"Five minutes." His curt reply comes with another scowl of warning, and I step back from the cart, but I don't leave.
The vendor mutters under his breath, low enough that I can't make out the words, but the tone is clear. He's as annoyed with me as I am with him. He turns his back to me, adjusting the heat on the grill, and the scrape of metal on metal sets my teeth on edge.
But I'm hungry, and the nearest grocery store is another ten blocks, and the idea of dragging myself there after the day I've had feels insurmountable. So I stay, shifting my bag again, feeling the weight of my laptop press against my hip. The vendor finally pulls the sausage I pointed to off the grill, drops it into a paper wrapper, and holds it out without a word. I reach for it, but he doesn't let go immediately, his fingers gripping the wrapper tight enough that I have to tug.
"How much?" I ask.
"Three hundred rubles."
I stare at him as my hand lingers on the slab of meat. "That's ridiculous," I mutter, but I know if I don't fork over the cash, I don’t eat, and I desperately need to put something in my stomach.
He doesn't even blink. "That's the price," he grumbles in a thin voice, and his eyes narrow on me while he holds the meat tighter as if he's expecting me to take off with his sausage and swindle him over a few hundred rubles.
The heat from the food seeps through the thin paper, warming my palm, and I think about dropping it back onto his cart and walking away. But my stomach twists again, and the thought of going home to an empty fridge makes the decision for me.
I pull out my wallet, fumbling with the zipper, and count out the bills with stiff fingers that don't want to cooperate in the cold. It's not like I'm made of money or anything, but he really is overpriced. I could eat twelve sausages at home for this price.
I slap the money into his palm and glare at him, wrapping my hand back around the plain sausage. The vendor takes the money without thanking me, shoves it into his apron pocket, and turns back to the grill as if I've already disappeared while I scan his cart to see if he has tomato sauce for it.
"Your prices are highway robbery," I mutter, more to myself than to him. "I shouldn’t have to haggle with dirty old men about overpriced street meat!" I'm angry now, and I don’t care who hears me or what they think of me.
"Then don't come back," he retorts without looking up. The nerve of some people. It's not like I'm insulting his cooking. This could be a very delicious sausage. It's just too expensive, and theonly reason he can keep charging this much is because poor fools like me pay it.
I open my mouth to respond, but before I can, I hear the screech of tires behind me. The sound is sudden and close, and I spin around, instinct pulling my body away from the noise in fear. A black car has stopped at an angle in the street, its front end jutting into the crosswalk, and the door on the passenger side flies open before the vehicle has fully stopped moving.
A man steps out, racing directly toward me, and my brain struggles to process what I'm seeing. He's tall, broad across the shoulders, and his coat flares out behind him as he moves. I take a step back, and my heel catches on the uneven pavement, making me stumble. But I find myself boxed in between the vendor and the building behind us. The sausage slips from my hand, and the vendor shouts, but the words don't register because the man is already in front of me, and his hand is closing around my waist.
I try to scream, but the sound catches in my throat, strangled by shock and the sudden pressure of his arm locking around my ribs. My feet leave the ground, and I find myself flailing sideways as he lifts me.
"No! What are you doing!" I kick out, connecting with his shin, but it doesn't slow him down one bit. The pavement rushes past beneath me, and then I'm airborne for a fraction of a second before I'm dropped into the back seat of the car.
My heart is racing and I feel dizzy and frantic. The impact in the car sends a jolt of pain through my arm into my shoulder, and I scramble to push myself up, my hands sliding on the smooth material, but before I can get my bearings, the man climbs in after me, blocking the open door. The door slams shut, and thecar lurches forward, throwing me back against the seat. I hear the engine roar, feel the vibration of it through the floor, and my stomach drops as the car accelerates hard, making the tires squeal again.
What the hell just happened and who the fuck are these men?
3
LEV
The limo tears away from the curb before the door is even fully closed, and the woman lands hard against me as the vehicle lurches into traffic. Her elbow catches me in the ribs and I grunt, grabbing her arms to keep her from flailing, but she twists in my grip with a strength that surprises me. Her knee comes up fast, and I barely turn my hip in time to keep her from connecting with anything valuable.
"Let me go!" She thrashes against me, her dark hair whipping across my face. "Let me fucking go!"
"Hold her still," Yuri snaps, and he grabs for her legs as she kicks out toward the partition. His hands close around her ankles and she screams a raw, desperate sound that makes my ears ring.
"Help!" she shrieks, her voice climbing toward hysteria. "Someone help me!"
"Gag her," Yuri orders as he struggles to keep her legs pinned. "She keeps screaming and the driver's going to have a heart attack."
I reach into my coat pocket and pull out my handkerchief and shake it loose. The woman sees what I'm holding and her eyes go wide, her body twisting so violently that Yuri loses his grip on one of her ankles. Her boot connects with his shoulder and he swears, grabbing her leg again and pressing it down against the seat with his full weight.
"Please," she gasps as she writhes. "Please, I don't know what you want. I haven't done anything. Please let me go."
"Hold still," I say, and I shove the handkerchief between her lips while she's thrashing.
Her muffled screams continue as I tie the ends behind her head, and tears spill from her eyes and streak down her cheeks. The resemblance to Ana Veche is even more striking up close, those light green eyes blazing with fury.
For a moment, I wonder if we've made a terrible mistake, if this actually is Ana and we've somehow stumbled onto her hiding in plain sight.
