Page 77 of Twisted Cage

If I lose her—my heart squeezes in my chest—it’ll only beat long enough to end it and join her.

“If we can get onto the side streets, we can lose them,” Grigori says, his shrewd gaze going to the rearview as Roddick begins to pull up alongside us in the left lane.

“I don’t want to lose them.”

Grigori does a double take. “Almost half of our team is with Nikolaj. They could easily outnumber us.”

“And we’ll never know how they found us. No one knew we'd be at the party tonight besides our team and Nikolaj. Someone there outed us. I want to know who and why.”

The car ahead of Roddick is taking his dear sweet time passing another vehicle, leaving only a narrow gap. Trying to slip through is a risk. If he doesn’t do it just right—well—he better do it just right.

Grigori eases off the gas, opening the space wider. His fingers flex on the wheel. “Maybe this is a distraction and the real target is Nikolaj and they’re headed for him as we speak.”

The cars Roddick spotted advance on us and slide in tight on our bumpers in a matter of seconds. “Exactly. So let’s collect a few of these fuckers and find out. Take the next exit. Get us to Woodlawn.”

“The cemetery?” Grigory asks, confusion in his voice.

“Yes. Any attempt on Nikoletta is choosing death. Whoever I don’t collect for questioning, I’ll deliver straight to the grim reaper’s door.”

The streak of headlights slashes across the rearview mirror as one of the cars slams Roddick’s bumper. Their vehicle lurches forward but stays on the road.

This time.

“Fuck!” Roddick’s voice is full of fury.

My skin burns with awareness. The windows are too dark to get a glimpse of her, but somehow, I know she’s turned toward me, searching.

She hasn’t made a sound in the background, but then she wouldn't. At least not one of panic or fear. I’d bet anything her blood boils back there, just itching to get her hands on whoever made the deadly decision to fuck with us tonight. I should have sent Sasha and Gleb with them. One on each side of her, because what are the chances of the feral little killer I found at the compound staying put when the bullets start to fly?

Fuck.

I check my second gun as I did my first, keeping it in my grip, propping it on my thigh as Roddick gets just ahead of Grigori and leads us off the exit. Four vehicles careening into the otherwise quiet night, in a dense residential section full with cars parked alongside the road, one-way streets, and streetlights on almost every block.

Everything gets quiet other than the sound of revving engines, squealing tires, our angry breaths, and terse communication over the line. Their drivers are cocky little fuckers. Speeding up, swerving to get a reaction, feeding their egos with useless threats they can’t really follow through with without drawing attention to all of us.

But what they’re really doing is wasting energy they’re going to need the minute we enter those gates because we won’t be cautious there. After all, everyone there is already dead.

As the gates come into view, Roddick punches the gas again until he’s just shy of the turn. Slamming on his brakes at the last possible second, he yanks his wheel, sending them into a sharp, last-minute turn that has the two left tires coming off the ground, throwing off our uninvited guests.

My lungs swell with a sharp intake of air, and then freeze, the breath lodged in my lungs, only breaking free when those tires meet the ground once again and he takes off, putting distance between Nikoletta and our enemies.

The minute we make it through the gates behind him, we’re flanked by both cars as they squeeze us and force us toward a copse of trees on the edge of the cemetery.

Tires tear up grass along each side of the narrow lane snaking through the massive burial site. Grigori barely holds the road. The minute we make it over the rise, a granite fountain appears and the car on our left slams on his brakes to avoid taking it head-on, leaving him behind us.

For the moment.

The car on our right swerves away and slams back into us, with a grinding of metal, tearing off the side mirror, sending us off the road where we take out a line of modest stones adorned with American flags.

“There!” I point to the towering oak tree alongside the first of several mausoleums.

“On it.” Foot slamming the gas pedal, he heads in that direction. Rolling down my window, I prop my elbow and take aim in my sights at the front driver’s side tire.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

The explosion of bullets firing pierce the silence. The tire lets out a satisfying pop and shreds just as Grigori swerves out and then back, slamming into them with every bit of force he can. Virtually unable to steer, they head straight into the narrow space between the tree and mausoleum.

Metal screams and crunches as they wedge between the two, the force bringing them to an abrupt, jarring stop. The radiator snaps and hisses, spraying coolant over the hot, mangled engine.

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