Chapter 5 #2
“The storm has ended, so your uncle and his security detail are taking a helicopter back to his property, and I’m driving you and your aunt back.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll find your bags to make sure they end up with us. Wait here.”
I stopped him with my last question. “Who would attack my uncle’s home?”
“Well, off hand, I could name about five different families, but we won’t know who’s responsible until we look at the evidence.”
His candor dazed me. People rarely told me the truth. What did he mean, five other families? I wanted to ask more questions, but I knew this wasn’t the time. “Okay.”
“Just wait here.”
I stood off to the side, watching as the chaos unfolded.
It seemed like the only sober ones were the security staff.
Everyone, including my uncle, was swaying on their feet.
There was a lot of shouting, but Axel and his counterparts moved with a dark efficiency, talking to each other, making coordinated movements, and guiding the hotel staff.
Within moments, more than half of the group had been ushered into their vehicles and driven off.
Axel reappeared. “The car is packed. Time to go.”
As I stepped outside, the deep, rhythmic thump of the helicopter vibrated through the air. Ahead of me, my Aunt Lena was getting into the back seat of a black SUV.
Axel and I didn’t speak, but he slowed his steps to match mine and opened my door for me. He waited for me to climb in before shutting the door behind me.
Aunt Lena glared at me, her face pinched with anger. She only ever voiced her opinions when Grisha wasn’t around. “You think you’re so clever, going behind my back with this risqué romance.”
I remained silent and refused to meet her stare.
She leaned closer, so close I could smell the mint of her toothpaste. “Axel’s a fixer. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”
“Better him than Sergei,” I shot back.
She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment Axel opened the driver’s door and got in.
The drive happened in silence. It was the middle of the night, and my entire body ached. I curled up against the back seat and stared into the dark abyss of the night. Axel seemed focused on the road, and my aunt sat beside me with her eyes closed.
My uncle’s home was a large estate on the edge of Moscow, and when we got close, Axel got a phone call that he answered on speaker. “Axel, the driveway is blocked with emergency vehicles. Advise you to take the back gravel road and cut through the east entrance from the side.”
Axel responded, “We’re heading that way now.”
A few moments later, Axel spoke to my aunt and me for the first time. “We’re being followed. Put your seat belts on.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” my aunt demanded in alarm. She spun around in her seat and looked out the back window.
I pulled on my seat belt. Axel called someone and spoke in rapid Russian, most of which I didn’t catch. It sounded like he was giving coordinates.
We were on a back road that led toward my uncle’s estate, and it was completely dark.
Behind us, car lights suddenly surged into view and came closer and closer to the back of our vehicle despite the terrifying speed at which Axel was driving.
When we rounded the bend, we could see, up ahead, two cars parked lengthwise across the road, strategically blocking our pass.
Axel slammed on the brakes and came to a stop about four car lengths away from them.
The car that had been chasing us backed up and then moved sideways to partially block the road behind us.
Axel put on his high beams.
For a moment we sat in silence, looking at the two plain cars sitting idle in the road. It didn’t look like an accident, nor did it seem official.
My aunt peered forward from her seat. “Is that a police roadblock?”
“Unlikely,” Axel said. He honked his horn twice in succession, but no one got out.
I watched Axel’s eyes in the rearview mirror and realized that he was focused on what was happening behind us.
“This is an ambush,” he said calmly. “They’ve got guns. Get down.”
Instead of ducking, I looked behind me. Two men were walking toward the back of our vehicle carrying large automatic weapons.
My aunt screamed and pointed ahead of us. Four men had stepped out of the cars in front. They were dressed completely in black, they wore masks and they held huge weapons.
“I need you to get down, Mila,” Axel ordered, but I was completely frozen. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was unfolding in front of me. I grasped the seat in front of me, but that was the only movement I seemed capable of.
Axel hit the gas and accelerated so hard I was nearly thrown back. He drove the SUV straight toward the parked cars. The men stood and fired their weapons, but when they realized that Axel wasn’t stopping, they all dove to the side as we barreled toward them.
“Brace yourself,” Axel said calmly, right before he smashed the front of our SUV into the back of their car.
It happened in a second. The entire SUV jolted hard, and my seat belt tightened around me upon impact, but their car absorbed most of the crash and spun one of the other cars sideways, allowing us to basically drive past it.
There was a heavy plunking all around us, and it took me a moment to realize it was the sound of multiple bullets hitting the metal of our vehicle. But the glass windows merely fractured.
Beside me, my aunt had her head between her legs. She was shrieking with fear and panic.
“I need you to call your uncle for me,” Axel said, as he cranked the wheel of the SUV, spinning it ninety degrees to the left.
I nearly lost hold of my phone when we drove down into a ditch and then up the steep embankment on the other side.
Then we plowed through an insane amount of brush before blasting into a mature corn field.
Dried stalks slapped and pounded us on all sides.
The corn reached well above the roof of the SUV, and our visibility completely disappeared.
It felt like we were in a giant, weird car wash.
My uncle answered on the first ring. “Where are you?” he barked.
I put him on speaker. “They’re shooting at us. We’re in the cornfield, the one beside the pond.” I gasped as the vehicle banged and bumped over tilled mounds of earth and the smell of crushed greenery filled the cabin. Beside me, my aunt moaned.
I could hear my uncle shouting, and then he came back to me. “Tell Axel to drive up the north side of the pond. We’re on our way.”
I held the phone toward Axel, who spoke loudly. “Our back tires have been shot out, and we might not make it.”
Grisha responded. “Hold them back.”
“I recognized one of the men. He was Volkov.”
“We’re on our way,” my uncle barked. “Hold the line.”
I disconnected our call and looked back in dismay when the big bright lights of a truck shone eerily through the cornstalks as it chased us. It was so close I could hear the roar of the engine.
They rammed us with tremendous power, and we fishtailed wildly over bumps while Axel struggled to maintain control.
My aunt wailed dramatically the second time they surged forward and rammed into us, but it was their final hit that nearly sent the SUV rolling. Axel worked to recover from that assault, but we ended up sliding into a steep ditch next to the field and coming to a dead stop.
I looked behind me, but the truck had driven slightly past us. I could see its taillights off to the side. I watched in shock as Axel got out of the driver’s seat and unholstered his weapon.
“What are you doing?” I whispered harshly.
“My job,” he said calmly, as he slid back the top of his gun with a resounding click.
I was terrified he’d get shot and we’d be left stranded in the vehicle without protection.
“Just stay.” I couldn’t keep the fear out of my voice.
“Lock the doors,” he told me tersely as he tossed me the vehicle fob. “And get down.”
The door slammed shut, and then there was nothing but darkness.
I locked the doors, and my aunt moaned in response.
“Get on the floor,” I hissed at her. “And be quiet.”
She whimpered, but she took off her seat belt and slid into a small crouch onto the floor beside me. I knelt beside the seat but I kept eyes at the window level, straining to see in the darkness. I could hear the truck’s idling engine, but I couldn’t see anyone.
Then a flash of light. Then another. Then too many to count as the sharp cracks of gunfire echoed around us.
Please be okay. Please be okay. My mind chanted that on a loop while I struggled to see. But I could only hear was my aunt’s heavy breathing behind me.
The wait was excruciating, and I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. But it was long enough that I fully imagined Axel lying dead and then men coming to take me and my aunt.
I thought about getting out of the vehicle and running to hide in the corn, but I was so stiff with fear and aching that I didn’t think I would get far.
Then, out of the mist and broken stalks of corn, Axel emerged into the headlights of our vehicle, looking more than a little pissed.
He was holstering his weapon and talking on the phone.
He showed no emotion, but his movements screamed controlled rage.
From his precise steps to his narrowed gaze, every inch of him pulsed with barely restrained aggression.
I exhaled a long breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
At first I thought he was muddy, but as he approached, I realized that his entire face was sprayed with blood and his jacket was soaked with something similarly dark and wet.
I unlocked the vehicle. When he opened the door, he was still talking on his phone. And, in the distance, coming around the pond, I could see the headlights of at least eight vehicles. My uncle’s calvary, arriving as promised.
I watched in silence as all the vehicles except one drove past us toward the back road from where we had come.
My aunt crawled back onto the seat and sniffled as she wiped her face.
The last vehicle pulled up beside ours. Axel got off the phone and looked back at both of us.
“Are you hurt?” I blurted out.
He shook his head. “No. Are you both okay?”
My aunt glared at him. “Did you have to drive like such a maniac? Look what you did to our vehicle. Who do you think is going to pay for it?”
Axel looked at me and motioned with his head to the SUV next to us. “They’ll take you back to the house.”
“Bring my bags,” my aunt demanded.
I opened the door and staggered out into the field. The pale moon illuminated the extent of damage to the vehicle, but most of it was from the gunfire. The entire side was riddled with dozens of bullet holes.
I stumbled over the broken cornstalks to the other vehicle and ignored the sound of gunfire in the distance. I crawled stiffly across the back seat. My aunt climbed in behind me and slammed the door.
Two men transferred our bags while Axel stood in front to take another call. I watched him talk, and every mannerism made him look impossibly intimidating and ruthless.
My aunt watched him closely, her face still stained with tears and sharp with judgment. “And you think Sergei is ruthless? At least we can control Sergei. No one controls Axel, and no one will be able to protect you.”
I turned and glanced at my aunt, feeling numb with horror at what I had just witnessed. Numb to what I had just survived.
A sneer curved her mouth. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten mixed up in, but I’m personally going to enjoy you finding out.”
I looked out into the dark field, the dim red taillights of the truck still glowing through the corn. I couldn’t reconcile the man who blew on my cold fingertips with the man who emerged from a gunfight covered in blood. My aunt wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know Axel at all, and that terrified me.