“Okay, well?—”
Suddenly, behind us, I hear a noise. Whipping around, I see two little faces peeping out from behind the door, and my heart drops.
“Nina, Max, what are you doing out here!” I exclaim, rushing back over towards them and trying to usher them back down the corridor.
“I went to the kitchen to find you and you were gone?—”
“Alexei said nothing about you seeing him today,” the guard replies in a monotone voice, as he makes his way towards us. I look over my shoulder at him, standing between him and the kids. There’s the bulge of a gun on his side, and I don’t want either of them to see it.
“Well, can you just tell him that I need to talk to him?”
“What about?”
“It’s none of your business,” I spit back.
“The Pakhan will not see you unless you tell us what the problem is.”
“There’s no problem,” I reply, trying to keep my voice as steady as I can. I can already sense Nina starting to tense up beside me, and the last thing I want is for her nerves to get the best of her. “I was just hoping that I could talk to him about the kids.”
I look to the guard once more with an imploring expression, hoping that he’ll finally see where I’m coming from with this. And, when our eyes lock, for a second, I’m filled with hope that he actually understands. But then, before I can say another word, a huge crash comes from the front of the house, and everyone spins around to see what is going on.
My knees almost crumple out from under me when I see what has happened. The front door has been blown off its hinges, and men are flooding into the house. I feel faint, and I have to holdonto the door to keep from collapsing, trying my best to keep myself positioned in front of the kids.
This can’t be happening, it can’t be, it must be some twisted figment of my imagination.
The smell of smoke fills the air, and the sound of yelling brings me back down to earth. I snap into action, dropping to my knees in front of the children and turning to them.
“You have to get out,” I insist. But both the children are frozen before me, too terrified to move an inch. I grab their shoulders, trying to bring them back into the moment, trying to get them to listen to me, but it seems like they can’t even hear me over the chaos that is breaking out around us.
Suddenly, I feel someone grab me by the shoulder–I spin around just as another shot rings out, and a man slams into the wall, blood spraying on to the sculpture beside him. I let out a cry, but I hardly have time to take it in before the man before me shoves me aside.
“No!” I yell out, and I drop to my knees, scrambling back towards the children – I reach for Max, who’s closer to me, and manage to wrap my arms around him, drawing him against my chest.
“Give him to me!”
I look around to see Ilya standing there, his face written with deadly seriousness, holding his hands out towards me. I realize that I don’t have much of a choice; there’s nothing I can do here but rely on the men around us and hope that they will be able to do enough to keep these kids safe. I shove Max towards him, and Max reaches out for him and grabs for him, pulling him into his arms and lifting him to his chest.
But the man who is advancing on us is closing the distance on Nina now, and I throw myself out in front of her, doing everything I can to keep him from getting there. His eyes are near-black with fury, and I wonder, briefly, what the people who sent him here must have told him to convince him to be so heinous.
“Please,” I beg him, as I wind my arms around Nina, clutching her to me like I did when she was a baby—she feels so small in my arms, so delicate and breakable, and a sob tearing at my throat as I try to reason with him.
“Hand her over,” he tells me coldly, as he lifts his gun, pointing it at me. I look around, searching for something, anything that might pull me out of this mess, but there’s nothing I can do, nobody I can rely on, nothing but the sheer hope that I might be able to somehow save her from this.
“If you’re taking her, you’re taking me,” I fire back, drawing my shoulders up to look as intimidating as I can even as I stare down the barrel of his gun. The weapon stares back at me with a cold, unyielding gaze, and my mind swims with panic again. I’ve never been this close to a loaded gun before, and I can’t wrap my head around how much danger I must be in right now. There’s nothing I can do to escape, not without him pulling the trigger and ending me right then and there. If that’s what I’ve to do to protect my daughter, then I will, but I don’t want her to be scarred with the agony of watching her mother die in front of her.
But the man narrows his eyes, stoops down, and drags me upward.
“Fine,” he mutters. “You’re both coming with me.”
I struggle in his grip, still holding Nina, but I can feel the gun pressing into me, a warning of what will happen if he decides he doesn’t want to bother with me after all. I don’t know where he plans on taking me, but I know it’s nowhere good.
I look around again, and find Alexei rushing towards us, gun drawn.
“Alexei, stay back!” I plead with him, not wanting him to get hurt. The man spins around to point the gun at him, pulling Nina and I in front of him so Alexei can’t get a shot off without risking hitting us in the process.
“You should listen to her, Pakhan,” the man warns him, but he spits the word with venom.
Alexei’s face darkens, and I think of pushing Nina towards him—telling her to run, to get as far from here as she can while she’s still able. But I know if I even try something like that, it could mean the end for all of us.
