9. Maya
MAYA
I hurry to throw my clothes on, trying not to pay attention to how hard my hands are shaking, or the choking smell of smoke that is already drifting into the room.
Anton is already at the door, which he has propped slightly open, peering along the corridor. I sneak up to his side, trying to get a look at what has him so distracted—and I gasp in horror when I see what’s waiting on the other side.
Fire.
Flames have consumed the door at the end of the corridor, and I can hear yelling and screaming just beyond it, along with the pop pop pop of what sounds like gunshots.
What the hell is going on? Who is doing this? Why are they coming now?
And what chance do I stand of making it out of here in one piece?
“What’s happening, Anton?” I demand, turning to him as I search for some kind of sense in all of this. I can still feel the pleasure washing through my system, the way his tongue felt on my pussy as he went down on me until I finally went over the edge and came right there at his mercy.
“I don’t know,” he replies, his voice curt and clipped. “But I’d bet that it has something to do with my brother.”
I shiver at the thought of it. I can’t stand the idea of Artem getting anywhere close to me, not after everything he’s done.
“We need to get out of here,” he tells me bluntly, straightening up and pushing the door shut. He scans the room, and his gaze lands on a window at the far side. He strides over to it and shoves it open, peering down to see how far the fall is.
“You want me to jump?” I ask him, eyebrows raising.
A loud crack sounds from somewhere deep in the house, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
Fuck. If someone really has attacked this place, then it sounds like the supporting walls are giving in, and I don’t know how much longer this place is going to stay upright.
I glance up, suddenly distinctly aware of how much danger I’m in. If this ceiling caves in, there will be nothing I can do to stop it...
A yell sounds at the far end of the hall, and the blood drains from my face when I realize that I recognize the voice.
It’s Artem.
“Where is she?” he roars. I can almost picture him, at the end of the corridor, surrounded by flames and smoke, uncaring about anything other than getting his hands on me and making me pay for whatever sleight he’s decided I’ve committed against him.
“Go,” Anton hisses. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I make my way over to the window, seeing no choice but to leap to my freedom. It’s maybe a ten-foot drop, not bad, but I have never been the most graceful person and I have a bad feeling that I’m going to somehow manage to land strangely and hurt myself or the baby.
I bite down hard on my lip, mustering up every bit of courage I can as I will myself forward. I have to do this. I have to do this...
Another crash sounds from inside the house, followed by gunshots, and I know I have no choice but to do as he says. I hook my leg over the sill, and he takes my hand, giving me someone to lean on so that I can scramble on to the ledge without tumbling too soon.
I crouch down on the ledge, still gripping tight to his hand, and stare down at the grass below. It’s going to be a soft landing, I’m sure of that. I just need to do this. I just need to—
And then, I find myself falling. I’m not sure if I’m the one who jumped or if he just let go of my hand, but either way, I hit the ground with a thud, managing to keep my balance. And, as I turn to look back at Anton, my hand flies to my mouth as I see what has happened to the house.
Flames lick out from almost every window on the ground floor, trailing their burning fingers up towards the sky. I can hear yelling, cries of pain, as the guards and household staff caught up in the onslaught.
A few have rushed outside, but there are men in the driveway, most of them armed, picking them off as they emerge from the building. Bodies have collapsed on the front steps, and I press myself against the side of the mansion, trying to make sure that they do not spot me.
I need to get out of here. Now. Or I’m going to end up another one of those bodies stacked up in front of me...
A noise grabs my attention, and I nearly jump out of my skin when I realize that Anton has dropped from the window beside me. He grabs me around the waist, glancing around as he searches for the quickest way out of here.
“Come on,” he growls, and he pulls me towards the far wall of the garden, in which stands a small gate that I didn’t notice before.
My heart leaps with relief. Thank God, there is a way out of here. I do my best to keep pace with Anton, but my feet feel numb, the shock of seeing those bodies so intense that there’s almost nothing else I can think about.
I can feel the blood rushing in my veins, my heartbeat thundering in my chest, the sound of my feet meeting the grass below as Anton sprints to the gate. He keys in a code and unlocks it, pushing me through as he looks back towards the house.
And, for just a split second, I’m standing there on the other side of the gate, and I realize that... that I’m free.
I could run, run as far from this place as humanly possible, leave Anton and Artem to piece together whatever mess they have made of one another’s lives. I don’t have to be part of it. I could just go, here and now, running off into the sunset with my baby and never looking back...
But before I can consider if it is worth acting on those instincts, the scent of smoke chokes me, and Anton grabs my hand again.
“The car,” he orders me. “This way. Now.”
He leaves no room for argument as he leads me around the outside of the wall, our backs pressed flat to it to make sure that we are not spotted by any of the men currently making light work of his mansion.
I have no idea where the fuck he is planning on taking me, but I guess that’s a bridge we can cross when we come to it.
Right now, all that matters is putting as much distance between ourselves and this place as possible, praying that we don’t get dragged into whatever nightmare Artem is enacting on his home.
We finally reach a small garage, which is protected by a keypad and a security door. He types in the code again swiftly and pulls me inside, bundling me into the passenger seat of a sleek silver vehicle before he slides in beside me and starts the engine.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, more than a little fearful.
He doesn’t reply, pulling out of the garage and adjusting the mirror to make sure that we’re not being followed. His gaze flicks to the road ahead, and he slams his foot down on the pedal, the engine screaming out below us as we speed away from the mansion.
In the rearview mirror, I can see the smoke reaching upward, twisting in sick spirals towards the darkening sky above.
And, as I watch it fade into the distance, tears spring to my eyes.
I know it’s just the stress of everything that has happened, but, as I lean my head against the window, I wonder what the fuck I have gotten myself into. No, more than that—what the fuck my father has gotten me into.
Because I would never have even been close to this world if it wasn’t for the fact that he had owed gambling debts to Artem, debts that would cost me my life if I didn’t play my cards right.
And now, here I’m in a car, speeding away from a violent attack on a mansion, next to the brother of the man who’s caused me all this pain.
And carrying his child, though he knows nothing about that part yet.
He glances at me as we drive, but he does not bother to ask if I’m okay. Guess he knows better than that, at least now.
There’s no way that I could be even close to okay, after everything that has happened.
The confusion, the shock of going from the sheer, intense pleasure of his mouth between my thighs to having to run for my life while Anton’s people were massacred just a few rooms away, it’s more than I can make sense of.
We drive for a long time, until the white marks on the road begin to fade into each other and the distance between them vanishes to nothing.
We’re out of the city, trees beginning to increase in thickness at the side of the road.
I think of asking him where we are going again, but I doubt he would even give me an answer.
His gaze is fixed straight ahead, his hands so tight on the wheel it looks like his knuckles might burst from beneath his skin. I can’t even imagine what’s going through his head right now, watching his home get destroyed like that, the people he trusts killed right there on the driveway.
And all because of his brother. Because his damn bastard of a brother couldn’t stand the fact that I had managed to get out from his grip, even if none of this had been my choice, even if I would never have chosen for this to go as it has.
I can’t believe that I have been dragged into this mess, and if I could roll back time and undo it all, I would...
But in the midst of all this, it strikes me, Anton... He made me his priority. He did not race into the house to save his men, he did not try to fight Artem or any of his people. He focused on me, on getting me to safety.
Even now, he’s made no mention of leaving me somewhere and then going back to attend to the madness that is unfolding back at his mansion.
I steal a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, and wonder, briefly, if he might somehow know about the baby. Ridiculous, of course, given that I’m barely showing and have not breathed a word of it to him, but it would explain why he was so quick to jump to my defense.
Finally, he pulls the car off the road, and we bump along a rocky path that leads deeper into the woods.
For a moment, I have no idea what is going on, but then he flicks the headlights on and they illuminate a cabin in front of us. I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I had been holding at the sight of it, realizing that we have made it to safety.
“Is this...?”