Page 108 of Forged By Sacrifice

We had Dani’s car. She’d loaned it to us for the night as Mac didn’t have his own. My brother had not liked squeezing into it, even though Raisa and I had crushed ourselves into the almost nonexistent backseat.

“Wasn’t she meeting up with Russell?” I asked.

Mac nodded.

“Go,” I said.

He looked at my brother and sister in the booth. “I don’t want to leave you. Come with me,” he said, eyes flicking to my brother again, and I wondered what that was about. He’d been perfectly fine with Raisa the night before. It had relaxed me in a way I hadn’t been all week with thoughts of him meeting my siblings. I’d thought that maybe, just maybe, we’d be able to get over the hump of my family for now—enough for a relationship, at least. Dating. Not marriage. He’d teased about a ring the night before, but I would never tie him down to me and my family.

“It’s fine, Mac. We can’t fit five in the Mini Cooper. I’ll make sure to leave with Raisa when she’s done here.”

His phone vibrated again, and he frowned, looking down at the text.

“Really, please. Go get Dani.”

He kissed me. “Please be safe.”

Then he left. I could see his broad shoulders and dark hair as he made his way to the door because he stood taller than most people in the room. I missed him as soon as he was gone.

“Everything okay?” Raisa asked when I sat down and drank the water from the bottle I’d ordered from the waitress the last time she’d come around.

“He had to go get his sister.”

“It is a job that we always get stuck with,” Malik said, not looking up from his phone.

“What?” I snipped.

He didn’t even look up. “Do not get upset, Georgia. It is a truth. I am always having to bring ‘Isa with me or go pick her up from some place. I had to travel halfway around the world to bring her to college.”

“You volunteered. Father would have brought me,” Raisa said, her face flushing darkly—and not from the heat and sweat of the dance floor.

“Don’t mind him. He’s obviously in a mood,” I said and then pulled Raisa back out to dance.

We danced several songs before Raisa asked to go back for more water. As soon as we sat down, Malik said he was going to the bathroom. I watched his back with a frown. He was almost at the hallway that led to the restrooms when he froze. He was looking toward the front of the club. He glanced back at us with fear skittering across his face.

I looked in the direction he’d glanced, and my heart thudded loudly as well. A group of cops?in SWAT gear?were slowly making their way through the club, obviously looking for someone. They deliberately took in each person they went by as the crowd parted around them. When I glanced back at Malik, he was gone.

My senses—that I hated to trust—were going haywire, heart pounding, body tightening, head swimming. The police were making their way nearer to where Raisa and I sat. And I knew, for some reason I couldn’t quite explain, that they were looking for us. For Malik. His fear… Goddamn, what had he done?

When I glanced at Raisa, she’d gone so pale it was as if she was going to faint. I peeked back at the cops, and an entire fight-or-flight adrenaline rush hit me, flashing me back in time.

The noise of the club turned into the sound of my mom screaming at them.

Mom was being forcibly pulled from the doorway of my bedroom with words like warrant and arrest flitting in the air. Mom screamed and scratched and hit, and they flung her against the wall, pulling her arms behind her.

The fear hit me so hard I could smell it. And it smelled like pee because I’d peed in my bed. I’d been scared. No, not just scared, terrified. There were guns and men in dark clothes and padded vests with some kind of face mask. And Mom was still screaming at them, now in Russian, as they yanked her viciously from the room. They filled my space. One of the men, a square black man, stepped toward me and my bed. And I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. Not yet.

“It’s okay,” the man said in a smooth voice, as if I would trust him by just his tone. I was shaking now, not only because I was scared of him, but also because I was scared Mom was going to be angry when she saw that I’d wet the bed again. I could see the disappointment on her face already, and my stomach lurched uncomfortably, vomit burning my throat, but I held it down, unwilling to add puke to the pee that was already going to get me in trouble.

“Honey, your dad gave you a music box the other day,” the man said, brushing a hand over my hair, causing me to jerk away.

My dad had given me a beautiful music box. How did the man know? I’d wondered. It was a colorful music box with a black and a white swan dancing to a tune that had made Mom get all teary-eyed and say something about Russia and the ballet.

“We need to borrow your music box. We’ll get it back to you. But we need it for something really important,” the man with the mask continued talking to me.

Dad had said to keep it safe. To not break it. And to not ever lose it, so I’d put it in my secret spot. The little cubby under my window seat.

“Do you know where it is?” the man asked.

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