21. Chapter 21
Sasha
By the time it started, most of the work was already behind us. It was just after dinner and the guards would be switching shifts soon, so most of them were mentally already clocked out. Perfect for our endeavor.
Hunter had laid the foundation many months ago, working quietly and methodically in a way only he could. It was why I had been adamant he was the right person for this job. There were no dramatic breaches, no obvious fingerprints.
My brother made small, cumulative adjustments to systems no one questioned as long as they kept working. Camera loops weren’t miracles but you had to exploit them patiently, and there was no one more patient than Hunter. Except maybe me.
The feed lagged by three minutes because it had lagged before; no one had checked what had never obviously failed to the point of drawing attention.
When the first door unlocked without protest, I showed no outward reaction. There had been no doubt in my mind whether it would open. My pulse was a steady pounding in my ears.
Some of the guards on this block were ours. Not all of them, and never the ones you’d most like to be, but enough. Enough to redirect foot traffic with a shrug, enough to look the other way when two men walked where they technically weren’t supposed to.
Bribes didn’t buy loyalty but they certainly bought you predictability, and predictability is all I needed today.
The Italians were staging their distraction on the far side of the prison — another thing we’d been planning for months.
Raised voices could be heard echoing down the corridors until a fight broke out.
It escalated just enough to demand the guards’ attention, but not enough to trigger a full lockdown.
Although crude compared to Hunter’s work, it was effective. The little piggies moved towards the noise like sharks smelling blood in the water. The Italians had never been subtle, but I appreciated their commitment to spectacle.
I stepped through the first corridor leading to a different cell block at a relaxed pace, with Kyrill falling in beside me without comment. He was a steady presence, but I could tell he was hyperfocused and acutely aware of our surroundings.
We passed one of our guys near the junction.
Our gazes met briefly, then he looked past me, already bored.
On the way through, he slipped each of us a sealed plastic bag.
My rings and necklace clinked faintly together in mine.
Kyrill held his earrings, chain, and the lighter he refused to lose in his.
Fuck, I’d missed wearing those.
As a pair of guards approached from the opposite direction, he lifted his hand lazily towards the wrong hallway, redirecting them with the casual authority of someone who had been here long enough not to be questioned.
The corner of my mouth lifted just a fraction.
We kept moving, sharing a brief look when the radio crackled to life somewhere nearby.
“… Unit C, confirm …”
Kyrill didn’t break stride, but I felt the shift in him. We were brushing the edge now.
As we rounded another corner, a guard I didn’t recognize stepped into our path. His posture was stiff, and his eyes were too alert for someone who was being paid to look tired. His gaze flicked to Kyrill and then back to me, the suspicion sharpening into something more dangerous.
“What are you doing here, Markov?”
I didn’t answer right away, choosing to let the silence stretch between us for a moment. Talking too quickly would look guilty, while talking too slowly would look defiant.
I was walking a tightrope, and after letting a beat pass — just enough time for him to register annoyance rather than hesitation — I began to respond.
Kyrill on the other hand, didn’t wait. We were so attuned to each other, he knew which was the exact right moment.
He moved decisively with no wasted motion, catching the guard off balance and forcing him back against the wall. The guard fought harder than expected. His elbow drove back and caught Kyrill in the ribs.
He grunted, adjusted instantly, and slammed his forearm across the man’s throat. The guard’s hand shot for his radio. A burst of static followed by a clipped half-word.
“—hey—”
I stepped in immediately, gripping his head and twisting it until he went limp with a sharp crack of bone. Controlling the descent, I eased the body down instead of letting it drop.
The radio crackled again.
“… Unit C?”
Kyrill crushed it under his boot, the plastic snapping and splintering.
He rolled his shoulder once, working out the impact.
“Uncooperative,” Kyrill murmured under his breath.
“Very,” I agreed.
We started moving again immediately, the invisible countdown ticking away mercilessly.
The rest of our trek through Blackwood unfolded just as it should have. Somewhere behind us, the Italians were still shouting, still selling the story, still pulling eyes away from where they were actually needed.
By the time we reached the final checkpoint, my body felt light, almost detached.
Kyrill glanced at me as we crossed the threshold into the long hallway leading out to the loading dock; a look of disbelief touched his lips.
“That’s it?” he asked quietly.
“That’s it.”
We didn’t run because there was simply no reason to. Running would suggest urgency, and urgency invited mistakes.
By the time the final door opened and the cold air hit my face, the prison felt more like something I used to know than something I had escaped. I didn’t look back.
And that’s when the sirens started howling. Not in the far-off distance, but close. Too close.
Kyrill exhaled sharply. “They are ahead of schedule.”
“Hunter accounted for that,” I said. My little brother was nothing if not meticulously anal about his hacking jobs. I had full faith in him.
The first vehicle was precisely where it was supposed to be — a supply van, engine running, driver low in the seat.
We got into the back, the door slamming behind us with a bang. “Go, go, go!”
The van lurched forward and immediately a spotlight slammed across the yard.
“STOP THE VEHICLE!”
The driver didn’t hesitate and floored it. The van surged forward, tires screaming, bouncing hard over uneven concrete as we cut across the yard instead of following the designated exit route.
“Gate’s closing,” Kyrill barked.
“I see it.”
We didn’t slow.
The barrier dropped but it was too slow to stop us. Metal shrieked as the bar snapped, dragging across the roof with a grinding scream before tearing free.
We burst through. Behind us engines ignited and sirens flared to life.
Now, we were on the run.
Fuck!
In all planning stages, this had been the main thing we tried to avoid. The road outside the prison twisted through service access lanes barely wide enough for the van.
“Left,” I snapped.
The driver took it too fast, causing the van to fishtail. At the very last second he was able to correct it, sending gravel spraying into the air.
We cut right, then left and eventually onto a narrow strip of road. It looked like it hadn’t been maintained in years.
“Careful,” Kyrill muttered as the van hit a dip hard enough to jolt all of us forward.
“You want careful or you want to get your asses out of here?” the driver snapped.
Kyrill snapped his mouth shut, not bothering to answer.
We broke onto a wider road and almost ran straight into a patrol unit. The driver swerved violently, making the cruiser jerk in response.
For one second we were nose to nose but we whizzed past in a blur.
Sirens doubled behind us.
“That’s not ideal.” Kyrill’s voice was tense.
“No,” I agreed.
“Two minutes,” the driver said.
We pushed harder, the van’s engine howling as we pushed it into the night. A hard turn into a dirt cut-off, barely visible from the road and the van skidded to a stop.
“Out.”
We couldn’t slow down. We couldn’t have, even if we wanted to. My breath came in harsh pants as the air sliced into my throat with every breath, our boots hitting uneven dirt instead of concrete for the first time in years.
The ground dipped and shifted beneath our feet, the gravel skidding and the mud catching. Although the terrain was unfamiliar, it wasn’t disorientating.
Not tonight. Tonight, everything was sharp. Focused.
Alive.
Somewhere behind us, voices carried — shouts, radios crackling, the distant, rising pitch of something going wrong, just a little too late to stop it.
“Move,” Kyrill muttered beside me, even though I definitely didn’t need the reminder.
We broke through the tree line into the clearing where a second vehicle was waiting with its engine running and headlights off. At first, the silhouette of the vehicle looked wrong — too large and conspicuous — until my brain caught up.
A truck. Red paint shone in the moonlight, and ‘Berenson Trucking’ was stamped across the side. Otherwise, it was completely ordinary and unremarkable.
I yanked open the passenger door and clambered in; my hands were still buzzing faintly from adrenaline and the residual echo of violence sat just under my skin. Kyrill hauled himself up after me, the cab dipping slightly under his weight before he slammed the door shut behind him.
The driver, a big bear of a man with a thick beard, didn’t look at us or ask any questions. He simply shifted gears and the truck rolled forward, smooth and controlled.
Like nothing about this was time-sensitive.
Like we weren’t minutes removed from a prison already on the hunt for two of its inmates.
I forced myself to breathe, slow and deep, even though my pulse was hammering against my ribs. Through the windshield, the road stretched out — dark and empty. Behind us, a flash of light flickered briefly through the trees, followed by another.
The van was going up in flames, the gasoline catching fast. Hunter had been precise about his instructions. No hesitation, no half-measures. By the time anyone reached it, it would be too late to salvage anything useful.
The evidence turned to smoke, erasing any trace of our presence. A siren grew louder in the distance, then split — one veering off and the other continuing straight ahead.
There were too many variables now. Too many directions we could have taken.
Good.
I shifted slightly in my seat and rolled my shoulder, where tension had become lodged deep in the muscle. My hands still felt wired. Like they hadn’t caught up to the fact of us no longer being inside.
That it had worked.
Kyrill leaned heavily back against the seat, bracing himself against the door with one arm, his chest rising and falling faster than usual. Even for him, even with his control, there was a crack in his composure — just enough to show through.
“About fucking time,” he muttered, his voice rougher than before.
I huffed out something that might have been a laugh and dragged a hand down my face before letting my head fall back against the headrest. The leather was warm from the day’s heat and the air around us was filled with the faint smell of dust and engine oil.
Outside, the prison was already disappearing behind us, swallowed by the darkness. I turned my head slightly and caught one last glimpse of the flashing lights fading into the horizon.
Facing forward, the only thing left was the road stretching out in front of us, accompanied by the steady, relentless hum of the engine beneath us, vibrating up through the floor and seat and into our bones.
Time blurred after that. The adrenaline didn’t drop all at once. It leaked out slowly, leaving something heavier in its place, something akin to a dull awareness.
We merged onto the highway almost seamlessly, joining the sparse late-night traffic as if we had every right to be there. Just another vehicle carrying cargo from one place to another.
Ordinary and forgettable.
The driver adjusted his grip on the wheel, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He hadn’t spoken once, something he’d been paid well for.
Kyrill stretched his legs out as much as the cramped space allowed, his boots nudging the floor with a quiet thud. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes for a brief second before opening them again. My best friend was never fully off guard, never completely relaxed.
I understood this instinct. Letting my own eyes drift shut for half a second longer than necessary, enough to feel the monumental shift of my life’s trajectory.
Blackwood was finally behind us. The rules had changed, as had the boundaries.
We weren’t inmates anymore; we were free.
If everything went according to plan, we would be in Puerto Rico before the FBI were alerted. Since neither Kyrill nor I had been known members of the Bratva prior to Blackwood, I didn’t expect organized crime to be on our tail.
My uncle had assured me the officials in Puerto Rico had been paid off — corruption really was a beautiful thing. The city in which we were going to settle only had a rural police department staffed by officers who could easily be bribed or intimidated.
I would still have to keep a low profile, but I’d be able to move with almost no restrictions.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, beneath the logistics, the next steps, and the inevitable complications waiting for us on the other side, a thought had been waiting.
Patient, but unavoidable.
Addy.