Page 46 of A Surprise Baby for the Russian

They are on us in seconds. The first man lunges for Sofie. She doesn’t run. True to her blood, she fights like a feral animal, her manicured nails instantly scratching at his eyes, her heavy boots kicking hard against his shins. She manages to slice a bloody line down his cheek before the second man steps in, his arm swinging in a brutal, horizontal arc.

His fist connects with the side of her face. The sound is horrific, and Sofie goes down hard. Her legs give out underneath her, causing her face to slam against the cold sidewalk, blood instantly pouring from her nose and split lip, staining the concrete. She lands half-across Lev’s body, completely limp.

“Sofie! Sofie!” I scream, lunging forward, my fingers reaching for the collar of her coat, but a pair of massive, heavy arms wrap around my chest from behind. Where the fuck is everybody? Why is nobody here helping?

I don’t drop. I don’t give up. I have another life inside of me now, and the sheer, blinding terror of what they will do to my baby turns my blood to liquid fire.

I drive my elbow backward with everything I have, feeling it connect with a hard nose. A grunt of pain echoes in my ear, and the grip loosens enough for me to twist. I drive the heel of my boot down onto his instep, hopefully stomping hard enough to break a bone. He curses in heavy, guttural Russian, but before I can break away to run, the third man tackles me from the side.

We hit the ground together, the air tearing from my lungs as my knees strike the asphalt. I scratch at his face, biting, kicking, screaming until my throat feels like raw glass, but my arms get pinned behind my back, forced into an agonizing lock.

“Feisty little thing, aren’t you?” one of them looks down at me and chuckles, and looks to the man behind me. “Hold her head.”

A thick, leather-gloved hand clamps over my forehead, wrenching my neck back. “My husband and brothers are going to-” is all I get out before a white cloth is shoved over my nose and mouth.

The smell hits me instantly. It is sweet. Sickeningly, chemically sweet, a suffocating wave that burns the back of my throat.

Chloroform.

I’ve seen it in movies and always wondered if it really is as instantaneous as they make out; as a cold, heavy gray fog rushes into the edges of my vision, I get my answer. No, it isn’t. It’s a slow, agonizing theft of my autonomy. I fight it, thrashing my head side to side, holding my breath until my lungs scream, but the man holding the cloth presses down with crushing weight.

My body finally betrays me, as instinct takes over, and I am forced to take a deep breath of the vapor.

It floods my system. My limbs turn from muscle and bone to heavy, immovable lead. My legs stop fighting. The violent thrashing of my torso slows to a weak, pathetic twitch.

The parking lot begins to tilt and spin violently as the gray fog at the edges of my vision turns into a heavy, suffocating black.

The last image I see before the sidewalk swims up to swallow me whole is Sofie lying perfectly still in a pool of darkening blood, her eyes closed.

And the last thought I have before the darkness takes me is a single name.

Yakov.

I never got to tell Yakov.

Chapter 25 - Yakov

The air inside Simon’s office is thick with the scent of stale espresso and the cold, metallic tang of firearms. Simon, Matvei, Adrian, and I are huddled around the iron-rimmed blueprint table, tracing the shifting grid of my father’s movements and mapping the next phase of our various interests, calculating logistics and the next batch of arms deliveries from Odesa. Making sure all sectors know what they’re supposed to be doing. Normally I thrive with tactical planning like this, but my mind is elsewhere.

Today I couldn’t give a shit about my father. I’m more worried about Raya, who is currently sitting in a private clinic across town. It has been two hours since I watched Raya and Sofie climb into the armored SUV with their security detail. I had practically begged to cancel this meeting so I could drive her into the city myself, but Raya had insisted on a quiet, girls-only trip to ease her stress. I only relented because Sofie promised to keep a close eye on her. Still, the silence from her is a heavy weight in my chest. I am counting the minutes until she gets back, hoping like hell that whatever secret she is keeping close to her chest is finally going to be answered today.

My phone begins to vibrate against the steel surface of the table. The harsh buzz breaks the rhythm of Matvei’s voice. I glance down, momentarily confused. I expect to see my wife’s name; instead, the name flashing across the screen makes my thumb freeze.

Sofie.

I stare at the screen for half a second, a million thoughts firing through my brain at once. Primarily, why the fuck would Sofie call me? What’s wrong with Raya? Did Raya take a turn for the worse at the clinic? I swipe the screen and press the phone to my ear, my voice tight. “Sofie? What’s going on? Is she okay?”

All the brothers look up at the mention of their sister’s name. I don’t get a rational answer. Instead, the speaker explodes with a sound that freezes the blood directly in my veins. It is a car horn. A deafening, continuous wail that cuts through the line, and beneath the blaring mechanical scream, there is a wet, choking gasp.

“Ya... Yakov...”

It is Sofie’s voice, but it doesn’t sound like her. It is fractured, wet, and thick with hysterical terror. She is hyperventilating, her breaths coming in shallow gasps.

“Sofie,” I bark, my voice dropping into a cold, flat register that makes Matvei instantly stand up from his chair. “Where is Raya? Talk to me.”

“They... they took her,” she wails, a high-pitched, broken sob that tears through the blaring horn. “Yakov... oh God, there’s blood everywhere... Lev is dead. They shot Lev. They punched me... they had a van... they took her, Yakov! They took her!”

I am already on my feet, the chair shrieking against the concrete floor, gesturing to the brothers.