Chapter 6 Kazimir #2
I see a thin gap between trees, just wide enough that it might be a deer trail when there are no trees, and take a chance. I pull Svetlana with me, taking us down the trail until it curves right… and there’s another small hunting cabin, probably used for staking out game coming down that trail.
We hit the porch at a dead run. I'm working on the lock when I hear the snowmobile engine coming from the right, through the wider trail at the other side, and I shove my knife into the old lock and twist.
The lock gives. I shove the door open and push Svetlana inside, then turn back.
The snowmobile bursts out of the tree line, and I can see the rider clearly now. It’s Pyotr, and behind him, I see two more snowmobiles with men I don’t recognize, baying dogs coming out of the treeline with them. Inside, I hear Svetlana make a choked sound.
There’s a pistol in Pyotr’s hand. Before he can aim, I point the rifle and pull the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
Pyotr's grin is vicious as he levels the pistol at me. I dive to the side as he fires. The bullet punches through the door frame where my head was a second ago, and I feel a cold jolt of fear as I wonder where Svetlana is inside, if she was in the line of fire.
I hit the ground rolling, coming up with my own handgun. Pyotr tries to turn the snowmobile to get another angle, and I put three rounds into the engine block.
The snowmobile coughs, sputters, and dies.
Pyotr jumps off, using it for cover. We're maybe thirty feet apart, both of us armed and looking for an opening.
"Kazimir Orlov," he calls out. "Ilya's dog. I’m surprised you’d ruin our friendship over a woman.”
I don't answer. I just watch his shadow on the snow, waiting for him to move.
"Iosef's going to be very interested to know you're the one who took his property," Pyotr continues. "Very interested. And Ilya—well. I don't think he's going to be happy about this either."
"Ilya doesn't know anything about this," I growl, trying to keep him talking. Distracted.
"He will soon." Pyotr shifts, and I see the barrel of his pistol appear over the edge of the snowmobile. "And when he finds out you've blown this all up over a woman he didn’t give a shit about before—”
I fire twice. The first shot hits the snowmobile. The second hits Pyotr in the chest.
He goes down hard, the pistol falling from his hand. Before his other men can fire, I finish off the rest of the rounds in my gun, dropping them all before one can do more than get off a shot that goes wide, cracking the gutter in the overhang.
I go straight for Pyotr’s limp form in the snow, kicking his weapon away and checking for a pulse.
Nothing.
I stand there for a moment, breathing hard and looking down at the body.
Pyotr was right about one thing—this is going to get complicated.
Iosef knows someone took Svetlana. He’s not going to stop looking for her.
And since I’m gone too, it’s fairly easy to guess that it was me.
I need to get Svetlana and me out of here, and her dealt with before Ilya finds out about any of this.
One of the men next to the other snowmobiles groans, rolling to his side, and I slam another magazine into my pistol, finishing him off with a shot to the head.
The dogs bay again, barking and howling, and I fire two rounds into the snow in front of them, shouting for them to get the fuck out.
They yelp and bark, fleeing into the trees.
"Kazimir?"
I turn. Svetlana is standing in the doorway, her face white, her eyes fixed on Pyotr's body.
"Inside," I snap. "Now."
She doesn't move. She's staring at the blood spreading across the snow, dark and vivid against the white, her eyes so wide that they look as if they could swallow up her whole face.
"Svetlana." I make my voice hard. "Inside. We don't have time for this."
That breaks through. She looks at me sharply, something flashing in her eyes, and then turns and goes back into the cabin.
I follow after I’ve dragged the bodies a decent way into the woods to keep predators away from the cabin, pulling the door shut behind us and shoving a nearby chair under the doorknob.
The interior is dark, the shutters blocking most of the light.
I can make out the shapes of furniture—a couch, a table, and chairs.
A stone fireplace against one wall. Stairs leading up to a second floor; a loft, by the looks of it.
The square footage of this one is about the same, but it’s a little nicer on the inside.
"Stay away from the windows," I tell her, moving through the space and checking to be sure no one else is in here, and what other entrances there are. There's a back door, but it’s locked. There’s an old sideboard nearby, and I drag it in front of the back door so I’ll hear if anyone tries to come in.
"And keep quiet. There will be more coming. "
"How many more, do you think?" Her voice is steady, but I can hear the fear underneath.
"I don't know. Iosef had plenty of guards at the compound, and I didn’t count them all. When Pyotr doesn’t come back, he’s going to get even angrier.
Some of them will stay to guard it, but he'll send the rest after us.
" I'm checking the windows now, making sure the shutters are secure.
"He's not going to let you go. You're too valuable. "
“Valuable.” She tests the word. “Is that what I am to you, too?”
“You’re valuable to him.” I turn to face her. She's standing in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. "To me, you're a complication I don't need. But I'm not leaving you here to die."
I see the words land. They’re harsh, but I don’t need her thinking this is anything more than what it is. I don’t need her getting ideas in her head that when we get back to Boston, I’m going to keep helping her.
I’m already in so much shit if this gets back to Ilya before I can get us out of here.
"Why not?" She takes a step toward me. "You left me before."
My jaw tightens. “That was different. We’ve already talked about this.”
“Well, maybe I’m not done talking about it.” Her voice is as flat and harsh as mine as she approaches me. “Maybe I want you to think about the fact that neither you nor Ilya gave a thought about what was going to happen to me after I left that warehouse.”
I did, though. I bite back the words. That’s not going to help anything. Besides, it doesn’t matter. Thinking about what she was doing after, wondering about her, lusting after her didn’t fix anything that happened. And it still won’t.
Only getting her out of here will.
“I know,” is all I can manage to say. I don’t know what else there could be. I’m sorry isn’t enough. I wish I could do it differently, can’t help anything.
"Do you?" She's closer now, close enough that I can see the way her pupils are dilated with adrenaline and fear. "Do you know what it's like to be left behind? To be abandoned by everyone you thought cared about you?"
"Yes." The word comes out harsher than I intended. "I do."
That brings her up short, and she stops, studying my face. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing that matters right now." I turn away, checking my gun. There are far fewer rounds there than I would like. "We need to focus on getting out of here alive."
"You keep saying that. But you haven't told me why I should trust you this time.
" She's right in front of me now. I can feel the heat of her body, smell the scent of her—woodsmoke from the first cabin and the sharp tang of the forest and fear, and the scent of clean, warm, feminine skin.
"You work for Ilya. You left me once. Why should I believe you won't do it again? "
I take a step forward, and suddenly we're too close. Close enough that I can see the pulse beating in her throat, the way her lips are parted, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
"Because I risked everything to get you out of there," I say, my voice low. "I killed Iosef's men. I burned my mission. I made myself a target. And I did it because I couldn't leave you in that cell."
"Why?" She searches my face, her eyes narrowed. "Why do you care?"
"I don't know." It's the truth. I don't know why she matters so much. I just know that she does. "But I do."
The air between us feels electric, charged, so thick I could cut it with my knife. I can see the moment she realizes how close we are, the way her breath catches, the way her eyes drop to my mouth.
I should step back. I should put distance between us. I should—
She sways forward, just a fraction, and I can feel the pull. The want. It would be so easy to close the distance, to take what I've been wanting since the moment I saw her at that party two years ago.
But I don't.
She's been through hell. She's vulnerable and scared and looking for something to hold onto. Taking advantage of that would make me no better than the men who hurt her.
I step back, and the moment breaks. Svetlana blinks, and I can see the confusion in her eyes, followed quickly by something that looks like hurt, and a flash of irritation.
"We need to keep moving," I tell her, my voice rough. "As soon as I can get a signal, I'll call for extraction. But until then, we need to stay alert and get to that safe house.”
She nods slowly, wrapping her arms around herself again. "Okay."
I move to the window, peering through a crack in the shutters. The sun is rising now, illuminating the forest. It’s beautiful, but it also means we’ll be easier to track. We need to get out of here.
"Why should I trust you?" Svetlana asks again, quieter this time.
I don't turn around. "Because you don't have a choice."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got." I hear the far-off sound of engines, and my stomach clenches.
More of them are coming. "Look, I get it.
Everyone in your life has let you down, it seems like.
You have no reason to trust me. But I'm all you've got right now, so you're going to have to take a leap of faith. "
Her jaw tightens, but she says nothing. I look back toward the window and take a sharp breath.
"There," I say quietly, pointing. "Three more snowmobiles. Coming from the west."
Svetlana tenses beside me. "What do we do?"
"We need to go out the back and move quickly. I saw a ravine about a quarter mile out on our way in here. If we can get there, we can lose them."
Svetlana’s chin is tipped up, but I can see the fear in her eyes. "And if we can't?"
"Then we fight." I look back at her. "Can you shoot?"
Her chin quivers slightly. "I don't know. I've never tried."
"Then stay behind me and do exactly what I tell you." I hand her the hunting rifle. "It's empty, but they don't know that. If someone gets close, point it at them. It might buy us a few seconds."
She takes the rifle, her hands unsteady. "Okay."
"Svetlana." I wait until she looks at me. "I'm going to get you out of this. I promise."
Her eyes narrow. "Don't make promises you can't keep."
"I don't." It’s all I say, and I can see the disbelief in her eyes. Fine. It doesn’t matter if she believes me or not. It just matters that I follow through.
The snowmobiles are getting closer. I can hear the engines now, that high-pitched whine cutting through the morning quiet. They're spreading out.
"Get ready," I tell Svetlana. "When I say go, we go out the back door and head for the tree line. Don't stop, don't look back. Just run."
She nods without a word, her face pale but determined.
I count the seconds, watching the snowmobiles circle. They're being cautious now, after what happened to Pyotr. They know I'm armed and dangerous.
Good. A feeling of satisfaction spreads through me at the thought of them being afraid.
One of them is getting too close to the back door. I can see him through the crack in the shutters, dismounting from his snowmobile with his weapon drawn.
I wait until he's three yards from the door. Then I kick it open and put two rounds in his chest.
He goes down, and I'm already moving, grabbing Svetlana's hand and pulling her out into the snow.
"Run!" I shout.
Behind us, I can hear shouting, engines revving. They're coming after us. But we have a head start, and I know this terrain better than they do.
We hit the tree line at a dead run, branches whipping at our faces.
Svetlana stumbles, and I catch her, hauling her upright, half-carrying her in an effort to move at my pace and not hers.
The ravine appears ahead of us, a dark slash in the white landscape.
It's deeper than I remembered, with a frozen stream at the bottom. But it’s our only way out of this.
I look at her and see that her eyes are wild with fright, like a cornered doe. “You have to jump,” I tell her sharply, and I hear her whimper of fear, but she nods. “It’s going to hurt, but everything already hurts, right? You don’t want them to catch you.”
She shakes her head, and before I can think better of it, I grab her hand.
“With me,” I tell her, and we both jump.
She lands hard, rolling, and I'm right behind her. The impact jars my teeth, sends pain shooting up my legs, but as soon as we’re on the edge of the stream, I'm up and moving, bringing Svetlana with me.
“Keep low,” I murmur as we follow the ravine north, using it for cover. I can hear the snowmobiles above us, circling, searching. But they can't see us down here. Not yet.
We run until my lungs are burning and Svetlana is gasping for breath beside me, her pace slowing as she stumbles again and again. I pull her into a hollow in the ravine wall, pressing us both back into the shadows.
"Quiet," I whisper, and she nods.
We wait.
The sound of the engines fades, moving away from us. They're searching in the wrong direction. We have time.
Not much. But enough.
I look at Svetlana. Her face is flushed from the cold and the exertion, her eyes bright. She's breathing hard, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
"You okay?" I ask quietly.
"I'm alive." She manages a shaky smile. "That's something, right?"
"We're not out of this yet." I peer out of the hollow, checking for movement. "They'll figure out where we went eventually. We need to keep moving."
She lets out a slow breath. It frosts in the air in front of her. “There’s no other choice, right?”
"No." I offer her my hand. "But I'll be with you. Every step."
She takes my hand, and I pull her to her feet. For a moment, we're close again, that electric charge crackling between us. Her eyes meet mine, and I can see the question still lingering there.
Why are you doing this?
I don't have an answer. Not one that makes sense.
So I just squeeze her hand once, then let go.
"Let's move.”
The sun is fully up now, bright and cold. The snow glitters like diamonds over the frozen surface of the stream, and behind us, I can still hear the faint sound of engines, searching.
They won't give up. Iosef won't let them.
But neither will I. I made a promise, and I'm going to keep it.
Even if it kills me.