Chapter 33 - Masha
It was difficult to comprehend that the beautiful modern mansion was burning.
Much too close a call, when I had been cajoling Anatoli to stay in bed just a little longer.
I had almost succeeded, and when I heard the final scream of the guard, a shudder ran through me.
As usual, the Collective meant business and had acted faster than I ever dreamed they would.
I was putting on a brave front, but if I had to face them down with only Anatoli, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t win.
However, I was beginning to feel an odd loyalty to him I didn’t understand, and furthermore, it scared the daylights out of me.
Shouldn’t I have been plotting my escape instead of helping him figure out ways to defeat our common enemy?
An enemy I might very well have better odds with if I played my cards right.
They might be powerful, and they might have had a bone to pick with me, but for whatever reason, they weren’t buying Anatoli’s cover story.
I believed they balked at the idea of starting an outright war with my family and chose to come after him instead, because they believed he was the easier target.
If that was the case, I might be able to stay alive with them long enough to make a deal with my cousins for my safe return.
Based on Anatoli’s dark look, he seemed to think along the same lines.
It must have stung his fierce pride, and my hackles raised on his behalf.
With the amount of support he got, which was next to none, he was doing a pretty great job.
He’d given us a run for our money when he was based in Silicon Valley.
And he managed to pull off an escape from my team.
He’d accrued a vast fortune basically on his own after he cut ties with his treacherous family, and when they pleaded for him to return, he put everything aside for them.
I’d never seen such a messy, divided organization, but he whipped them into some semblance of cohesion in only a week.
Now they had to be pressuring him to turn me over and end the fight with the Collective, but instead of saving his own ass, he was on the run again, trying to get me to safety.
I was just about a breath away from giving him a pep talk, but I kept my mouth shut. It was almost like I was starting to care about him, and that was impossible. Wasn’t he just drawing out my punishment and keeping me from my family?
Throughout all this inner wrestling with myself, I’d been keeping an eye out the back window and nudged Anatoli, who immediately looked up from poring over the map on his phone.
“What do you think about that silver car,” I said, twisted around to look out the darkly tinted window. “Three cars back, behind the bread truck.”
It had been hanging back, almost making a point not to get directly behind us or pass us, and our driver was sticking to the speed limit, causing most of the other cars on the highway to blow past us.
As Anatoli turned to look, two of the cars behind us found the opportunity to change lanes and sped around, leaving the lumbering bread truck to fill in the gaps, the silver car staying steadfast behind it.
“I think it’s time we change cars,” he said, telling the driver to pull into a big rest stop with a restaurant and gas station that had been advertised for the last several miles.
He turned at the last possible second without using his indicator, and thanks to the bread truck still plodding along behind us, we narrowly gave the silver car the slip.
If they were indeed following us, they’d have to take the next exit and double back, which would give us a few minutes to make the trade.
My stomach tightened with nervous anticipation, but I relaxed when I saw how busy the place was.
The giant tourist trap was packed with cars, every gas pump had a line, and people milled around outside taking pictures of a big cactus statue or just stretching their legs while sipping cans of soda.
It took several minutes of winding around the huge parking lot to find a spot, then the driver turned around for directions.
We’d gone over the plan in the forty-five minutes or so since we got the news about the attack on the house, and had been on the lookout for the perfect place to change cars.
We couldn’t have asked for a better place.
Anatoli would steal another car, and we’d leave in the new one.
The driver would wait around and see if the silver car doubled back, then he’d lead them away on a wild goose chase, giving us the opportunity to continue to the Mexican border.
“We all good?” Anatoli asked as he leaned over the trunk, discreetly slipping a few tools under his jacket. He’d have to take the plates off one car and change them with the one he decided to steal, but I had faith he could do it all in only a few minutes.
“I could actually use a trip to the restroom,” I said, looking at the crowded convenience store in front of the gas pumps.
It was half the size of a shopping mall, brightly lit and packed with people buying snacks and t-shirts or big bags of ice for their long car journeys.
Anatoli gave it an appraising stare, then looked at me, wearing jeans and one of the silly sweatshirts that had greeted me when I first arrived at the desert house.
Most of them were left behind, probably ashes by now, and the only thing I wasn’t sorry about was being gone forever.
This one had a big-eyed kitten on it, surrounded by sparkles.
My hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and I had comfortable, plain sneakers on my feet.
I would blend right in with all the other tourists.
I pointed to one of the guns in the trunk and gave him a hopeful look. For a second, I thought he might cave and let me have one, but he looked away with a twitch in his jaw.
“Svet is armed,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”
The driver patted the side of his jacket and nodded at me to go ahead of him toward the store, with an air that I should get on with it if I wanted to go. I did, and I also wanted a cold drink. Being on the run was thirsty work.
“It’ll take too long to wait in those lines,” Svet said, sweeping the snaking queues. “I’ll take care of it when you’re done in the restroom.”
“You can’t shoplift a bottle of water,” I hissed.
As we moved toward the back, he deftly slipped a couple of candy bars into his jacket pocket to prove that he could, all while raising a brow at me. “Weren’t you born and raised in the Bratva?”
I made a point of looking at the cameras posted all over the store and shook my head at him. “Says the man who won’t go one mile over the speed limit.”
He made a gruff noise, which I took as a laugh, and posted himself outside the ladies’ room door.
With a sigh, I was once again joking around with one of my captors.
I went in. It felt like a lot longer than a couple of hours since I woke up wrapped around Anatoli’s hard, muscled body.
I waited in line for my turn at a stall, looking around the large, remarkably clean public restroom.
A stout woman stood sentinel near the sinks, making sure no one left behind too big a mess, and the other women either consulted their phones or chatted in low tones amongst themselves while we all waited.
I could almost feel Svet’s impatience permeating the walls, and found myself worrying about Anatoli getting caught breaking into one of the cars out in the lot.
What the hell was I doing? I was free of prying eyes and outside of the desert prison.
This was my chance to escape. Was I going to take it or go along meekly like a lamb to slaughter?
I looked over the restroom again with a keener eye.
There were windows, but they were high on the wall, and there was nothing I could hoist myself up on under them.
Even if I could, I’d make quite the spectacle of myself, but I doubted any of the other women would raise a fuss.
I didn’t dare risk any of them by asking for help, even to sneak me out of the bathroom and past Svet. I was on my own, and while it seemed like I might have a shot, it was only a mirage. I was as trapped as ever.
Pissed off at myself for giving up, I kept eyeing my surroundings, wondering if any of the women might have a pair of small scissors I could ask to borrow.
Picturing myself stabbing Sven in the neck made me want to laugh out loud in the lineup, and made me queasy at the same time.
Anatoli wouldn’t have to do anything if I tried something like that.
Some hero in the crowd would tackle me, and the place would be swarming with police in minutes.
While I was wondering if that might actually work, since at least I’d be away from Anatoli and my family would bail me out and get the charges swept under the rug, it was finally my turn in a stall.
Something I didn’t want to examine kept me from asking anyone for scissors or a pen knife; hell, even a sturdy pen might be useful. Something that seemed too much like I was growing a heart where I should have had a lump of coal, and also suspiciously like I didn’t want to leave Anatoli.
When I emerged from the restroom, Svet was no longer at his post, and the narrow hallway was surprisingly empty of any other people. This had to be a sign that I should head out the back and just start running. I began to turn when a cold chill washed over me.
This was too easy, too convenient, too much like an answer to a prayer I didn’t really make. Svet wouldn’t have left his spot outside the door if an earthquake had split the store into pieces. Something was wrong.
I turned to run, but not out back. Toward the front, toward Anatoli. To the known entity and away from that overwhelming sense of danger prickling the tiny hairs at the back of my neck.
I was too late. In the deserted hall, with my eyes on the hubbub just beyond the passage, a hand clapped over my mouth from behind.
I should have been looking behind me. My desire to get back to the safety of Anatoli had momentarily put me off my game.
But I was back in it, swinging my head back with all my force, hearing the satisfying crack as I felt the sharp pain of my head connecting with my assailant’s face.
He made a low grunt, wrapping his other arm around my chest and heaving me off my feet.
Not for the first or even hundredth time, I cursed my smaller size, always putting me at a disadvantage.
I kicked, digging my heel into his shin, but my soft sneakers didn’t make him pause as he yanked me back towards the exit at the end of the hall.
I couldn’t make a sound, not even a murmur.
His hand was so tight over my nose and mouth, I began to panic at the lack of air.
All I needed was one person to come out of one of the restrooms, just one person to see I was being dragged away against my will and raise the alarm.
Where the hell was Svet? Out stealing sodas?
He’d come running if I could make a peep.
And Anatoli would tear this son of a bitch to shreds, but he was somewhere out in that vast parking lot, completely unaware that I needed him.
I tried jerking my head back again, furious that I needed anyone.
He only wrapped me tighter, making it more difficult to breathe since he was nearly collapsing my ribcage with his burly arm.
At least I was making his retreat difficult.
I twisted and kicked and managed to get a handful of his flesh and dig my fingernails in until I heard the pop of skin breaking.
Now he grunted out a low curse, and I felt cold steel jam into my side.
“Better,” he said when I went completely still. “My orders are dead or alive, and the reward isn’t that much bigger for bringing you in alive,” he said.
I heard the clank of the heavy emergency exit door behind us and prayed a massive, screaming alarm would go off, but he would have been prepared for that and already disarmed it if there was. Nothing and no one was going to save me because then we were out the door.
The back of the place was completely deserted, the sun a shock after being in the overly air-conditioned store.
The man whipped me around, never breaking his hard grip from my mouth.
A black car waited in the wide alley, with a driver standing beside it, a heavy cloth bag and some rope in his hands.
He started toward me as I realized I was completely out of breath. Everything went dark.