I can’t believe I made it this far.
Good. I can do this.
I can.
So far, it’s been fine. Although I’ve just been on the subway.
Nothing would have happened to me there. I would have been ahead of the game, and no one would have been able to track me down. If they were tracking, they would have come to a dead end because I threw my phone away when I entered the subway station.
That doesn’t mean people won’t be able to find me.
Vincent, or Dmitri, or whoever from the Bratva they send for me.
Now that I’m above ground, I’m weary and walking like it too. I don’t care though. I just have to get to Dad, and then we’ll know what to do and where to go when we put our heads together.
It was all on him the last time we had to make a grand escape. I was a mess, and I wouldn’t have known what the hell to do. Back then, he had Sasha. Now, it’s just me, and we’ll make this happen.
I walk faster, passing a man carrying balloons when I see Dad’s apartment block come into view. There’s another guy at the corner with more balloons. People are always selling things on this road. They’re not allowed to do it, but they still do it, until the cops catch them. I know that some pretend to sell what they’re selling, but really it’s an elaborate setup to sell drugs. I used to wonder if that was how Dad got hooked.
It was always strange to me that he would turn to them when it was the thing that helped take Sasha’s life. I’ve never had the curiosity take me to try it. Not once. There was a time back in college when it was offered to me, and I refused.
I go into the building and head to the elevator. The doors open. A woman and five small boisterous children with their faces painted pile out. It takes her a minute to get them under control and away from the entrance before I can get in. She offers an apologetic smile, and I return it.
I always pray that one day, when I’m not so screwed up, maybe I might think of having a family. I’d want kids, and I’d hope to happen on kind strangers if they got out of control the way those little ones were.
I shake my head at myself. That life is for someone else. I have to make it to the next minute and hope I can take care of Dad too.
As for Florida and my piece on Coral… well, that was always a dream and clearly not meant to be. I can’t do it. There’s no way I can do it. It’s far too risky.
I was thinking Dad and I could leave the city tonight. We could take the bus across the country. Maybe toward somewhere like Arizona, and then we could leave the country from there.
It’s going to be hard to stay on track and be ahead of people like the guys we’re dealing with.
They’re always one step ahead. Always. The only way we escaped last time was because they thought we were dead. That’s how. While my father was Pakhan, I didn’t really know anything about the business. Women are always kept out of business. It was Dad who taught me all I needed to know when we left Russia. Just so I could keep safe. Our brotherhood had access to so much. So damn much. They were like an army. You don’t mess with people like that.
The elevator doors open, and I rush out, grateful to see Dad’s apartment door. I can’t wait to see him. I can’t wait to tell him what’s happened. He’s the only person who’s been able to take care of me and calm me down.
I never had to give him details of the horror I went through. He just knew. He knew and healed me.
I rush up to the door but stop in my tracks when I see it’s open. The door is slightly ajar. Dad never leaves the door like that. There’s never a reason to. He lives on the third floor so wouldn’t keep it open like the people on the first floor who might be unloading groceries from their cars.
A slither of panic crawls down my spine, and I swallow hard.
I open my mouth to call out to him, but I think better of it. Never do that, Ava. No.
My lungs constrict when I push the door open slowly. My nerves are tingling on high alert.
There’s an ominous presence about the place, and cigar smoke.
Cubans with apple smoked wood. It’s a specific smell. A smell I came to associate with Dmitri.
My hands start to shake at the thought, my soul quivers, and the icy tendrils of fear work its way through my body.
I take one step and another. The hallway is clear, but the smell… that smell gets stronger. Is Dmitri here?
Jesus, is he here? If he found me at Escada, then what was to stop him from finding Dad?
Ava Knight Mark Knight.
If Ava Knight could be found, then people would know that her father is listed as Mark Knight, and they’d be able to find out where he lived. It’s not like we lived in secret.
I take another step, and another, following the pungency of the cigar smoke. It leads me to the living room and to my biggest nightmare.
A scream rips from my throat before my brain processes what I’m seeing before me.
Dad…
He’s hanging from the beam on the ceiling with his eyes gouged out and the words:
We know written on a note on his chest.
I scream and scream, tears flowing from my soul, pouring from my eyes.
There’s so much blood everywhere.
He’s covered in it. He’s soaked, and it drips from his body to the floor.
I scream so much I feel I might die from the terror, die from the pain, die from the loss of another father.
Arms grasp hold of me from behind, holding me in place as I scream. I dare not look to see who it is. I can’t. I know it’s one of them. It’s probably Dmitri or another henchman here to kill me too.
I cry waiting to feel it. The press of a gun to my head, or hands around my throat ready to snap my neck, or maybe they’ll slash my throat, cutting me open.
“Ava,” the voice says in my ear, a hand now stroking my head. “Baby…”
It’s only when he says that, that I turn my head to look at him.
Vincent.
He came. He’s here. Sad eyes look down at me and back to Dad. Sad, heavy eyes that look so unlike the man he was when he was ready to kill weeks ago.
He shakes his head, and pure compassion fills his features when he stares back at me. I’m still bawling my eyes out so much I can’t catch my breath.
He loosens his grip on me, and I sink to the floor allowing the weakness to take me.
He lowers too and holds me close.
“Baby, please. Come, let’s go home. Come home,” he says against my hair.
Home… I gaze up at him, and my mind scatters. I can’t think straight. I certainly can’t talk.
His next words are stolen with a ticking sound.
It’s a distinct ticking sound that just comes on. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s there. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Vincent grabs me. He just grabs me and throws me over his shoulder.
He runs to the window with me. That same window I used to escape with Dad weeks ago.
We don’t get to open it. An explosion rips through the fabric of reality, and then we’re smashing through the glass of the window. I see fire billowing forward, then I’m flipped around and cocooned against Vincent’s hard chest.
We’re falling, falling amongst shards of glass, smoke, fire, and my screams. Still he holds me.
My body jerks hard when he reaches for something to hold on to. I glance at the railing of the fire escape. The explosion weakened it, and we continue falling until we smash into the ground.
I swear he’s dead. He took a hit, and our weights combined hitting the ground together must have had an impact.
Blood pours down the side of his face, and his eyes flutter open as he winces in pain.
“Vincent,” I wail. I can’t believe he’s alive.
“Doll, are you okay?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“I’m not hurt,” I answer quickly.
Ahead are people who heard and saw the explosion. Fire rages from Dad’s apartment so high up it’s taken out the whole section.
That was supposed to kill me.
It’s the least of my worries though. Tires screech on the road ahead, and a motorcyclist tears down the corner. He pulls a gun from his back and aims it at us.
Another comes.
Vincent leaps into action, shoves me behind him, and pulls two guns from his back pocket. Two shots are fired, and the first cyclist is dead before he can pull his trigger. The next doesn’t make it to us. Their bikes crash into the wall.
Vincent takes my hand and runs with me down the road. We get to a midnight black Kawasaki, and he hands me the helmet that was hooked to the handlebar.
He takes my shoulders and holds them firm.
“Do not let go of me. You fucking hold on and don’t let go. Do you hear me?” he warns.
I stare at him, my eyes so wide they’re dry and hurt. His eyes bore into me with that mixture of what I always see, but deep within them, I see for the first time how much he cares about me.
“I hear you,” I answer and put the helmet on.
He gets on the bike, and I get on behind him, slipping my arms around him tightly. I hold him and press my face into his back as I will the sounds around me away from my mind, and the images of Dad.
I will them all away because it’s all I can do.
The nightmare world has spilled over into reality indeed, and it’s brought hell with it.
We are being followed, chased.
Vincent speeds down the road as two motorcyclists follow us. I chance looking to my left and see them. Two are on that side. Another on the right I can hear.
They try to shoot at us but miss.
Vincent leads them to Main Street, where the roads get bigger. That’s when I see six mean-looking motorcycles leap down from the car park complex. I recognize those moves. One of the bikers I know is Salvatore, although he’s wearing a helmet. There’s another guy without a helmet that has long black hair billowing out in the wind and a cross tattooed on his cheek. He and Salvatore take out the two bikers chasing us, and Vincent speeds along with me down the road.
More bikes come, and cars come from the corners while bullets fly all around me.
I hold on tight. Holding on so tight it’s like I’m holding on to him and holding on to life.
The noises lessen, and I assume we’ve lost them, then a car pulls out from the road up ahead and stops.
It stops in our path.
I gaze on and see the people in the car.
Dmitri is the driver, and Yuri is sitting next to him. In the back is the devil. My uncle Ilya.
“Hold on tight, doll! Hold on!” Vincent shouts and pushes past the speed barrier. These bikes were designed to go lightning fast. It does.
They thought he was going to stop. The other cars that pulled out to join them thought the same, so did I. The only thing you can do in a standoff like this is stop.
But Vincent doesn’t. He goes faster, and it’s too late for anybody to scatter when he drives the bike right up onto the car with Dmitri, Yuri, and Ilya and practically leaps over it.
Shock flies through me at the formidable force he is and his determination to protect me.
More bullets echo behind us, but they fade. Then I hear them no more.
All there is in my ear is the hum of the engine and the hammering of my heart.
The tears never stopped falling.
They continue as we ride on and ride hard.