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And an hour after they left, I finally figured out what it was.
It was the silence.
It was too fucking quiet.
And it wasn’t that my men were off at HQ trying to solve this fucking problem. It was that this particular part of the street was tucked away in an unknown part of the city that would make it easy to slink away should we need to. Cars and honks and bellsand whistles were constantly going off. It had been the perfect place for us to settle.
And yet, when I took a deep breath and listened… there was nothing.
Justsilence.
I knew it was coming before I heard the knock on the door. I whipped out my phone to check the camera we had perched at the edge of the flat, groaning when I caught sight of one person I never wanted to see.Ernest.
There was no time to figure out why he was here as I instinctively jumped over the couch and grabbed Tia, Paval dutifully running behind me, the toys immediately forgotten. Tia looked like she wanted to scream but my hand over her mouth and the stern look in my eyes kept her from that. It was the first time though that I saw true terror in her expression and I hated it.
It mirrored Rhys’ and I had no idea how I was going to rectify it, how I was going to make sure she knew that I wasn’t the bad guy. She wasn’t squirming yet so I had approximately 30 seconds to explain what the fuck was going on before she tried something – or at least I was pretty sure I had that long.
I set her down in Paval’s bedroom, crouching down in front of Tia. “Hey, look at me. Tia, sweet girl, I need you to listen. I know you’re scared but there are bad people out there and in order to keep you safe, we can’t stay here.”
She looked at the bedroom door and then back at me, tears gathering in her eyes. God, if she cried, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Paval was attached to my side, his body trembling. He was usually pretty good in these situations, but he was also usually sleeping. I refused to look at him to see what expression he was carrying.
Fuck, this was bad.
“Is it my mommy?”
“No, Tia. It isn’t. But we need to move. I need you to trust me.” That was a tall order seeing as she had met meyesterdayand Rhys wasn’t fucking here to console her. She looked at the door again as someone knocked on the entrance to our flat.
“And Rhys? Are we going to find him?” A hiccup slipped through her lips, her cheeks slowly turning red with the effort of trying not to cry.
“I know where he is. We’re going to him, baby girl. You’re safe with me, but we can’t stay here.” From the little training I’d had and the times with Paval, I had learned that I had to get a child’s acceptance before we took off. Anything less would create a divide that would be almost impossible to get rid of and Tia deserved everything.
I waited what seemed like an eternity, the uncertainty swirling through her face, those tears that had started to fall, and Paval’s hands digging into my side – and then she nodded. I didn’t think I had been so fucking excited for someone to move in my entire life.
“Okay, we’re going to play a little game.” I waited for both of them to nod knowing I had seconds before Ernest took down that door. “Simon says. You know how to play, Tia?” She nodded, trying really hard not to crumble but she was losing it. They both were. God, Valentyn should have stayed. He was so much better with kids than I was. I gathered Tia up in my arms, hauling Paval onto my back. “Simon says we have to be quiet, alright?” More nods. “Simon says to close your eyes.” Eyes shut. “Simon says it’s going to be okay.”
Tia relaxed a little against my chest, Paval squeezing my neck a little tighter. I took a deep breath, swiped our to-go bag, and took off through the back door, running through a corridor that I hoped and prayed hadn’t been blocked off in the last hour. To my surprise, the only thing waiting for us was the rental we hadparked there last week, our only mode of transportation should a situation like this happen.
“Simon says get in and fasten your seatbelts.”
“Can- can we open our eyes?” Tia hiccuped, Paval’s fingers digging into my shoulders as I tried to untangle myself from him. Fuck, it was so much easier when he had been sleeping. He talked way too much for his own good but he was deathly silent now and I hated it.
“Yes, baby girl, Simon says you can open your eyes and go on in and buckle up.
Tia was all but sobbing now, still following my commands, Paval shaking like a leaf. We hadn’t planned for two car seats but fuck, it didn’t matter right now. We just needed to be anywhere other than here.
I rushed around to the driver's seat and pulled out of the small alleyway, checking in the rearview mirror to see what we were up against. When I turned the corner and three black Cadillacs came into view, I knew we were fucked.
I shot Valentyn and Dmitri a quick text and made sure my location was turned on. I’d keep these kids safe with my last breath but I was pretty fucking sure that there was more to this little game thanjustgetting that program. More to this game than just retrieving Tia and returning her to a woman who didn’t deserve to have a child.
Someone wanted us dead.
The problem was figuring out who.
I fumbled for a way to keep the kids occupied, pulling out one of the extra phones and handing it to Tia after pulling up a kids’ show. In rapid succession, I gave them the last commands, trying not to show the fear in my voice. “Tia, Simon says to hold that tightly. Simon says keep looking at that screen until I say stop.”
Paval scrunched up his face as he looked up at me. “We got up to watch cartoons?”
A shuddering breath left my lips as I twisted back around and looked at my son through the rearview mirror. “We’re going to see your fathers and Rhys. We’ll be with them soon.” Paval gave in rather easily as Tia scooted closer to show him the screen, a death grip on her device.
