22. Carina
CARINA
Asixth sense prompted me to pay attention while Maksim drove. I was already in the role of being the lookout while he was at the wheel. But something about this suddenly proposed operation pricked at my mind.
This route along the scorching highway wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
Compared to other areas of smuggling activity, this wasn’t necessarily a hotbed of action that would be watched by many.
I worked with the Bratva runners to double-check the navigational variables for this run and it wasn’t too far-fetched to pull off on short notice.
Risks were always inherent. But as far as smuggling trips went on land, this was a manageable one to pull off this far out of the tourist season.
As if many tourists come way the hell out here to bake and suffer, anyway.
No parkland was close to this area to clog up the roads, either.
What had my nerves firing hot and my spine tingling with the need to stay cautious was another sign of a lookout parked along the edge of the cracked pavement.
“Fuck.” I whispered it so quietly under my breath so as not to bother Maksim while he was on the phone with Dean.
Another one?
This isn’t good.
After we passed the third one, it was impossible to relax. My senses were heightened with this feeling of being watched and tracked. I kept my eyes peeled for any clue of further trouble waiting for us. So when I spotted another lookout positioned strategically out this way, I knew Maxim was right.
This wasn’t a coincidence.
This stunk of a setup, but I couldn’t figure it out.
Who is setting up who?
How could anyone have had the time to get word on this shipment and run?
Or how could anyone have had the chance to arrange spies like this, to put any lookouts in place?
I glanced at Maksim, eager to tell him about that last lookout I’d spotted. They weren’t too obvious, looking like stranded cars or customers at gas stations. It was more in how they scanned their environment that gave them away.
He noticed me looking and nodded once. I saw that one. He mouthed it, staying on his call.
I nodded back, letting him know I understood. Facing the window again, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Lines etched on my face in a cringe. There was no hope to mask how uneasy I felt with every mile that passed.
He’s watching us.
My brother was actively spying on the smuggling operation that was happening just outside the Cartel territory.
Is he watching because of me?
Does he worry that Enrique could have tipped me off?
And he wants to punish me?
I shook my head, clearing out the thoughts that didn’t add up.
Arturo had practically erased me from his life by foisting me into this arranged marriage. He did it all so he wouldn’t have to see me and put up with my trying to steer him right with his decisions about the Cartel. Enrique had confirmed it.
A renewed sense of anger lit up inside me that my brother could ever try to shove me aside like that.
He wanted to get me out of the way so he could do as he pleases.
He’s not spying on me.
He thinks I’m too insignificant.
By having these lookouts positioned on this highway when we were making this run, though, he was clearly interested in what the Bratva was doing around him.
Does he regret compromising the trade agreement with them?
Is he starting to realize his mistake in shopping around and looking for someone else to do business with?
Does he wish that he never partnered up with that network?
All these questions and concerns pinged in my mind.
They left me bothered and confused, lost about how to proceed with this handoff.
A part of me wanted to tell Maksim that we should back up, that we should cancel going through this.
Another part of me, though, was stubbornly convinced that I was letting my imagination get the best of me.
Because of the sour status of my relationship with my brother, I was jumping even faster to the conclusion that my brother had to be the enemy. Not just a mistaken and impulsive man, but now my enemy.
Maksim didn’t offer any more comments for the rest of the ride south. The closer that we came to the deserted town where the handoff would happen, I felt less ready to speak up.
I was jumpy, with adrenaline rushing through me and making me want to get up and run somewhere. To fight. To do something. Sitting in this car and approaching the handoff site was a slow, agonizing wait that I didn’t want to endure.
The rest of the team was updated about all the lookouts I’d noticed. Dean and the driver of the van would be ready to react if need be. Despite knowing that, and despite the conviction that we were not going to end up being surprised, I felt like this was a mistake.
Maksim seemed to have the same doubts, frowning and scowling—proving that it wasn’t an illusion when we were so in sync that we could seemingly finish each other’s thoughts.
He parked in front of an empty building in the ghost town. But before he turned the car off, he firmly and gruffly reminded me again of what he expected. “You stay with me.”
Even though he was scoping out the place and wasn’t looking at me, through his peripheral vision, he would pick up on the movement of my head.
“We’re not taking any risks with your being here.”
I appreciated that he valued me so much. But I wasn’t supposed to be here as a spectator in the background.
“Am I supposed to stay in the car and not get out?”
That would be a deviation. At all the other smuggling operations I’d attended with him, I had been present.
Just one more pair of eyes and ears, to make sure that nothing untoward was happening.
Maksim didn’t bring me along for the hell of it.
I was here as another spy, as one more member of the team.
He shook his head as he turned off the car. “No. You stay with me.”
That meant staying with him as he got out, because he wouldn’t take the backseat in this matter.
He intended to follow through with overseeing this transaction, just like he did at others.
Maksim wasn’t like my brother, lording over the men beneath him from the comfort of his home.
Instead, Maksim showed the Bratva men that they could see him in the field, taking the same risks as them.
I got out and fell into step at his side. I wasn’t armed, but at this moment where I felt jittery with that trapped feeling of being watched, I wished that I had a gun.
That sixth sense of unease was already too much to deny, to ignore. Adrenaline was charging through me and addling my mind.
Dean parked nearby, and the van continued through the dilapidated scene. Growling revs of its engine quieted as it throttled down. It slowed near another building then when still.
Men filed out of a building immediately. One leader, a short and stocky guy, barked orders at the grunt workers to load the van.
I didn’t lower my guard, and I didn’t speak up or interfere. I was too tense for small talk. Maksim wasn’t in the mood to chat with the Colombians either.
Dean stood at the back of the van, watching the cargo be loaded. As every crate was moved through the assembly line of the grunt workers’ hands, he nodded his approval at the contents inside.
No one raised any guns. No one shouted or accused anyone of acting out of line. As far as transfers went, this one was without a single hiccup.
It was over with in minutes, and Dean confirmed it complete with a short, no-nonsense exchange with the Colombian runners.
“That’s it?” Maksim muttered under his breath, only loud enough for me to hear as I stood by his side.
I glanced at him, knowing that any physical movement could be interpreted as a tell.
“I guess so,” I replied neutrally.
A couple more moments later, we were all retreating to our vehicles. Protocol dictated that the backup cars stayed off until we were all ready to depart, both the Colombians to head south and for us to return to the north.
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t miss a step. No one did. Like we’d rehearsed this millions of times, the members of the Bratva side got in the van and cars and we turned onto the highway.
Checking the mirrors became an obsessive habit as Maksim fell into place in the lineup. Ahead of the van, with Dean behind it, we moved as a cohesive convoy.
“I was under the impression that something was about to go to hell,” Maksim admitted, his brow furrowed as he, too, checked his mirrors.
“Me too.”
“That went as smoothly as I could have expect?—”
A hard crash sent us spinning. Loud scrapes and bangs of metal on metal filled my ears. Startled and off-balance from the impact from the driver’s side, I held my breath and clutched the armrest.
“Fuck!” Maksim gripped the wheel, his knuckles turning white with how strongly he clutched it and tried to steer it so we wouldn’t fully spin out and smack into anyone else. He shot his other arm out to barricade me, as if the seat belt would fail in its purpose.
Another loud screeching metal crash followed. It came from behind us, and even though we couldn’t be sure which was which as our car went airborne, spinning into the air, I knew that the others had been hit too.
I hadn’t noticed the cars hiding behind that copse of trees. They hadn’t been there on the way south. But that had to have been where they’d come from. Replaying the mental map in my mind as I squeezed my eyes shut, I knew that we’d been set up, after all.
Not on the way down here.
But on the return trip.
They’d come in to lie in wait for us to pass so they could ambush us and hit us.
I tensed and clung to Maksim as the car rolled on the hot earth. Dust billowed up. It clouded around us as the car lost all of its momentum and rocked on its springs. Right side up, with the windows shattered and the frame busted yet intact.
We were both inside, alive. Staring at each other with that immediate worry that the other could be lost or hurt.
“The van.” I blurted it as I looked past him through the mangled opening of where the driver’s window had been.
A truck was backing up to ram into the van again. It lay on its side, and the Bratva man was trying to crawl out the passenger window.
It’s true.
Arturo is behind this.
As I moved without thinking, reaching into the glovebox for the spare gun, I narrowed my eyes at the sight of one of the strangers operating the truck. The truck that I knew for a fact belonged to the Cartel. The truck that was aiming to plow into the Volkovs’ van again.
“You stay with me,” Maksim growled as he slammed his shoulder against his door, gun in hand as well.
At least you’re not telling me to stay out of the way.
Heart racing, rage brewing, I ducked down to be ready to crawl out after Maksim and help his men survive.
To back him up. To support him.
Like Elena had said.
If this was going to morph into a dangerous trip back and my husband could face a severe threat, I intended to do all I could to save him as well.
Because Elena really was right that one day at lunch.
The fear of anything happening to this strong, considerate man was too much to bear.
It wasn’t a weakness to love these Volkov men.
It gave me strength to fight harder for them.
I loved Maksim, and the admission only fueled me to run faster toward the crash on the highway.