Page 69 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

Last night with Rashid was so wonderful. He made me feel alive and whole, and he comforted me when I was scared. How can I feel so different today than I did a week ago? And why does it feel like I'm falling for the man who kidnapped my child?

Could it be that fate knew long before I did that Rashid might just be the one who could make my heart feel safe? Maybe I've been blind to it this whole time.

24

RASHID

The truck rattles over a pothole and my shoulder slams the side panel, reminding me why I stopped doing fieldwork. Devid sits across from me in the dark, checking his weapon for the third time while Mikhail and Igor flank the rear doors with their rifles across their knees. Four more men line the walls between supply crates.

This better fucking work.

Devid's plan to ambush the Gusevs on the last shipment didn't work. They never even moved on the truck. Either they got intel that we were planning a blitz or they got lazy, but we're trying again, hoping to get someone who can get us the information we want. Our goal is to take at least one of them alive—if they attack us like they have been.

"How much longer?" I ask Devid, grumbling. This is uncomfortable, and I'm impatient. The longer I wait, the more I just want to kill them all.

He checks his watch. "Ten minutes to the checkpoint. Maybe less if they're running early."

"They'll be early," Mikhail says from the back. "Gusev's crews always move ahead of schedule so they can set up before the truck arrives."

I chamber a round and settle against the wall. Oleg's intel put them right here on this stretch of road at this time of night, and if he's wrong about this, then the deal I offered him in that basement is worth less than the paper I didn't bother writing it on. But something in my gut tells me he's not wrong. The old man was too desperate to lie about the one thing keeping him alive.

The truck slows, and the brakes whine as we roll to a stop. Two voices carry from outside, speaking Russian with a clipped cadence. The inspection team at this check point sounds official, but there's no way to know if they're border patrol or Gusev plants.

"Papers," one of them says to our driver. "What are you hauling?" Their voices are muffled, but not so much that I can't make out what they're saying.

"Textiles," our driver says, playing it exactly as rehearsed. "Same run as last Tuesday." He grumbles a little too, feigning annoyance, and I brace myself for this to turn ugly fast. My heart is slamming against my ribs with adrenaline, gearing up to fight.

A flashlight beam cuts through the gap at the bottom of the rear doors and sweeps left to right. I hold my breath as Devid raises a fist and every man in the truck goes still.

When the latch clicks I lift my chin, then my weapon. The right door swings open and a man with a Gusev tattoo on his neck leans in with his flashlight, scanning the crates. He shineshis light on the cargo, but then his beam catches the barrel of Mikhail's rifle about two feet from his face.

"Do not move," Mikhail says in a dark tone. Every muscle in my body is poised to strike. I'm just waiting for the first round to be fired. All I needed to see was the tattoo and I was convinced.

The man goes for his radio, but Mikhail grabs him by the front of his jacket and hauls him into the truck so fast his feet leave the ground. Igor's already out the back and on the second man before he can shout, driving him face-first into the gravel and pinning his arm behind his back.

"How many more?" I ask Devid as I jump down from the truck.

"Staging teams report two vehicles ahead, one behind. Eight men total including these two."

"Move on them now."

Devid signals, and our teams emerge from the tree line on both sides of the road. Headlights flare from the Gusev vehicles as the drivers realize something's wrong, and then the night splits open. Gunfire cracks through the cold air, and I hear glass shatter in the lead vehicle as our men close in from the flanks. One of Gusev's crew stumbles out of the passenger side firing blindly into the darkness, and Devid drops him with a single shot to the thigh that sends him spinning into the ditch.

"Take the second car," I tell Igor over the radio. "Alive if you can."

The second vehicle tries to reverse, but one of our teams has already blocked the road behind it. The driver guns the engine and slams into the blockade, and after that the whole road goes to hell.

Gunfire erupts from everywhere at once. I can't tell who's shooting at who for the first few seconds because the muzzle flashes blur together and the sound swallows everything. I fire into the lead vehicle and hear glass explode and someone screaming, and I fire again. A body falls out of the driver side door and crumples on the asphalt.

"Get around the second car!" I shout at Devid, but I don't know if he hears me, because another burst rips through the air and something punches through the panel next to my head.

I dart left, shooting a man coming around the hood before he can raise his weapon. He drops to the ground in my path, and I step over him. My hands feel disconnected from my body and my pulse roars in my ears, but none of this feels real until a round grazes my shoulder. The burn cuts through the adrenaline and reminds me that I can still die out here.

"Rashid, get down!" Devid yells from somewhere behind me. I drop just as a burst of fire tears through the space where my chest was a second ago. I roll behind the engine block and come up shooting, putting rounds through the passenger window until the gun on the other side goes quiet.

"Is that all of them?" I shout.

"Two more on the south side!" Igor calls back. I hear scuffling and then two quick shots, and then nothing.