Page 135 of Inked in Devotion

Then my vehicle. Dimitri was sitting beside me. Chloe was in the passenger seat behind me. Two more SUVs followed with four soldiers each. Rurik brought up the rear.

“If it wasn’t your wife in the car and if it was just us, I would say, this is exciting, no?” Dima spoke in Russian.

I grunted.

“Come on, kuzen. You agree too.”

“You knew something was going to happen.”

“English, please,” Chloe piped in.

“Sorry, Chloshka, just can’t help it,” I said. “You knew something was going to happen?” I repeated my question to Dima.

“Didn’t I warn you the Vozhokari was on the move? And we can never be sure they haven’t hacked the phones we’re using.”

“It’s certainly not from my end, mudak,” I derided.

Our comms crackled.

“Palisades Parkway is smooth sailing in regard to traffic,” Ilya said. We had bratva soldiers on motorcycles as advance scouts, deploying drones, eyeballing the route.

I took the ramp to the parkway, following the lead SUV.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Kirill said. “They’ll be on the lookout for a convoy.”

“It’s like we’re escorting the president.” Rurik chuckled as if we weren’t facing unknown hostiles lurking under the cover of night.

I appreciated my bratva’s nonchalance because with Chloe as the target, my usual calm was battling with the rabid urge to lock my family away.

Ilya was right. There was minimal traffic coming from both directions. The trade-off? There were also minimal exits. The road was lined with trees on both sides that would obscure any attacker, but it also had a grassy median that would allow plenty of room to maneuver.

Kirill’s Porsche was farther out from our convoy. My SUV kept a tight formation with the ones in front and behind me. Rurik, in the fifth SUV, lagged behind, enough so no assailant could lock all of us in.

“Here we go,” Ilya said. “Two SUVs and a motorcycle are speeding up Sylvan Avenue.”

Shit, it was a road that ran parallel and fed into the parkway.

Dimitri leaned forward to check. “I can see their headlights.”

“I just passed a clearing where they could strike,” Kirill said. “Slowing down.”

Our tight formation of three sped up.

Dimitri cackled, ratcheting up his M6. “Here we go.”

“Do not lower the windows, Dima,” I growled.

“Should have sat with Rurik,” he mumbled.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Chloe chanted. It was the first words she’d spoken since she asked us to speak in English.

“Seat belt,” I reminded Chloe, even when I’d buckled her in myself.

“I’m good,” she responded.

My gaze swept to my right. “Yep, it’s about to get rocky.”

The motorcycle jumped the divider first, cutting off Rurik’s vehicle. I checked the other two vehicles, and only one followed the motorcycle.