For all I know, my family left behind at that warehouse has been entirely slaughtered. Yuri could be dead, Dimitri and Fyodor too. I watched our guys drop like flies over this.
Yaros is just the type of sick son of a bitch who would end an entire family to control the narrative. If he thinks that we threaten his alliances, removing us is the only way to secure them. And he knows we're fucking with his relationship to Kolar, otherwise how would he have known when and where we would be meeting the man?
The rest of the drive to the safehouse is silent, though I hear Vivika sniffling every now and then. I'm too stuck in my head and angry to say anything else. I'm not sure what the net play will be if we set a meet for today and Kilar didn’t even show. What good will it do to set up another meet? Won't Yaros do the same thing?
He swooped in with so many men because he planned to ambush us. It shows his clear motive wasn't to negotiate for hissister at all. He wanted her dead, and he knew all along it wasn't even her.
"Uh, Lev…" Vivika's words snap me out of my obsessive spiral and I look up the distance across the bridge to the safehouse where several more SUVs are parked. The house is in flames, and men in tactical gear walk around the lawn.
"Holy shit…" My eyes aren't betraying me. Yaros found out where we were keeping her for the past week somehow and he is trying to prove he's able to outsmart us.
"What do we do now?" she asks, but her tone is nothing but a whimper now. Gone are the steel veins she rehearsed for Ana Veche. Vivika is the scared little mouse again.
"I don’t know," I tell her, stopping the car. I put it in reverse to turn around, but I've already caught their attention. The Veche men are moving, climbing into their cars to come after us. "But we have to do it fast."
In under thirty seconds they're on us even though I've pushed the pedal to the floor. My car's engine strains under the pressure, but I can't let up and let them get to her. They’d like nothing better than to cause us to wreck and kill us both.
"The gun, in the glove box," I grunt, but as I glance at her, I can see she's in no space mentally to do that again. I have no choice but to try to outrun them. So I turn toward the highway and floor it, weaving between cars in excess of two hundred kilometers an hour just to get away. For ten solid minutes, adrenaline courses through my blood as I try to evade them, and when one of their SUVs takes a curve too quickly and goes off the road in a fiery explosion, I know I have them beat.
Vivika grips the handle of the door and the armrest, her face pale as a sheet, and I let off the accelerator when I'm certain they've stopped the pursuit, but I know they won't quit. They're going to keep coming now.
"Oh, my God," she whines, and I look at her to see tears streaking her face again. I have to get her away from this city and out of Yaros's reach for good. He'll never give up.
"It's okay…" My mind spins as I take an exit and hook back around, hoping to find a car to steal and ditch this one. "You're okay." I'm trying to comfort her while simultaneously not losing my shit.
It's my fault she's in this mess, and it's my fault what happened today. My entire family could be dead and no one is to blame but me.
The panic starts to subside a little as Vivika devolves into sobs, using a paper napkin shoved in my glove box after lunch one day. Her shoulders shake, and the makeup carefully applied earlier to cause her to look like Ana smears and smudges until she's a hot mess.
"Do you know anyone in Moscow?" I ask, spinning an idea in my head. We have several contacts there who could keep Vivika out of sight for a while until all of this dies down, or until the Gravitch family is able to regroup and remove Yaros once and for all.
"Uh… not really, maybe an aunt, but I don’t know if she's even living anymore." She dabs at her eyes, but the plan is already forming in my mind.
"I have a guy… He's a good man, Viv. He will keep you safe. I can send you to Moscow for a while, and we can finish this withKolar on our own… Or maybe you can video conference in or something." I turn toward the train station, knowing a train runs every thirty minutes. If I attempt a flight, we'll end up getting stuck in security at the airport and if Yaros catches up, he'll not only kill both of us, but he'll kill plenty of innocent people in the process.
"No, Lev," she whispers, but my mind is made up. "I don't want to go to Moscow. I want to be with you."
I turn again toward the station, down a narrow strip of land I know will get us there in under ten minutes, and shake my head. "It's got to happen, Viv. Yaros knows who you are. If I get you out of the city, he won't know where you're at. My guy—Rurik—he'll meet you at the station and protect you. You'll be safe with him."
I glance at the clock and see we have less than fifteen minutes to get to the station and get a ticket before the next train leaves St. Petersburg. So I push the car hard again and Vivika cries harder.
This is hard for me, harder than it should be. I never should’ve gotten so attached to her. I knew this could happen, whether because someone killed her or we had to send her away. Being with me is the last thing she needs. She'll never be safe. We'll be looking over our shoulders every day now. It’s safer if she's gone, at least for a while. Even if I have to carve my own heart out and send it with her.
The next ten minutes are heart wrenching for me, listening to her sob and plead with me not to send her away. When we reach the ticket counter, the ticketing agent asks if she's okay, but she mostly calms herself enough to say that she is. I make a lame excuse of her not wanting to leave my side, which the gentleman buys, and then I show Vivika to her train, which is already boarding by the time I walk her up to it.
She stands on the step, clinging to the metal hand railing as she leans down to pull me with her. "Come with me, Lev, please don’t make me go alone."
"I can't," I tell her, glancing over my shoulder. With as hot as this city is right now, I'm not sure Yaros's men haven't followed us here. "You have to go now. I have to stay and finish this or you'll never be safe to come back."
"Please," she whimpers as the train hisses and the whistle blows.
"Go on…" I tell her, cupping her cheek. My lips brush over hers tenderly. I know this may be the last time we ever see each other, and I need her to know how I feel. "I will do everything in my power to bring you back here when it's safe."
"Lev," she whines as the train begins to move and our grip is broken. All I can do is stand and watch her fading past the platform as the carriage rocks away from me and starts down the track. I'm tempted to run after her, but I hear chaos behind me, shouts and men's angry voices, and I know Yaros's men are here. They’ve tracked us, and I need to put an end to this.
So I turn away from the train and focus my eyes where I see movement in the crowd, readying myself for another fight.
I won't let them get her.
