Any such dramatics, however, would put Maggie’s life at a terrible risk, especially if word of my actions rescuing Liv has gotten around.
I feel a sudden sinking of my stomach as I think of her again, and I grip the steering wheel while almost unconsciously watching the guards’ patrol routes on the walls, keeping an eye out for weaknesses. What if Liv decides to abandon my protection and try to handle herself on her own? What if the fear of what I am drives her to do something foolish?
I was trying to keep her safe, but opening up to her was a mistake that could very well put her in danger.
I frown, shaking my head. She’s a smarter person than that, I know. But fear can make someone act against their better judgement, despite everything they know. Fear is something I like to think I have conquered long ago, after all the horror I’ve seen and endured, and after all that I’ve done, but I know better than to let my guard down.
I step out of my car, and I can feel the eyes of everyone guarding the villa turning to me. From here on out, I’m a known man, however this goes down. I take out my phone to make sure it’s still off, just in case any of my old contacts I may meet in here have my number and decide to track me in the same way I’ve been tracking Liv and Maggie. Seeing it safely off, I take a few steps down the road towards the compound, making eye contact with the guards.
But I haven’t taken more than a few steps before the sound of a roaring engine reaches my ears, and I turn to look down the opposite end of the road to see a car barreling down the street.
Instinctively, my hand goes to my side where a gun is stored, and I step back to the car, my muscles poising as adrenaline starts to kick in. Did they get tipped off somehow? Are these friends of the men back at the apartment complex come to head me off?
I swear under my breath as I hear voices coming from the villa. The men on the walls are at full attention now, and the guards at the doors are getting twitchy, their own hands moving to where I know concealed weapons to be held.
Whatever is coming my way, it doesn’t seem to be expected. My fingers wrap around the handle of my pistol when the car comes screeching to a halt just a few feet from mine…
...and Liv jumps out of the passenger’s side, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Max!” she hisses, rushing toward me, and I see Felix looking at me from inside the car on the driver’s side. I’m doubly surprised when she throws her arms around me briefly, and I stare at her, bewildered.
“What are you doing here?!” I hiss a whisper back, glancing at the manor. “What if they recognize you?”
“No time!” she snaps, gesturing wildly for me to get back into the driver’s seat of my car, “we need to go, now!” She wastes no time in slipping past me and getting into the passenger’s seat of my car, and I can only look between the cars, dumbfounded for a moment before nodding and moving over to the driver’s side of my car.
I glance back at the villa and see a few of the guards chattering into phones, looking at us with furrowed brows, and I turn to call to Felix, “Split up!”
He nods, and the moment I’m in my car, I turn the ignition and pull out of there, zipping down the road and turning right where Felix turns left at the earliest possible intersection as my eyes move to the rear-view mirror periodically.
“What the hell just happened, Liv?” I ask her, trying to sound composed in what very well might have just blown my entire cover.
“I just saved your life,” she says simply, trying to get a hold of her own breathing as she buckles her seatbelt. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know—those men and the men you saved me from aren’t Russian, Max. They’re Chechen.”
My eyes widen in realization as I grip the steering wheel as we take another turn. It isn’t long before I notice a sedan with tinted windows on our tail, and I take another sharp turn into traffic, weaving in and out with expert ease.
“Chechens?” I repeat, and realization dawns on me. “Of course. The Bratva didn’t reinitiate the slave trade after I drove them out, they must have known better than that. The Chechen just stepped in to fill the power vacuum when they had the chance.”
“But I thought you knew that guy with the burn on his face?” Liv asked, her hands wringing her seatbelt idly.
“I did,” I say gravely, “but he was a Chechen among the Russians when I knew him the first time. When the Chechens stepped in to take up the remains of the human trafficking ring, Boris must have been one of the key contacts they used to rebuild it. He must have known everything they’d want.”
“And you would have been walking into your own execution the moment they recognized you at that manor,” says Liv, retrospective anxiety mingled with the relief in her brown eyes as we drive. After some clever maneuvering and turns through tangled neighbourhoods, I notice the sedan that had been following us isn’t there; we’ve shaken them.