When that doesn’t occur within the next six seconds, I shift my eyes back to Audrey, wipe at the sweat on my brow, then drop my eyes to the screen of her phone. My only just receding panic gets a second wind when I discover the reason for the noise. My message couldn’t be delivered to Dimitri’s number since it is no longer in service.
Dammit!
After a couple of seconds of deliberation, I conjure up a new plan of attack. Although Audrey’s phone is outdated, most social media sites were around when it was invented.
With my heart in my throat, I snap another picture of the landscape, save it, gingerly find my way to the internet browser, then log into my Instagram account. Smith mentioned he liked a handful of my drawings when he hacked into my Instagram account at the start of my ‘arrangement’ with Dimitri. He could have been lying to ease my panic when Dimitri was drugged, but that doesn’t seem like something he would do. He’s pretty truthful, even to the point of being brutally honest.
A ghost-like smile creeps across my face when I tap on the notifications on my Instagram page. Excluding clients, I don’t get many interactions on my posts, so I’m certain the eight likes in a row are from Smith.
After following him, I prepare to send him a message. I could put the details in a post, but Maestro unknowingly mentioned two nights ago that I’ve been under surveillance for a while, so I don’t want to run the risk of my social media accounts being monitored.
I have an almost identical message typed out when the faintest giggle steals my attention. It didn’t come from inside the room. The women and children here have no reason to smile, so I don’t see them releasing a giggle of pure joy. Furthermore, this was a babyish laugh, one I’m certain came from a toddler.
With my mind focused on anything but my freedom, I scoot toward the window before peering outside. It takes scanning the overgrown grass surrounding the ranch three times before I spot the cause of the extra flutter in my neck. Fien is sniffing wildflowers near the rickety verandah I was marched up three nights ago. Her giggles are from the petals tickling her button nose. She screws it up, tosses her head back, laughs, then goes back for another whiff.
I watch her for the next several minutes, totally mesmerized, my stalker gawk only ending when the quickest flurry of silver catches my eye in the distance. It could be anything, but considering there’s nothing out here but fields and fields of crops, I pay it as much attention as the goon watching Fien’s every move from his station on the corner at the verandah.
He stabs out his half-smoked cigarette into the sole of his boot before he moves to the very edge of the warped wood. My heart leaves my chest with a shocked gasp when he unexpectedly falls backward a second later. He didn’t trip over the debris surrounding the rundown residence. He was taken out by a kill shot to the head. The still lifelessness of his body is a sure-fire sign of this, much less the bullet wound between his eyes.
He’s coming.
Dimitri is here.
He found us.
The beaming smile on my face vanishes a microsecond later when a second man launches for Fien. While screaming that they’re being ambushed, he holds Fien in front of himself, aware the only way he’ll make it out of the carnage unscathed is by using her as a shield.
While my stomach decides which way it should flip, I track his race across the verandah holding the brain matter of his confidant. When he breaks through the front screen door under a halo of bullets, I charge for the only exit door of my room. The bullets flying past Fien didn’t come from Dimitri’s side of the arena. They were from the flood of men surging in the direction the silver flicker came from.
My throbbing foot screams with every step I take, but I don’t slow down. Dimitri is so close to getting his daughter back, I can’t stomach the idea of him losing her again. I don’t think he’d survive it. The thread he’s been clutching the past two years is extremely thin. One more fray could completely unravel it.
It takes me crashing into the paint-peeled door with enough force to burn my eyes with tears before it finally pops open under the strain.
I don’t realize Audrey is following my race down the empty corridor until she says, “This way.”
She throws open the bathroom door before jackknifing to her left. When she tosses a stack of towels out of a linen cupboard, my mouth falls open more in shock than to suck in much-needed breaths. The stack of scratchy material concealed a secret entrance. It leads to a concrete stairwell that goes to the basement.
After galloping down three flights of stairs, we enter a dark and dingy space at the very bottom of the ranch, sweaty and out of breath. It’s cold down here, and the set-up makes it seem as if it housed an army in the hundreds the past week.
After taking in the multiple cots set up around the damp-smelling space, Audrey drifts her wide eyes to me. “There’s a hidden garage on the fence line. If they’re taking Dimitri’s daughter, they’ll go there.”
“Where are you going?” I ask in shock when she heads in the direction opposite to the one she suggested I take.
She doesn’t answer me. She just disappears through the underbelly of the ranch, her speed remarkably fast for how hard her thighs are shuddering.
I duck with a squeal when a bullet suddenly whizzes past my head a second later. Maestro stumbled upon my hiding spot during his sprint for the back exit. He isn’t happy, and neither am I. He has Fien shoved under his arm. Even with her crying loud enough for two blocks over to hear, he acts oblivious to the fact his clutch is hurting her.
His rough handling of a child unleashes a side of me I didn’t think I’d still have—my protective mother instincts.
With a roar, I charge to Maestro and Fien’s side of the room, acting as if I am able to outrun a bullet. Maestro fires at me on repeat. I don’t know if any of his bullets hit their target. I said the pain of losing my baby would be greater than the deadly pierce of a bullet, so I could be hit, I just refuse to give up.
The air in my lungs leaves with a grunt when Maestro loosens his grip on Fien’s waist so he can backhand me. He has run out of bullets, meaning it is now just him versus me.
I shouldn’t smile at the thought, but I do.
His hit has me seeing stars, but the howl he releases when I jab my thumb into his eye before kneeing him in the balls alerts numerous balaclava-clad men to our location. They surge into the basement two at a time, their approach more authentic than any action flick I’ve ever seen. Although their accents are foreign, they’re not Italian, making me fretful I’ve been caught in the middle of a turf war that has nothing to do with Dimitri.
Maestro tries to suppress their surge like he’s the Hulk, raging arms and legs go in all directions, but he’s outnumbered within seconds, killed even quicker than that, and Fien and I are one measly step behind him.
