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ARRIVING AT THE CLUB, I tried to ignore the nagging discomfort at the back of my mind. Something was up, I was sure of it – but I had no idea what, or whether it was just my own paranoid overthinking that had me convinced.
Mauro had insisted I come down to this meeting just to get out of the apartment for a little while, and honestly, I couldn’t say I blamed him. I must have been driving him downright crazy with all the questions that I had, all the demands I needed answered, the ones he didn’t seem to have responses for yet. I wished I could have pulled more out of him, but he was being evasive – probably just to protect me, but still...
I was down here to try and secure the deal with the Serbs on the club in their territory, Yosemite’s, and I was praying that this just ran as smoothly as it could. I had to make a good impression, prove to everyone here that I could handle anything they threw at me. I knew this might be a make-or-break for the shit that had been bubbling between Kozlov and I all this time.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Nadia. How the fuck was I meant to just forget about her? After everything we had been through, it felt ridiculous to believe for an instant that I could. I missed her like crazy, wanted nothing more than for her to be back here, in my arms, where she belonged, but she could have been anywhere on the planet right now and I wouldn’t have known a thing about it. Mauro’s people hadn’t been able to keep too close an eye on her. Or, at least, if they could, he wasn’t giving me anything more to work with than I already had. Maybe because he knew that was the only way to keep my head in the game when it came to everything that was happening here.
If I could have gone to her right then and there, I would have. I would have in an instant. How could anything here in New York matter when the two of us were so far apart? I just wanted to hold her, pull her into my arms again and tell her everything was going to be okay and mean it, but I couldn’t - not yet, at least.
Yosemite’s was already buzzing with people as I pushed through the crowds, heading towards the manager’s office. I had a couple of guards outside and a driver parked around the back in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I hoped Kozlov wouldn’t be stupid enough to turn this into something that it didn’t have to be, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, and there was no way I was going to take that risk.
In the back, the manager, Grigori, was already waiting for me; his eyes darted back and forth as I stepped inside, checking to see if anyone was with me, if I was armed.
“Good evening,” I greeted him. “Thank you for meeting with me tonight.”
“Of course, of course,” he replied, sounding distracted. What was on his mind? Maybe he was just worried about what might become of him if Nikita found out that he was meeting with me. Surely, he was already aware – he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who let much slide past him, and this was a particular sore point for him.
“Please, sit down,” he continued, gesturing to the seat on the other side of his desk. My security had advised that I stay standing, in case I needed to make a quick break.
“I’m fine like this,” I replied. A bead of sweat dribbled down from his brow to his eye, and he wiped it away quickly. He looked genuinely scared right now.
“You have nothing to worry about from me,” I told him, crossing my arms across my chest. “Do I have something to worry about from you, Grigori?”
His face paled, as though I had just said the magic words that exposed him. I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out as he looked up at me, face cringed into a pseudo-apologetic grimace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And then, a moment later, the sound of a muffled gunshot cut through the air around us.
I dropped to the ground at once, crawling for the door. I shoved it open, looking out to see where the attack had come from, but nobody in the club seemed to have heard a thing. Shit! I had to get to the back entrance as fast as I could, where my driver was waiting, and lose myself in the crowd in the meantime.
I dove out, got to my feet, and buried myself amongst the throngs of people, hoping that they wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill someone who had just come here to have a good time. The reputation of the club would be in tatters – but I didn’t know if that mattered to them more than getting rid of me or not, and I didn’t want to find out.
I pushed my way through the crowds to the back door, keeping my head low, listening for the familiar sound of a bullet cutting through the people around me – but there was nothing. Either they had lost me, or they weren’t risking casualties.
I stumbled to the fire exit at the back, where my driver was waiting for me, and the moment I stepped out, my security team leapt into action.
“Into the car, now!” one of them barked, grabbing me and pushing my head down as another hail of bullets rained from the buildings above us. I was shoved into the back of the car, and he slapped the roof, indicating to the driver to get the hell out of there while I still had a chance of keeping my head.
The car sped away to the street beyond, and I peered behind us, trying to make out if anyone had followed us out of there. No way would the Serbs have risked me making a break for it like this with no recourse – I was sure they would have someone on my tail in no time.
I reached into the compartment in front of me, where the security team kept their weapons, and I grabbed a gun. I knew that I might have to fight, and I needed to be ready to do just that if that’s what it came to. It wasn’t ideal, but as long as I survived, I would count it as a win.
“There’s a car following us,” My driver called to me, nodding to the rearview mirror. “Black merc, looks like it’s been following since the club—”
He hardly got another word out before a bullet dented the back windshield of the vehicle.
“Shit!” I exclaimed, and I ducked down again, heart hammering. I checked that the gun was loaded, and rolled down the window – I needed to stop them coming after us. I had no idea how long they would follow us, or what it would take to get them to stop, but I was done taking risks.
I leaned out of the window and levelled the gun at the car behind us – I wasn’t the greatest marksman in the world, but I just needed to get off some warning shots to scare them off. I fired, three times, glad that we were far enough to the edge of the city that there weren’t people crowding the streets to see this.
A bullet whistled past my face and I ducked back into the car, regaining my composure. Shit. I had no idea how many people they had sent after me, but I was certain that they weren’t going to be giving up anytime soon. I needed to put up a fight – make it as hard as I could for them to take me, even though they clearly thought they had me right where they wanted me.
I took a breath and leaned out of the car again, this time getting off a shot that hit one of the tires of the pursuing vehicle – I heard the pop, and then watched as it careered off the road and onto the sidewalk.
“Go, go!” I yelled to my driver. This might be the only chance we had to make a break for it. He slammed his foot down and tore off down the street, and I peered out of the back of the car to make sure we were leaving the people who had been after us behind.
The adrenaline was pumping so hard in my veins that I couldn’t think straight. How could I have been stupid enough to think I would be able to get away with this? Going to the Serbs’ territory, after everything that had happened, I had been asking for trouble, and I knew I was lucky to have gotten out of there in one piece.
We pulled up outside my apartment building, where a half-dozen security guys were already swarming – they must have been tipped off that there had been an attack. I heaved myself out of the car, and one of them helped me to the elevator so that I could get myself to safety. My legs were shaking, the sheer shock and panic of it all coursing through me so fast that I couldn’t make sense of it. I wanted to run – I wanted to get out of here, get as far from here as possible, but I needed to hold my ground and prove that they hadn’t managed to get rid of me quite yet.
“Stay in there,” the security guard told me as he pushed me into the elevator. “In your apartment. We’ll keep watch tonight – nobody’s going to get close to you.”
I nodded, and slumped back against the wall as the elevator doors slid shut in front of me. I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and tried to gather myself. All of this was so fucking crazy, I could hardly wrap my head around it, but I knew I was going to have to if I was going to survive this mess.
I staggered to my bed and crashed head-first into the covers as soon as I got the chance. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, I was coming back into my body.
And I could feel a grinding pain at my side, something burning with agony that I had been able to ignore up until now. My body had been in fight-or-flight, so intense that I hadn’t been able to think about anything else at all.
But now, as I flipped over on the bed and peeled back my shirt to see what was going on, I spotted it. The bloom of blood in the fabric. And, below that, the mark – the mark where a bullet had entered my skin.
I had been shot.
