29. Maxim
29
MAXIM
O ld, derelict buildings offered shelter the closer I came to the address that Tom had given me. Speeding through the traffic-less streets arranged in an organized maze of parallels and right angles, I had a clear route toward the biggest structure.
To my left, Lake Michigan’s waves pummeled the shore. With the window down, the smell of the water reached me. It wasn’t like the humid coast of Mexico, but it felt like déjà vu, rushing toward Nadia in an area that hugged a body of water.
“She'd better be here,” I growled to myself.
I didn’t doubt Tom. Somehow, I felt confident that he was right. The determination in his voice wasn’t fake. That agent really wanted Lev Avilov caught and captured to be charged or killed.
My biggest worry was that Nadia might have already been moved.
I narrowed my eyes at the horizon on the choppy waves. Boats would be out there. They always were. But if Lev already moved her onto his, I’d need to haul my ass to catch one off the land.
I sped all the way into the compound. Two men shot at the SUV, but I spotted them in advance. One was run over, his gunfire cobwebbing the windshield. The SUV thumped harshly as I drove over his body, but his partner kept firing.
Hunching my shoulders, I tried to stay as low as possible but still drive in. I fired out the window, hitting him somewhere because he cried out with a curse and ceased firing.
Driving over the one guard resulted in bullets hitting something in the undercarriage, but I ignored the flashing lights that flickered on all over the dashboard. Fluids were leaking. Damage was inevitable, and I wondered if both the brake and power steering fluids were draining out from that one man’s gunfire because I stopped by crashing into the corner of a building.
I counted on more men to come running, but no one rushed up at the impact.
That’s not good.
This place should be secured. It had to be. If no one was rushing up to the sound of an SUV smashing into the corner of a low-lying storage shed, they were preoccupied elsewhere.
Near Nadia.
I dreaded the idea of her being inside here where all the men and soldiers might be busy. Busy fighting or abusing her. I wanted her away from danger, not surrounded by it.
Since I braced for the rough brake job, I wasn’t too wounded. The air bags were a pain to push back, and the door was too crumpled to open. A slice of my knife got through most of the air bag, and I climbed out of the window to rush inside the biggest building.
My knife was in its sheath. In my hand, I carried my gun, at the ready. All my muscles were thrumming with adrenaline. I was in a serious mood to kick some ass and kill more of these Avilov fuckers.
But it seemed I’d need to wait my turn. When I kicked a door open, I rushed inside to complete and utter chaos. No one would even notice that I’d come in. I was just one among the many fighting and trying to hide.
What the fuck are all these children doing here?
This close to the water, it made sense that they’d be involved in a trafficking operation here, with the ships coming in and going just as easily.
Aside from the children escaping and trying to get out of the warehouse, Avilov soldiers fought among themselves. Infighting was nothing new. But I couldn’t figure out who was targeting whom. And I couldn’t guess where Nadia might be.
I entered further, sticking to the walls and hiding around groups fighting.
It was chaos, pure and simple, especially with the fire alarms shrieking. No smoke hung in the air, and I wondered if someone had pulled the alarms to instigate this mayhem.
Aside from the children trying to escape, others were hurrying toward the exits. Men who’d been beaten. One was missing his hand, wrapping his stump with his shirt.
Hostages.
And I bet Dmitri is one of them!
“Get them. Get them back in the room!” one Avilov soldier shouted. “Get the hostages back in the room!”
“He’s gone,” another yelled back. “The Valkov is gone.”
I stood straight, perking up at my surname. Dmitri was gone? I had to have faith that he’d escaped. Maybe he’d orchestrated all of this insanity to get out.
But where the hell is Nadia?
I ran through the throngs of people, searching for her. Several men noticed me and fought, but I eliminated them as quickly as I could.
I couldn’t believe that I’d found the place where Dmitri was held. But I had to locate Nadia.
“You!” A gunshot blasted too close for comfort. I stopped and ducked, letting the chips from the wall rain down on me. As I spun to fire back, I came face to face with the man himself.
Lev. Fucking. Avilov. He looked more haggard than I thought he might. Up close and in person, he showed his age.
“Where is my bride?” He lifted his gun higher, but I raised mine at the same time.
“She’s not yours anymore,” I growled.
“She is! She will be my bride!” His eyes looked crazed, and with his white hair sticking up messily, he appeared unkempt and psychotic.
He was furious. His nostrils flared as he stared at me, his lips pressed tightly together in a firm line.
“Where is?—”
A hole appeared in his chest. Red blossomed out from the epicenter of his shirt.
I furrowed my brow, confused. I hadn’t fired at him. Someone else had shot him.
All these men in here, and one had aimed at their leader. The bullet hadn’t entered through the front but the back. He went still, slowly spinning to face whoever had fired at him.
As he turned, Erik Avilov appeared behind him.
His gun was still pointed forward. I didn’t lower mine. Lev spluttered, his mouth hanging open as he gawked at his nephew.
“Go on. Go find your fucking bride,” Erik snarled. He fired twice more. Lev didn’t react. He didn’t raise his gun to fire back, too stunned to shoot his own relative.
“You old, useless fool. All you ever cared about was finding that bitch and breeding her before you died.” He shot his uncle again as he dropped to his knees. With shaking hands, the old man laid his fingers over the bloody wounds, but it was too feeble, too weak of a compression to save his life.
“Erik…” Lev shook his head, eyes so wide open with shock. Then he dropped to the floor.
Without Lev between us, I faced Erik directly. “Where?—”
He fired first, and I lunged to the side to avoid getting shot. “Where is she?” I roared.
He fired at the stack of pallets I dove behind, and I crouched lower to stay safe.
“Fuck you, Valkov. Fuck you and your brothers,” Erik shouted.
His voice left me as he ran off. By the time I turned around the corner of the stacked pallets, he was down another corridor.
An explosion blasted off. I ran after Erik, but the force of the shockwaves knocked me to the side. Grunting at the hard impact, I tried to lift myself off the floor and run, but another explosion rocked the warehouse.
The ceiling was falling. The walls were bursting apart. So many fought to escape, and I joined in the egress out of this place. Pushing past the Avilov forces, I aimed for the water, hoping a lane or path would run along the shore.
“Nadia!” I screamed her name, over and over and over. In the dusk settling over the sky, it was getting harder to see who was whom. Men fought. Children ran scattered. But I saw not a single woman anywhere.
“Nadia!”
She had to have gotten out. She had to. Lev hadn’t taken hold of her yet. He couldn’t have if he was asking me where she was and telling me to hand her over.
And he never would expect her to come to him again. Ironically, Erik had taken care of that.
“Nadia!” I staggered back as a truck pulled to a rough stop.
The passenger door swung open, and I widened my eyes at the sight before me. Smoke stung me, though, and I blinked through the tears this hazy air caused.
“Dmitri?”
He coughed, staring at me through one eye. “Get in!”
I ran, amazed. Nadia had found him in there, and with the state of his bloody, beaten body, it looked like she’d dragged him out with her. There was no way he could have escaped on his own.
“Brother!” I climbed in, shoving him further to the middle of the bench seat. He slumped, looking like a limp body with no energy.
“Hurry. Hurry!” Nadia didn’t wait. She slammed her foot on the gas pedal before I could shut the passenger door. Gunshots peppered the vehicle, and I crouched over my brother. Clutching the dashboard frame, I held on to avoid sliding out and also to keep Dmitri inside with Nadia’s wild, curving turn.
The door smacked into a parked truck, and as it snapped off the frame, I ducked and gripped the dash hard. Air whooshed in faster, and without the metal panel keeping the passenger side secure, bullets could hit faster.
Nadia swerved, though, almost in a full circle as she sped down the road in the opposite direction of where the rest went. The Avilovs fled to the north, seeming to head for the boats bobbing at the nearest docks.
We left heading south.
“Sweetheart,” I said, grinning at the sight of her so focused and determined as she sped away.
“Maxim,” she replied, almost bossy, “I love you.”
“I couldn’t love you more,” I said as I leaned over Dmitri and kissed her hard.
He groaned, and I retreated right away, hating that pressing on his side to reach her behind the steering wheel could have caused him that much pain.
“Later, Maxim. Later. Get me to a fucking hospital first, huh?”
I stared at my woman, proud and awestruck that she’d done this. She hadn’t run away from me. She’d been waiting for me to run to her .
From now on, I vowed as my heart beat easier, we could never be apart like that again.