Devil’s Lair: Molotov Obsession: Book 1 Page 22

  Kirilov and Arkash are already pulling up to the house in an armored SUV when we step outside. Pavel and I jump into the backseat, and we tear down the driveway, gravel flying. I don’t have a concrete destination in mind, but there’s only one road leading down the mountain, and wherever Chloe is by the time Konstantin calls me, we’ll be closer to her than if we stay here and wait. Besides, we can start with the nearby gas stations as well, see if someone might’ve spotted Chloe at one of them.

  “What happened?” Pavel asks quietly as we clear the gate. “Why did she leave?”

  My upper lip curls. “Alina.”

  “Ah.” He falls silent then, staring out the window, and I do the same, trying to ignore the heavy thudding in my chest—and the growing pain of betrayal spreading through it.

  My zaychik ran.

  She left me.

  Just like that, without so much as a goodbye.

  It’s unreasonable to feel this way, I know. I am the kind of man she should fear and despise. Whatever my sister told her in her drugged-out state must’ve painted me in the worst possible light, but that doesn’t mean Alina’s story is untrue.

  I did kill our father in front of her.

  Still, Chloe’s desertion hurts. She gave herself to me. She came willingly into my arms. Last night was so much more than sex, our connection so deep I feel it in my bones. But she must not. Because if she did, she would’ve known I’d never harm her; she would’ve trusted me to protect her. The fact that she’d rather be out there, facing mortal danger, speaks volumes about her opinion of me.

  She’s afraid of me.

  She thinks I’m a monster.

  My jaw hardens, a dark resolve settling in as the car picks up speed. I should’ve kept those keys in a safe, not my nightstand—and I definitely should’ve warned the guards not to open the gate for her car. It didn’t occur to me that she’d run after last night, but it should’ve—and I won’t make that mistake again.

  When I get her back, she’s not leaving.

  I won’t let her.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

  * * *

  The first gas station we stop at is manned by a pale, pimply twenty-something with a hint of a beer belly.

  “Nope, haven’t seen her,” he says after peering at Chloe’s picture. “Cute chick, though. What’s her deal? She part-Asian? Latina?”

  “What about a blue Toyota Corolla circa late nineties?” I ask softly, and whatever the guy sees on my face causes him to lose what little color he possesses. “Any car like that stop by?”

  “No, sorry, man.” He gulps. “I would’ve seen it. I’ve only had two other customers today.”

  I glance at Pavel, and he jerks his chin toward the exit.

  Like me, he doesn’t think the guy is lying.

  The next closest gas station is the one by the town. A white-haired cashier looks up from a newspaper as Pavel and I walk in, her rheumy gaze sharpening as she takes in our appearance.

  I approach the counter and pull out Chloe’s photo. “Have you seen this girl? Or a blue Corolla circa late nineties?”

  The old woman puts on a pair of glasses and carefully examines the photo before looking up at me. “You two cops or something?” she asks in a croaky voice.

  I rein in my impatience with effort. “Or something. Have you seen her this morning or not?”

  “Not this morning, no.” She squints up at me through her glasses. “Would you look at that pretty face… just like one of them magazines. And so nicely dressed, too. You her boyfriend, dearie?”

  My hand tightens on the edge of the counter. “When did you see her?”

  “Oh, about a week ago. She stopped by to get gas, asked about a job listing in the paper. I haven’t seen her since, and I told them that.”

  Ice fills my chest. “Them?”

  “Two fellas, about your height. Came by yesterday, late in the day. Showed me her picture and all. I told them I only saw her that one time, and I have no idea where she went—”

  “What did they look like, exactly?” Pavel cuts in as I stand frozen, my mind racing a mile a second.

  They’re here.

  They know she was here.

  Worse yet, they know she was looking at my job listing.

  “The two fellas? Well, tall, like I said. One’s got dark hair, a little lighter than his”—she waves at me—“the other’s more like you. You know, salt and pepper, except kind of balding.”

  Pavel’s jaw tightens. “Age? Race? Body build?”

  “Caucasian. Thirties—forties for the older one, maybe. Kind of big and muscular.” She looks me up and down. “Not as pretty as him, that’s for sure.”

  “Anything else?” Pavel demands. “Tattoos, scars? What were they wearing?”

  “Jeans, I think. Or khakis? I don’t remember for sure. Black or gray shirts, maybe navy blue. Something dark. No scars, I don’t think. Oh, but”—she brightens—“the older one had a tattoo on the inside of his wrist. I saw the edge of it under his sleeve.”

  “Did they ask about the job listing?” I ask, keeping my voice even despite the rage and fear pounding through me.

  I have to know how bad the situation is, how close they are to finding her.

  The woman nods. “Sure did. Wanted to know all about it, who and what and where. I told them I don’t know for sure, but it was probably that old Jamieson property up in the mountains, the one that was bought out by that rich Russian. Say”—she squints up at Pavel—“where’s that accent of yours from? You boys wouldn’t happen to be from—”

  “Thank you,” I say tersely and pull out my phone to call Konstantin as we hurry back to the car.

  As soon as my brother picks up, I rattle off the description we’ve gotten and demand an update on the search.

  It’s infinitely more urgent that we find Chloe now, before the assassins do.

  “Nothing yet,” Konstantin says. “In fact— Wait a minute. Let me call you back. I think we just got a hit.”

  I was about to jump into the SUV, but now I pace in front of it, my adrenaline levels climbing with each passing second.

  We may already be too late.

  They know about my compound and Chloe’s interest in it.

  Maybe they weren’t camped out by the gate when she drove out, but they couldn’t have been far.

  Spinning around, I rap on the window next to Pavel. “Get a medical team over to the compound,” I tell him tersely. “We might need it.”

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I snatch it up. “Yeah?”

  “No sightings, but we got a partially erased tape,” Konstantin reports. “Same digital signature as the others. Two hours wiped out—and it looks like it was done about a half hour ago. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ve caught her scent and don’t want anyone to know that.”

  I’m already halfway inside the car. “Where’s the tape from?”

  “A gas station some forty miles west of you. I’ll send you the coordinates.”

  I hang up and order Kirilov to hit the gas.

  50

  Chloe

  The road blurs in front of my eyes for the umpteenth time, and I jerkily wipe at the wetness on my cheeks. I don’t know why I can’t stop the tears from coming, why my chest aches like I’ve just lost Mom all over again. The banana I picked up at a gas station is lying on the passenger seat, half-eaten, and though it’s the only food I’ve had today, the thought of taking another bite makes me want to vomit.

  I’m driving blindly again, heading nowhere. I must’ve been in shock for the first couple of hours because I can barely recall how I got here. I know I filled up the car somewhere, because the fuel gauge shows the tank is full, but I have only a vague recollection of walking into a dingy store and paying. The banana came from there, I’m sure—I grabbed it on autopilot—but I don’t remember eating it, though I must have.

  I’m pretty sure they don’t sell half-eaten fruit, even at the dingiest of gas stations.


  The road ahead of me slopes up and curves sharply, and I force myself to concentrate. The last thing I need is to drive off a cliff. As is, I feel like that’s more or less what I’m doing with every mile of distance I’m putting between myself and Nikolai.

  I did the right thing, the smart thing.

  I keep telling myself that, but it doesn’t help, doesn’t lessen the feeling that I’ve made a terrible mistake. It’s only been a few hours since I left, yet I miss him so acutely it’s as if we’ve been apart for months. When he was away on the business trip, I knew I’d see him again, knew we’d speak each evening, but there’s no such certainty now.

  He may refuse to talk to me when I call him.

  He may be so angry that I left he won’t want me to return.

  Now that I’m out here, away from the compound, Alina’s revelations seem even more like the ramblings of an ill, drugged-out mind, and though I can’t dismiss them entirely, I shudder at the thought of confronting Nikolai and asking whether he did, in fact, kill his father.

  What innocent man wouldn’t be insulted by that query?

  What boyfriend wouldn’t be furious that his girlfriend believed such monstrous lies?

  I should’ve stayed. Fuck, I should’ve stayed. Even if it felt risky at the time, I should’ve given Nikolai a fair hearing. The keys prove nothing. Alina could’ve had them all along; she could’ve even stolen them from Pavel. If Nikolai wanted to deprive me of my freedom, there are all kinds of other actions he could’ve taken—like telling the guards not to let me out.

  And that’s the thing, I realize with a start. That’s why what seemed so rational when I was packing feels like such an awful error now. It’s because the moment I drove through the gate, I got proof that I could leave, that Nikolai didn’t plan to keep me there with some sinister intentions. I’d been too panicky to realize it at first, but the farther I drove, the deeper that knowledge settled, the consequences of my impulsive actions weighing on me more with every passing mile.

  I should’ve turned back hours ago.

  In fact, I should’ve done it the moment I cleared the gate.

  I cast a frantic glance around me. Trees and cliffs everywhere. I’m deep in the mountains again, the road in front of me so narrow it’s barely two lanes. I can’t do a U-turn here; it would be suicide to try.

  Clutching the wheel tighter, I keep driving—and finally, I see it.

  A little extra space to the left of where the road curves.

  I look in the mirror, then straight ahead and back.

  Nothing. No cars. I’m all alone.

  Braking hard, I make an illegal U-turn and head back.

  * * *

  I’m twenty minutes into my return trip and desperately trying to remember if I need to turn right or left at the upcoming intersection when a black pickup truck turns onto the road, coming toward me.

  A chill ripples down my spine, the fine hair on the back of my neck rising.

  It could be my paranoia working overtime again, but those tinted windows look familiar.

  There’s no time to second-guess myself; in another thirty seconds, we’ll be passing next to each other. With a sharp tug on the wheel, I swing the car onto a small dirt road leading up the mountain to my right, and slam on the gas, ignoring the complaining whine from the Corolla’s ancient motor.

  If it’s not them, they won’t follow me.

  I’ll feel like an idiot, but better that than dead.

  My heart thumps violently against my ribcage, each second marked by half a dozen beats as my gaze flits between the rearview mirror and the steep, pothole-filled road ahead. Please don’t let it be them. Please don’t let it—

  The pickup truck appears in the mirror, its dark shape gaining on me swiftly.

  I push the gas pedal to the floor, my breath coming in jagged gasps as my car bounces over a series of potholes. Adrenaline sloshes in my veins, ratcheting up my pulse until all I can hear is its roar in my ears.

  Pop!

  My right side mirror explodes, and my terror doubles as I catch sight of a man leaning out the truck’s passenger-side window, gun in hand. Instinctively, I jerk the wheel left, and the next bullet shatters the back window and punches a hole in the windshield, barely a foot from my head.

  The third bullet whines past my shoulder, and I taste death. I feel its icy, scaly fingers. It’s everything left undone, unsaid, all the things that won’t come to pass. It’s Nikolai whispering into my ear how much he wants me, loves me, and Slava giggling as he hugs me tight. It’s the bitter knowledge that these men will get away with this, like they did with Mom’s murder, and regret that no one will ever know how I died.

  A fourth bullet pierces the seat an inch from my right side, and I jerk on the wheel again, desperate to avoid the inevitable, to live at least a second longer. The pickup is right behind me now, looming over my Corolla like a black mountain, and as I try to swerve out of the next bullet’s path, its bumper rams into mine, hard, making my head whip forward.

  Pop!

  Fire punches through my upper arm, the sensation so sharp and sudden it doesn’t hurt at first. Instead, I feel something hot and wet slide down my arm as the truck slams into my car again, making it shudder from the massive jolt. The pain hits me then, a nauseating wave of it, and with the desperation of a dying animal, I jerk off my seat belt and push open my door.

  Pop!

  What remains of the windshield shatters as I hit the dirt so hard air whooshes out of my lungs. Stunned, I roll twice before landing on my back and watching in dazed horror as the truck rams one last time into my Corolla, forcing it off the road and squashing it against a thick tree. With an earsplitting screech of metal crushing metal, the old car crumples, and then, just like in the movies, catches fire. The truck immediately backs up, and some remnant of strength propels me to my feet.

  Run, Chloe.

  Dragging in a wheezing breath, I lurch toward the trees on legs that feel like broken matches, my knees threatening to buckle with each step I take. My foot catches on a root, and pain shoots through my left ankle—the same ankle I twisted hiding in Mom’s closet—but I just clench my teeth and force my strides to lengthen, ignoring the hot blood dripping down my arm and the dizziness washing over me in waves. I can’t give up, not if I want to live, so I keep going, keep limping forward at a zombie-like half-jog, half-run.

  A male voice yells something behind me, and I force myself to pick up speed, ragged sobs sawing between my lips as another bullet whizzes past my ear, splintering a branch in front of me.

  “Fucking bitch!”

  Some sixth sense makes me duck, and a bullet slams into a tree instead of me as I lurch sideways.

  Run, Chloe.

  Mom’s voice is clearer than ever, and with a surge of strength I didn’t know I possessed, I launch into a full-scale run. My ankle screams each time my foot strikes the ground, my vision blurring from nausea and waves of pain, but I run with everything I’ve got.

  Only it’s not enough.

  Not nearly enough.

  A truck-like force rams into me, knocking me off my feet, and a massive weight crushes me into the leaf-strewn dirt. I can’t even wheeze as my ribcage flattens out—and then, miraculously, the weight is gone and I’m flipped over onto my back.

  When my vision clears, I see a huge dark-haired man straddling me, gun pointed at my face and mouth twisted in a triumphant snarl.

  “Gotcha, little bitch,” he says, panting. “And since you made us work for it, you owe us some fun.”

  51

  Chloe

  Air rushes into my oxygen-starved lungs, and I swing my fist blindly, aiming at that smug face. He intercepts it with ease, brutal fingers catching my wrist and pinning it to the ground as he jams the barrel of the gun under my chin.

  “Move again, and I blow your fucking head off,” he growls, and I believe him.

  I see my death in his flat, dark eyes.

  “What the fuck, Arnold?” a second
voice exclaims, and another man appears above us. Also armed with a gun, he looks to be some dozen years older than my captor, with receding salt-and-pepper hair and ruddy skin flushed from the exertion of the run. Breathing heavily, he orders, “Put a bullet in her and be done.”

  “Not yet,” Arnold mutters, eyes glued to my mouth. “She’s pretty. You ever notice that?”

  The other man’s voice turns gruff. “That’s not the way we do things.”

  “Who gives a fuck? She’s dead meat anyway. Who cares if we enjoy a bite before we bury it?”

  My stomach heaves with a fresh surge of nausea, and only the cold barrel jammed under my chin keeps me from clawing the asshole’s eyes out as he lets go of my wrist and presses a thick, dirty thumb to my tightly clamped lips.

  “Just finish the fucking job already.”

  The older man’s tone is sharper, more impatient, and for a moment, I’m half-afraid, half-hopeful that Arnold will obey. But he just leans in and drags a wet, jerky-scented tongue over my cheek, like a dog—and as an involuntary cry of disgust escapes my throat, he jams his thumb into my mouth, pushing it so far in I gag.

  “That’s nice, bitch,” he whispers, eyes gleaming with lust and feral excitement. “That’s real—”

  A sharp crack shatters the silence, and he yanks his hand back. A millisecond later, he’s on his feet above me, gun coming up as he spins around lightning fast—yet still not fast enough.

  The second bullet slams him into the tree behind me, and as I scramble backward on my hands and ass, I see the older man already on the ground, mouth slack and skull blown open, brains spilling out like moldy cottage cheese.

  52

  Nikolai

  I’m moving before the sound of my last shot fades, leaping out from behind the cover of the trees to close the distance between me and Chloe. Her gaze jerks up from the dead man at her side, her face streaked with dirt and blood, her brown eyes uncomprehending as she backs away, mouth opening in a silent scream at my approach.