I’m still staring at the ceiling trying to figure anything out when the door opens again. I don’t know how long I’ve been laying here, but I know instinctively it’s not Aleks.
Yulia walks over to the bed and sits down beside me. “You look pale.”
“So I’ve been told,” I mutter.
She surprises me by taking my hand. Only then do I realize that her expression is stark and urgent. Her eyes hold an edge of panic that I haven’t seen before.
I sit up immediately. “Yulia, what’s wrong?”
“I have a way out for you,” she whispers. She glances over her shoulder at the shadowy corner like someone might be lurking and listening.
“A what?”
“He’s not going to let you go, Olivia. I’m not sure if you know, but your brother’s no longer a part of the investigation into the Bratva.”
“Yeah, I know. He told me.”
“Then you know that there’s no reason for him to keep you here anymore. But I think he’s planning to do it all the same.”
I bite my lip, recalling Aleks’s words. “He… he seems to think I’m in danger.”
“In danger from whom?” she asks, pulling her eyebrows together.
“From the man who tried to frame him.”
Yulia’s expression twists. I can tell she doesn’t buy it, and her doubt makes me question his sincerity. I’d convinced myself it made sense when Aleks was sitting in front of me, but now I’m starting to wonder whether I was just being naive.
“He’s just trying to control me, isn’t he?” I ask.
“If you don’t want to do this—”
“No,” I say, clinging to her hand. “No, I do. If you have a way out, I’ll take it.”
She nods, but her face is still somber. It speaks to the kind of danger we’ll be in if we’re caught.
“Are you sure you can do this?” I ask.
“Aleks just stepped out with a contingent of men,” Yulia informs me. “There are guards on duty, but I know their movements. I’m the one who arranged their shifts. I can have you out of here in the next ten minutes.”
Ten minutes?
Is that all that remains between me and freedom?
After three months under lock and key, I didn’t think it would be over so soon.
I swallow my nerves and give her a curt nod. “Let’s go.”
As I get to my feet, I have to push back another wave of nausea. My head feels like it’s about to burst. My heart does, too. I expect it’s the adrenaline of escape.
But the sadness that weighs me down like an anchor? That’s something else entirely. It’s a deep sense of loss that I can’t quite justify.
And since I can’t explain it, I ignore it and follow Yulia out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back.
We move through the house quickly and quietly. Amazingly, we don’t run into a soul.
I haven’t been out in the front of the house since I first arrived here. I barely recognize the facade.
“There’s a car waiting for you just outside the gates,” Yulia tells me. “Keep to the far left of the road, near the trees. The cameras won’t pick you up there. I’ve made sure to angle them just right.”
“A car?”
“There’s a driver waiting for you. Ask him to take you to the city. Then you can contact your family.”
“Who does he work for?” I ask. “What if he reports back to Aleks?”
“He won’t,” she says confidently. “He works for me. Now, go! There’s a new shift starting in four minutes and those men will pass right through here.”
I grab her elbow before she can turn away. “What if he finds out you helped me?”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yulia!”
She takes up both of my hands and pulls me toward her in a motherly embrace. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you sooner,” she whispers in my ear. “Better late than never, though, right?”
I give her a sad smile as tears stud my eyes. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Then don’t thank me. Just run.”
I nod quickly and give her one last parting smile. Then I turn and sprint towards the gates.
I keep to the far left just like she instructed me to, through the woods and a gap in the gates. And the car’s waiting for me, just like she said it would be. I get in the back seat.
“Where to?” he asks curtly.
“The city. Downtown.”
He’s got a bad combover and the car reeks of cigarettes. He reminds me of all the cabbies in New York City, which makes me feel more comfortable. Like all this might truly be happening.
I’m going home.
A half-hour passes in silence. It gives me too much time to think.
What will Aleks do when he finds me gone?
What will he do to Yulia if he finds out she helped me?
Will he come after me? And if he does, why, when, how?
“Where exactly do you want me to drop you off?” the driver asks, interrupting my thoughts.
I look up and realize we’re in the business district. Hip shops and restaurants with lofts and apartments above. People mill around on the sidewalk, enjoying their normal lives. It’s a bizarre sight. Don’t they know what’s happening just out of sight? Don’t they know what I’ve been through?
“Right here,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
I’m about to get out of the car when he hands me an envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Not my place to know or care. Madam Yulia told me to give it to you.”
I open the envelope and see a flash of green. Not only has she rescued me, she’s also left me money. Honestly, I don’t know why I ever doubted the woman.
She’s a freaking saint.
“Will you thank her for me?”
He looks annoyed by the request. “That’s not my place, either.”
I swallow back my final words and get out of the car. I take it there won’t be a warm goodbye with this guy. Sure enough, as soon as the door is shut behind me, he’s taking off like a rocket down the road. He turns the corner and disappears from my life forever.
I walk down the street, past cafes and clothing stores. Past dozens and hundreds and thousands of people who do not give a flying fuck about who I am or what purpose I might be able to serve for them.
The freedom is mind-boggling.
I end up in a little restaurant with fairy lights strung across the ceiling. The bartender is busy cleaning out his glasses for the night shift.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“Is there a phone I can use?” I ask. “I can pay for the call.”
He gives me an amused glance and hands me his cell phone. “Here you go. No need to pay.”
I return a grateful smile and quickly dial in Rob’s number. I get three unanswered rings, then the call drops.
Cursing under my breath, I try him again. I don’t want to call Mia. She’ll panic, and what I need right now is someone rational.
“Hello?” Rob’s voice is music to my ears.
“Oh, thank God. Rob?”
“Liv, where are you?” he asks. “Are you okay? Why haven’t I heard from you? Did he realize what you did during our last call?”
He shoots off question after question, but I don’t answer any of them. “I’m in a restaurant in town. It’s called…um…”
“Corino’s,” the bartender says, helping me out.
“Corino’s,” I repeat.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he says. “Don’t move.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else, so I pass the phone back to the bartender. “Thanks for that. I owe you one.”
“Yeah?” he says. “How about a drink sometime, then? On the house.”
I look him over and realize he’s not bad-looking, actually. He’s got a full beard, which is not normally my style, but it suits him. His eyes are bright and kind, his hair is a messy man bun, but it works with the whole “masculine bartender” vibe.
But my stomach turns.
And not because I’m pregnant.
It’s because I see another man’s face in my mind.
With that roiling nausea comes guilt. Like I’m cheating.
Except that, to cheat, you have to actually be involved with someone. And I’m not. Never was, really. What Aleks and I have—had—is an illusion.
It’s time it came to an end.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. My situation right now is… complicated.”
The bartender chuckles. “Aren’t they all?”
“I’m not making an excuse,” I tell him. “Seriously. You’re cute. It’s not you.”
He raises one eyebrow. “I’ll pretend to believe that. For my ego’s sake, if nothing else.”
“Really, I promise. I’m… I’m pregnant,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
He stops short and sets down the glass he’s holding. “Well, shit. Guess it is complicated. Is the father in the picture?”
I shake my head. I don’t trust myself to do any more than that.
He winces. “I’m sorry. It’s cowardly when men pull that shit.”
“Well, he doesn’t know,” I hear myself say.
I don’t know why I’m telling anyone this, let alone a stranger. I don’t even know for sure if I’m pregnant yet.
But somehow, it feels cathartic to say all these things out loud. To play with the possibility that, in a few months, I’ll have a baby in my arms and that baby will be mine.
Not Aleks’s.
Mine.
“Oh,” he says. “Hm. The mystery deepens. Are you gonna tell him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Bad relationship?”
I bite my lip and fall back on the only word that makes sense to me right now: “Complicated.”
He chuckles again, though his eyes flash once more with sympathy. I hear the bell over the door ring and I turn to see a tall, broad-shouldered figure. My heartbeat quickens for a moment—Can he really have tracked me down already…?
But it’s not Aleks.
It’s Rob.
I do my best to ignore the bitter tang of disappointment as I weave between the tables and throw myself into his arms.
“Rob!” I cry out. I bury my face in his shoulder.
He pulls away almost immediately. “Let’s go. Get in the car.”
He steers me towards the door with a painfully tight grip on my upper arm. I have only time for a backhanded glance at the bartender before I’m rushed back into daylight.
“Rob…?”
“Get in the car,” he growls again. “It’s not safe to be out in the open like this.”
Rob has always been calm, cool, collected. A picture of perfect control at all times—though not without his fair share of anger bubbling beneath the surface, especially since Isabella vanished.
But now? Now, that anger is raging for all to see. Along with paranoia and a kind of panicked franticness that sets my own heartbeat thumping along with it.
Something has changed for the worse.
He pushes me into the car and looks furtively up and down the street.
“I wasn’t followed,” I hiss at him.
“That you know of,” he corrects without looking down. “What about the blue sedan right over there? Could be Bratva.”
He waits for a moment until the car in question pulls away and disappears from sight. Only then does he hustle around the front of the car and climb into the driver’s seat.
The moment he is situated in the car, I turn to him. “Rob, is everything alright?”
He glares at me as though offended by the question. “Jesus, did you really just ask me that, Liv? Nothing is alright. You were held hostage for three fucking months. It’s not like you were on a goddamn vacation.”
“Listen to me,” I say, grabbing his hand. “There’s something you need to know.”
He starts the engine and pulls out of his parking spot. “Later.”
“Rob, I’m trying to tell you something important.”
“You can tell me once we get to safety,” he says.
I can’t explain it, but something isn’t right. A vague sense of foreboding is working its way up my spine.
“Rob, can you please pull over?”
“Liv, we don’t have the time for—”
“Make the damn time,” I snap. “Pull over now!”
He looks at me with alarm. He’s not used to me asserting myself this way. In fact, I’m not used to it, either. It feels wrong to be demanding, especially since Rob showed up to save me.
But he makes a turn and then, at the first available opportunity, he pulls over to the curb.
“Pretty sure this is a bus stand, so talk fast.”
It’s not the way I want to tell him, but I’m hoping this news will make a difference to him. Maybe it’ll pull him back from the ledge he seems to be on right now.
“You were right, Rob,” I say. “She’s alive.”
He doesn’t even have to ask who I’m talking about. His eyes go wide. I see relief and hope flood his features. In that moment, I see a flicker of the man he used to be.
“I knew it,” he breathes.
“But it’s not what you think,” I tell him urgently. “Isabella… that’s not even her real name.”
He goes still and fixes me with a strange expression. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she was—is a spy.” I hate the clumsy way this explanation is coming out. “She works for Aleks. She was planted by him in the first place to try and suss out how deep the investigation into his Bratva went. They were trying to find the person who tipped the FBI off in the first place. She was meant to extract that information from you.”
He stares at me without saying a word.
“Her name is Jennifer,” I continue. “She disappeared because one of her former targets recognized her and threatened to blow her cover. It wasn’t a murder—it was an escape plan.”
Still nothing.
“Rob?”
He blinks once. Twice. Three times.
“Rob, this is all true. I spoke to her.”
That forces him to snap out of it. “You actually saw her?”
“Yes.”
“And she told you this?”
“Yes.”
“Under what circumstances?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“She could have been forced to feed you this story,” he suggests. “He would have forced her.”
“No… I… No, Rob. That’s not it. She and Aleks are friends, I think.”
Fury flits across his eyes. “They are not fucking friends.”
“Rob—”
“He took her, and now, he’s forcing her to tell you some bullshit fairy tale to make it seem like he’s innocent.”
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t buy this shit and neither should you, Olivia. He’s a monster and he’s got her. Just like I always knew he did.”
“Rob, please. You’re not listening to me.”
“I got kicked off the case,” he snarls with single-minded passion.
“I know.”
“But it’s not even close to over, Liv. I’m going to end the bastard.”
Fear nearly chokes me as I see the determination in his eyes. I’m not just scared for him, though. I’m scared for Aleks, too. “Rob, you’re off the case. What can you do?”
“I have an ally.”
“An ally?”
He nods. “He’ll help me in a way that the FBI can’t or won’t. Honestly, I’m glad they kicked me off the damn case. This way, I don’t have to do shit by the book.”
“Rob, you’re starting to scare me.”
“Don’t be scared, Liv,” he says, but he’s not even looking at me. “The only one who should be scared is Aleksandr fucking Makarova.”
He wrenches the car back onto the road and mashes the accelerator. It feels like I’m talking to a brick wall. Nothing I say seems to pierce through.
When we reach our turn, Rob makes a left when he’s supposed to be making a right.
“Hey,” I say softly. “The house is that way.”
“We’re not going there. It’s the first place he’ll look for you.”
“But then where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe,” Rob mutters.
That dread that’s been seeping into every cell finally reaches my throat. I feel like I’m drowning in it, like I can’t breathe. It’s an acrid taste on my tongue that sets my heart throbbing painfully with every beat.
“Who is your friend, Rob?” I whisper hoarsely. “Who is helping us?”
He grips the wheel, his knuckles going white. “His name is Donald Hargrove.”
TO BE CONTINUED
