"There, look…" Rurik snuffs his cigarette in a pop can, and it hisses loudly as he snatches the binoculars from me and lifts them to his eyes.
I narrow my eyes into the distance and see what he's focused on. There on the horizon just in front of the glow of St Petersburg is a set of headlights. It's the first traffic we've seen this far out from the city in at least an hour, and we have to be prepared for the thought that it could be Yaros's buses and the women he intends to keep enslaved.
Rurik picks up the walkie-talkie and pinches the button as he continues to hold the binos up with one hand, scanning the distance. "We got company, guys. Three minutes out… Let's get ready to move."
A rush of adrenaline has me sitting straighter. I'm not sure what to expect, but I know there will be a fire fight. They've got enough guns to supply a full army and I know every one of them is trigger happy, especially now that one of our own has been laid up for so long, and several smaller players in the Gravitch family were laid to rest over the past few weeks.
"You ready for this?" I ask Rurik, but it's a foolish question meant more to psyche myself up for something I don’t think I'm ready for.
He reaches into the back seat and pulls the Kevlar vest out that Lev insisted I wear if I was going to be a part of this, and I scowl at it. But as the lesser of two evils, I know I have to put it on.
"Are you?" he asks, tossing the vest onto my lap. It's heavy and bulky, probably thirty pounds of plates and pockets lined with Velcro. I slide my arms into the sleeve holes and start strapping it on when Rurik reaches in front of me to pull out two weapons, fully loaded and ready to go.
"The only reason I'm a part of this family is to save these women." I slap the last Velcro strap across my chest and look up at him with a cold glare. "Hell itself won't stop me from walking out there to get them."
He jerks on the straps, double checking that they’re tight enough, I assume, and grumbles something under his breath at me before chambering a round in his pistol and doing the same in mine. When he hands me the weapon, I take it and try not to think about what I may have to do.
"Stay in this fucking car until I give the all clear. Do you understand?" The way he speaks to me like he's my father is annoying, but I'm no fool. I'm not trained to kill the way these men are. I've done it once when I had to, but not because I wanted to.
"And then?" I say, sucking in a breath. The vest is so heavy, it's hard to breathe.
"Then run like hell and get those women off the bus and inside the station to safety." He nods and opens the door, stepping out.The dome light stays dark, but I can still make out his silhouette as he shuts the door and stalks across the concrete toward the fuel pumps. Everyone is poised to move the instant the buses roll up, myself included.
When the headlights become clear and the bus comes into focus, my heart starts racing like a jackrabbit. Everything that's happened over the past few months comes rushing back to me.
Seeing those women being herded out of this station into a bus to be shipped off to slavery broke my heart and made me determined to see this through, and perhaps a little stupid. Today, I will be a part of rescuing many of them, and maybe it will lead to rescuing a lot of them in the future too.
The bus is barely stopped when chaos erupts. I watch the flash of muzzles in the darkness as Gravitch and Kolar men take out each of the bus's tires. Moments later, the door opens and men start pouring out of it with their own weapons raised and firing. It's happening so quickly, I wonder if the second bus will get a warning and turn around, but it rolls up next to the first one according to schedule.
The plan is for me to stay here until most of the shooting is topped, but the minute I see women filing off that bus, my plan changes. I won’t sit here letting them dodge bullets while I hide in the safety of Rurik's car.
I open the door and dart across the parking lot and motion wildly for the women, screaming my head off. "Here! Come here!" My hands wave, and a few of the women see me as they run in panic.
We're under heavy gunfire, but most of it seems to be aimed at the buses themselves or the men doing the shooting. It takes afew seconds, but soon I'm leading a steady stream of women, hunched over and running like hell, right into the serving station where they're safe.
My eyes well up and I stand at the door, shouting for more to come as Lev ushers them into the back room away from the windows that could easily shatter. We've reversed Yaros's scheme he used the day we were meant to meet with Luka at that warehouse and the Veche forces are outnumbered five to one.
"How many?" Lev asks, but I can't count them. They keep pouring off the buses and running to me while screaming.
"I don't know!" I shout back, but the gunshots are dying down. Bodies lie prone on the pavement in puddles of blood. One of the buses smokes from its engine, and soon, the last of the women are inside where constant sobbing and tears have become the backdrop to my reunion with Lev.
He pulls me against his chest with a wince and presses a fierce kiss to my forehead. I cling to him just as hard, except this time, it doesn't feel like I'm fighting for my life. It feels like the pieces of my life are falling into place.
"Why did you get out of the car?" he asks against my skin, and I smile at him.
"Would you have stayed in it if you were out there?" I push back, smiling up at him, and then walk away.
We spend the next thirty minutes treating small cuts and bruises, giving women water and food, and finding out a few of their stories. We've saved a total of fifty-two women, and two of them are pregnant too. Which means a new generation of survivors is about to be born.
When everyone is settled and a new bus is arranged to come pick these women up and take them to a shelter in St. Petersburg, I find Lev standing by the front door talking to Yuri and Fyodor. Both of them have blood on their hands and both of them look exhausted. I haven’t seen Dimitri for a while, and Rurik left shortly after the fighting stopped to arrange the shelter space for this many women, but it's finished.
"You did good today," Yuri says, jerking his chin up at me. "These women are lucky to have someone like you to fight for them."
Lev slides his arm around my middle, but I imagine by now he's doing it more to lean on me for support rather than to feel close to me. He's been up and about for a long time.
I rest my hand on his belly and sigh as I look to his uncle. "Thank you," I tell him, "for keeping your word to me about saving them." He never had to follow through with this and he could've taken the route without upsetting Yaros's trade.
"And look down the barrel of Kolar's gun?" Yuri chuckles and winks at me. "All in a day's work, right, Lev?" Lev pulls me closer and smiles.
