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Chapter 1
Nikita
The cold is unbearable.
The snowfall is getting thicker. I can barely see anything, and my cheeks burn.
My lips feel numb and hurt at the same time. My toes tingle, buried deep in leather boots and two layers of socks.
There’s not enough clothing to help anybody survive out here in this weather.
Of all the nights, this had to be the one to find me stranded on the side of a road. In the middle of a snowstorm.
Dammit, I need a new car. My Beetle has seen one too many years.
The snow rises dangerously fast everywhere around me, while more keeps pouring from the blackened night sky.
It’s late, and I haven’t seen another car drive by in more than twenty minutes. I would’ve signaled them, and tried to hitch a ride back into Moscow, at least.
This is the last time I go to such extreme lengths to bail out my deadbeat father.
Had he not gotten himself in such a hot mess, I wouldn’t have had to drive back to my grandmother’s house in Loza to gather the last of her silverware.
My father racked up such a debt with the Bratva that I’m having to pawn everything I own, including Grandma’s dowry to pay those goons and keep my father breathing for a little while longer.
That is, assuming I make it back to Moscow on time.
That last text message he sent me sounded urgent.
I should’ve ignored it.
But here I am putting my life in serious danger.
I could run into some creep who would take me anywhere but home.
I could end up dead in a frozen ditch, my grandmother’s silverware feeding said creep for a few weeks, at least.
I shudder at the thought.
Or maybe it’s the below zero temperature that’s got me trembling.
I check my phone again. Maybe an extra signal bar will miraculously appear on the screen if I look at it hard enough.
“No signal. Motherf…” I stop myself and put the phone away.
I’ll literally die out here if I don’t do anything.
I slip the gloves back on and grab everything of value from the car.
My papers, my purse, and the duffel bag holding my grandmother’s things. That’s pretty much it.
There’s no other way. I need to follow the road south, and reach Abramtsevo before I freeze to death.
Not half-a-mile later, I’m blinded by a set of headlights so white and intense that I have to close my eyes for a moment because I can’t make anything out in the glare.
My heart starts racing as I stand still in the middle of this blizzard, listening as a car door opens and shuts. The wind howls and I can’t hear footsteps crunching in the snow.
“Are you okay?” a man asks. He’s not too far away but it’s hard to see his face clearly.
