hit the corridor, we’ve got maybe six minutes before they’re clear on the other side.”
Yuri leaned over the hood, checking the route himself. “This ties back to the encrypted comms we pulled off the last hit?”
“Same signal pattern,” Boris answered. “If this courier’s carrying what we think he’s carrying, it’ll confirm the channel.”
The door behind us opened.
Iris walked in dressed in black, fitted, practical, hair pulled back, nothing about her looking like she planned on staying behind tonight.
“If you’re going on an extraction mission, then I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Like hell you are,” I protested.
“Ilya…”
“No. This isn’t up for debate.” I turned back to the tablet, dismissing the conversation before it started. “You’re staying here.”
“Listen, I’m the only one who can read that data in real time.
” She crossed the room, stopping in front of me.
“If this courier’s carrying encrypted files, someone needs to process them the second you pull them off him.
Not an hour later, back here, after whatever window matters has already closed. ”
Silence.
“She does have a point, Boss,” Boris said quietly.
“Thank you.” She gestured at him.
I thought for a moment. “It’s dangerous.”
“Everything about my life since you knocked on my door has been dangerous.” Her voice stayed level, no theatrics in it, just fact. “I’m not asking permission. I’m telling you I can do something none of these men can do as fast as I can.”
Boris and Yuri exchanged a glance.
“No offense,” she said to them.
“None taken,” Yuri replied.
I hesitated, hating the idea of willingly putting her in harm’s way. But knowing her, she wasn’t going to back down from this. Her stubbornness wouldn’t let her.
“Fine. But you’ll stay in the vehicle,” I said. “Whatever happens, you don’t leave the car.”
“Understood.”
“I mean it, Iris.” My voice was firm.
“I hear you, all right?” She held my gaze, steady, no argument left in it now that she’d won the one that mattered. “Now let’s go before we lose our window.”
***
We sat parked a block off the loading dock, engine off, headlights dark.
I kept the binoculars up, watching the courier through the windshield. Iris sat beside me in the passenger seat, a secured tablet resting on her knees.
He wasn’t alone. Two men were talking with him about God-knows-what.
“Do you recognize any of them?” Iris asked me, her voice low.
“No.”
The courier said something, gesturing toward the crates stacked near the truck. One of the men nodded, checking his watch.
“Boris, hold position,” I said into the radio. “Wait for the exchange to finish.”
Static answered back.
“Boris?” Suspicion crept into my gaze.
A shout came from the far side of the lot. One of Boris’s men, pinned behind a stack of pallets, had been spotted.
“Shit.”
Everything broke at once.
Muzzle flashes lit the dark.
“Get down.” I shoved Iris’s head down against the seat.
I was out the door in an instant, ducking behind the vehicle as rounds punched into the metal beside me.
Boris and Yuri were already moving, spreading out and drawing fire away from each other. I fired over the hood, taking down one man near the truck and another diving for cover behind a forklift.
The unidentified crew broke first, sprinting for their vehicles, engines roaring to life through the chaos. The courier went down hard, clipped by a stray round, the package he’d been carrying skidding across the concrete.
“Boris, the package!”
He didn’t hear me. He was pinned, trading fire with two men behind a dumpster. Yuri was worse off, three of them closing on his position.
I couldn’t get to it either. Three men broke off toward me, forcing me into cover behind the hood as bullets sparked off the metal inches from my face.
Movement caught my eye.
Iris.
She was already out of the car, running low, head down, straight through the open ground toward the package.
“Iris, get back in the car!”
She didn’t stop.
The courier, bleeding out on the ground, grabbed her ankle as she reached him. She went down hard for a second, then twisted and drove her heel into his face. His grip broke.
She snatched the package off the concrete and ran.
“Got it!” She dove back into the car, slamming the door.
I put down the last man in front of me with two center-mass shots and sprinted for the driver’s seat. Without hesitation, I started the engine and drove off, tires kicking up a cloud of dust.
My men were already in their cars, engines revving as we fled the scene, headlights cutting through the smoke and darkness.
More vehicles chased after us, rounds being fired.
“Split up,” I said into the radio, tires screaming as I pulled out. “Different directions. Don’t let them track which car has the package.”
“Copy that, Boss,” Boris said.
We scattered, each vehicle trailing a set of headlights, engines screaming down separate roads into the dark.
The first shots hit the rear windshield as I cut hard around the corner, glass spidering but holding.
“Get down!”
Iris dropped low in her seat, the package clutched to her chest. Headlights filled the mirrors, two or three vehicles closing fast through the industrial sprawl behind us.
I took the next turn without braking, tires screaming across wet asphalt as the car fishtailed before I hauled it straight again.
Warehouses blurred past on either side, chain-link fences and stacked containers casting long shadows under sodium lights.
Another round of gunfire. This one clipped the side mirror on her side clean off.
I stayed calm, my eyes focused on the road ahead.
“They’re gaining!” Iris’s voice was tight and controlled, despite the fear in it.
I checked the mirror that was left. She was right. Whoever was driving that lead car knew what they were doing, closing the gap through turns I’d expected to shake them on.
I cut left down a narrow access road, barely wide enough for the car, clipping a stack of empty pallets that exploded across the asphalt behind us. It bought a few seconds; one of the pursuing vehicles swerved hard to avoid the debris.
But that wasn’t enough.
The road ahead split, one route curving back toward the main highway, the other running straight toward the rail yard.
I heard the horn before I saw the tracks. Long, rising, close.
I thought for a moment, and an idea formed fast, the kind I didn’t have time to second-guess.
I could take the turn, cut left, buy us another few minutes on these roads before they closed the gap again. Or I could do something they wouldn’t expect.
My grip tightened on the steering wheel, and I stepped on the gas.
“Ilya, what are you doing—” Iris’s voice climbed sharp. “That’s a train. Are you insane? You’re going to get us killed!”
I kept my eyes on the tracks, on the timing, on the long black shape barreling in from the right.
“Hold on to something,” I said. “It’s about to get bumpy.”
She grabbed the door handle, the seatbelt already locked across her chest, eyes squeezed shut. Her lips moved fast, silently, as if in prayer.
The horn screamed louder.
I didn’t slow down. Instead, I floored it.
In a split second, the car shot across the crossing, tires bouncing hard over the rails, the whole frame jolting as we cleared the far side.
The horn hit its peak right behind us, deafening, and I caught the flash of the train’s front light in the side mirror a half second before the engine roared past.
Long. Endless. Car after car thundering across the crossing, sealing the road behind us like a wall.
I eased off the gas, checking the mirror again. Headlights on the other side, stacking up uselessly against the tracks, brake lights flaring red as the pursuit came to a dead stop.
They weren’t getting through that. They weren’t crazy enough.
Iris opened her eyes slowly, chest still heaving, hands white-knuckled on the door and the seatbelt both.
“We made it,” she said, like she didn’t quite believe it. “Oh, my God, we actually made it.”
She let out a breath that turned into something close to a laugh, shaky and disbelieving, her whole body still trembling from adrenaline. “You’re insane, you know that, right?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“That doesn’t make you less insane!” She was laughing now, real laughter, the kind that came from surviving something you shouldn’t have.
I let out a quiet chuckle, fingers rubbing my eyes.
She looked back at the train, still thundering past us, cutting the night in half. “Let’s get outta here before the train passes through.”
The engine roared to life, and the tires squeaked against asphalt as I drove away.
***
I pulled the car off the road into a temporary blind zone, engine still ticking, headlights dark.
Trees crowded the shoulders. No streetlights. Just the low glow from the dashboard and the distant sound of the train still moving somewhere behind us.
Iris looked at me, still catching her breath. “Why are we stopping?”
“Because I wanna do this.” I reached across the console and kissed her.
It wasn’t careful; it wasn’t soft or low. It was deep, hot, and fervent.
She met me halfway, mouth open, hands already in my hair.
The adrenaline hadn’t burned off yet. It sat under our skin, sharp and restless. And it poured straight into the way we devoured each other’s lips—fast, hungry, teeth and breath, the wet sound filling the front seat.
Seatbelts clicked open, our hands dragging at the fabric of our clothes. I pulled her shirt up, and she helped me out of mine, both of us clumsy in the tight space.
Her bra was still on. My chest was bare under her palms.
“Backseat. Now,” I said, my voice urgent.