After a long night tending the bar and trying not to be disappointed when Sergei didn’t show up, my night had to spiral into further heart-stopping chaos as these men chased me.
“Go get her!” one of the men ordered, his voice thick with a Russian accent. “Go!”
I clutched Maisie tighter, no longer able to be concerned about whether I’d wake her. Running with her wasn’t so easy anymore with how big she was getting. Tightening my arms so I wouldn’t drop her, I sprinted the best I could.
Air couldn’t fill my lungs fast enough. My heart thumped wildly. A panic attack melded with the adrenaline rush of facing danger, and I prayed with all my might, for anyone who could be listening, that I would save my daughter from these men. Stuck in the need to flee, I lacked the time to imagine all the worst-case scenarios. I couldn’t think. I could only run and whimper in fear. Frantic and fearing the unthinkable, I dared to look back once more.
A blur of something dark and large swept into my view. Someone had rushed in behind me. The obstacle blocked my view from the men chasing me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Sergei?I spun again, blinking through the dizziness threatening me. I was so worked up, so terrified, that I doubted I was thinking straight. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me.
Sergei wouldn’t be here. He only knew me from the bar. I hadn’t let him walk me all the way home to know how to find me near my building.
But it was his voice. Dark and lethal, serious and scary.
As he stood between me and the men, he lifted his arm and aimed a gun at them.
The men skidded to a stop, bringing up guns as well.
Oh, God.
Oh, fuck!
My panic escalated, soaring to the stratosphere. Guns? I strained not to pass out at the violence so near me, so near my precious daughter. Dropping low in the deepest crouch I could manage without losing hold of Maisie, I held my breath. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut at the idea of being caught in a gunfight.
Sergei was armed. That alone was shocking. I suspected he was a “bad boy”. He looked dangerous. But I hadn’t imagined he was armed.
The others having guns didn’t surprise me. They were clearly criminals, gangsters with the worst intentions toward me and my daughter.
But Sergei was armed. He was more dangerous than I could’ve imagined. And he was outnumbered. Only him against those two didn’t seem good. As grateful as I was that I wasn’t alone and that he’d magically shown up when I needed him the most, I couldn’t escape the horrible fear that he’d be killed protecting me. That we’d all be killed.
“I asked you what the fuck you think you’re doing?” he said in a sinister snarl.
Unafraid.
Brave and furious.
He wasn’t backing down.
But as a van pulled up at the curb and two more masked men slipped out to join the fight, I gasped. “No!”
Now we were seriously outnumbered. There was no hope. Backing up to Sergei, I huddled Maisie close to me and tried to hide behind this big stranger who’d kissed me.
“Mommy?” Her tiny, sleepy little voice sliced at my heart. “Mommy, what’s going on?”
I hugged her tighter, no longer able to hide how much my arms had to be shaking. I was trembling all over in the scariest confrontation I’d ever found myself in.
“Shh.” I tried to shush her as I scanned the men closing in on us.
Sergei put his other arm out, as if to barricade me and urge me to hide behind him.
But it was already over. There was no hope. There were too many of them and only one of him.
“That’s what we wanna know,” one of them taunted of him. “What’s an Orlov doin’ all the way on this side of town?”
“This isn’t Popov territory,” Sergei said.
