“I see it, boss.” His knuckles are white on the wheel. “Hold on to something.”
Clara’s hand finds my arm. I pretend not to notice.
Maksim hits the gas. The engine roars. We’re doing ninety, ninety-five, the speedometer climbing as Ludis’s laughter echoes across the gap between cars.
“Last chance, brother!”
“Maksim, now!”
Everything happens at once. Maksim cranks the wheel hard left. Metal screams against metal as we clip Ludis’s SUV. The impact sends them spinning.
Right into the path of an eighteen-wheeler.
The crash is spectacular. But we’re already gone, Maksim reaching the exit ramp at speeds that would kill us in any other car.
“Holy shit,” Clara breathes. Her fingers are still digging into my arm. “Is he—?”
“Not dead.” I catch one last glimpse of the wreckage in the mirror. “Takes more than that to kill a Kuznetsov.”
“Noted.” She finally lets go of my arm.
The smoke from the crash clears just enough for me to see Ludis kick out the crumpled door of his SUV. He drags one of his men out of a black Audi that stopped in the chaos, tossing the driver aside like garbage.
“Blyat.” I watch him slide behind the wheel. “Stubbornsuka.”
“What?” Clara twists in her seat, then curses. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The Audi’s engine revs—that distinct sound that means Ludis just floored it.
Maksim takes the exit at ninety, tires screaming against asphalt. The sirens fade behind us—all except one persistent helicopter still circling overhead.
“Next tunnel’s half a mile,” Maksim calls back, still gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. “Better make it count.”
Clara’s hand shoots out, grabbing my Glock from its holster before I can stop her. The metal looks wrong againsther manicured fingers—until she checks the magazine with practiced ease.
“You’re going to shoot me?” I should probably take the gun back. I don’t.
She ejects the magazine, counts bullets. “If you survive this? I’m putting one right between your eyes.” Her fingers slide the magazine back in with a click. “But first, we deal with your psychotic twin.”
“So thoughtful of you to wait.”
“Shut up and give me your spare clip.” She holds out her hand without looking at me. “Do I have to do everything myself?”
The helicopter spotlight sweeps across us. Clara leans forward, squinting through the windshield. “Maksim, when we hit the tunnel, cut the lights. Hard right into the maintenance bay.”
Maksim’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. I nod once.
“How do you—?” I start.
“Because, unlike some people, I actually do my homework.” She checks the spare clip I handed her. “Three maintenance bays in that tunnel. First one’s twenty yards in. Your brother’s men will expect us to take the second or third.”
A bullet pings off the trunk. Clara doesn’t flinch.
“If we live,” I tell her, “we’re discussing how you know the tunnel layout.”
“If we live, you’re explaining why you never mentioned having an evil twin.” She shifts in her seat, angling toward the rear window. “Though the whole ‘trying to kill you’ thing tracks. You’re not exactly lovable.”
The tunnel mouth looms ahead. Maksim kills the lights. Darkness swallows us whole.
