Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Three
Maksim knew the collision was wrong before his vehicle came to a complete stop.

Two cars blocked the narrow mountain road.
One sat crooked across the center line with its front bumper crushed inward. The second had been forced partly into the ditch, one rear tire suspended off the ground. A man staggered near the shoulder with blood covering the side of his face while another waved both arms frantically.

It looked convincing.
Almost.

Maksim’s eyes moved over the scene.
No skid marks.
No broken glass.
The blood on the injured man’s face was too bright.
Too clean.

His radio crackled with static.
“Primary.”
Nothing.

He reached for the handset again.
“Primary, respond.”
Silence.

The man in the road approached his vehicle.
“Sir, you need to—”

Maksim drew his weapon.
The man froze.
“Move.”

His hands lifted slowly. “There’s been an accident.”
“No.”
Maksim’s voice was calm.

That frightened the man more than shouting would have.
“Move the vehicle.”

“We can’t. The woman in the—”
Maksim fired once.

The round struck the pavement inches from the man’s boot.

Everyone moved.
The supposedly injured driver straightened.

The man near the shoulder reached beneath his jacket.

Maksim fired again.
This time the bullet tore through the man’s upper arm, spinning him backward into the ditch.

The act dropped instantly.
No civilians.
No accident.
A diversion.

Maksim slammed the vehicle into reverse, maneuvered hard toward the shoulder, and drove half onto the embankment. Branches scraped across the passenger side. Tires threw mud and gravel. The SUV tilted dangerously before catching traction and surging around the staged wreck.

Someone fired behind him.
The rear window shattered.
Maksim never looked back.
He pressed the accelerator to the floor.

“Primary.”
Static.

“Anika... Elizabeth...”
Nothing.

His pulse remained steady.
His breathing remained controlled.
Everything else inside him began to come apart.
He drove faster.

The road twisted through the mountains, blind turn after blind turn. The speed was reckless. The vehicle slid across the center line twice, corrected once by instinct and once by luck.

He did not slow.
The thirty seconds he had promised became a minute.
Then two.
Then more.
Too long.
Far too long.

He rounded the final bend and saw smoke.
Gray clouds drifted between the trees and rolled low across the asphalt.
Maksim’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.

The primary SUV sat abandoned in the road.
Doors open.
Windows shattered.
No movement inside.

He hit the brakes so hard the vehicle fishtailed before stopping.
Maksim was out before the engine died.

Weapon raised.
He cleared the utility truck first.

One attacker lay beside it, a dark stain spreading beneath his chest.
Dead.

Another was facedown near the center line, breathing in wet, broken gasps, his forearm and lower leg torn open to the bone.
Maksim kicked his weapon away.

“Where are they?”
The man groaned.
Maksim stepped on the wound.
The scream cut through the trees.
“Where?”
“Gone.”
The word came out strangled.
Maksim pressed harder.
“Which direction?”
The man’s eyes rolled toward the access road disappearing into the woods.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Maksim increased the pressure.
“Three minutes,” the man gasped. “Maybe four.”
Four minutes.
An eternity.
Maksim lifted his weapon and struck the man across the temple.
He went still.

A sharp whine came from behind the primary SUV.
Maksim turned.
Nyx limped out of the smoke.

Her right foreleg was soaked with blood and dangling. One side of her muzzle was swelling, and a thin red line ran from her shoulder to her ribs.

She was frantically pacing on three legs.
Back to him.
Back to the SUV.
Whining.
Showing him.

Maksim crossed the distance quickly.
“Nyx.”

She circled the same place near the open door, nose pressed to the ground. Blood stained the pavement there.

Too much to ignore.
“She was here,” Maksim murmured.
The dog whined louder.
Then he heard it.

A low, broken growl from beyond the shoulder.
Maksim followed the sound into the ditch.
Ares lay nearly thirty feet into the trees.

For one terrible second, Maksim thought he was dead.

Then the massive dog lifted his head.
One eye was swollen almost shut. Blood covered his neck and chest. His tactical vest hung torn along one side, and each breath shuddered through him.

Still, when Maksim approached, Ares tried to stand.

His front legs locked.
His hindquarters failed.
He dragged himself forward anyway.
Not toward Maksim.
Toward the access road.
Toward Anika.

Maksim dropped beside him and pressed one hand against his shoulder.
“Stay.”

Ares growled.
Not at him.
At the restraint.
He fought to rise again.
“You cannot follow her like this.”

The dog’s breath came in harsh bursts. He stared toward the woods, every injured muscle still straining to chase.
Maksim looked away before the sight broke something he could not afford to lose.

He returned to the road.
The scene told its own story.
Spent casings scattered across the asphalt.
Blood trails crossing in multiple directions.
Elizabeth’s medical bag lay open near the guardrail.
Its contents had spilled across the road.
Bandages.
Trauma shears.
A stethoscope.
One blue glove caught against a thorn branch, fluttering in the morning breeze.

Maksim stopped breathing.
He could see her there.
Fighting.
Refusing to leave Anika.
Refusing to submit.
He bent and picked up the trauma shears.
Blood covered the blades.
Not hers, he told himself.
He had no proof.
It did not matter.
Nyx whined again.

Maksim looked toward the access road.
Tire marks.
Two vehicles.
One set deeper than the other.
Heavy acceleration.
He could pursue.
Four minutes behind.
Unknown terrain.
Unknown reinforcements.
Two injured dogs.
No communications.
No backup.

Every instinct in him demanded that he follow.
Every lesson Nikolai had ever taught him demanded that he stop.
Think.
Secure the scene.
Preserve the trail.
Call the full force of the Volkov organization down upon them.

Maksim hated discipline then.
Hated that it was correct.
He pulled out his phone.
No signal.

He moved back toward his vehicle and grabbed the satellite unit from the emergency compartment.

His fingers were steady while he activated it.
The call connected immediately.
Nikolai answered on the first ring.
“Report.”

Maksim looked at the destroyed SUV.
At Nyx pacing despite her injured leg.
At Ares dragging himself through the dirt because his body had not yet accepted that Anika was gone.
At the blood.
The shell casings.
He had given Nikolai hundreds of reports.
Deaths.
Betrayals.
Lost shipments.
Failed negotiations.
Never once had he struggled to speak.
“I was diverted,” Maksim said.

Silence.
Nikolai’s voice changed.
Not louder.
Colder.
“Where is she?”

Maksim closed his eyes.
He saw Elizabeth by the fire the night before.
Her fingers intertwined with his.
And now he stood in the place where she had been taken.
Too late.
“I reached the scene,” he said. “Both dogs are alive... Injured...”

“Where are Anika and Elizabeth?!”

Maksim looked down at the bloodied trauma shears in his hand.
His composure finally fractured.
“I’m too late.”

A pause.
So brief no one else would have heard the fear inside it.
Maksim did.

“Say it,” Nikolai ordered.

Maksim forced the words past the weight crushing his chest.

“They took them.”