Page 99 of Nanny for the Bratva Daddies

Punctuating my words with slams of my fist on the door does nothing to attract any attention. I can’t even tell if the guard is out there. Kicking the door in frustration, I stomp away toward the window while fighting back the wave of hopelessness that washes over me. Am I to spend the next months like this, trapped like an ant in a matchbox, just waiting for my baby to come?

Is there nothing I can do to get out of here?

With a splinter of wood and a creak of hinges, the door suddenly blasts open and Ivan stumbles inside. His face is thunderous with eyes so dark that they’re like pools of ink.

“You,” he snarls, sweeping up to me quickly with a sharp clack of his cane. His vest is missing a button. This close, the glint of a handgun catches my eye. My heart leaps up into my throat, and a band tightens around my chest.

Bit of an overreaction when all I wanted was a book.

“Me?”

“Time to go.”

“Go? Wait, go where?”

“I’m not going to answer your questions,” Ivan snarls. “Move!”

“Not until you tell me what the hell is going on?”

Beneath the anger, I can see he’s worried. It’s a strange look on a man who’s been eerily calm since my arrival, but I see it now, as clear as day.

“I don’t have time for this!” In a sweeping motion, he raises his cane. I only just manage to turn, taking the blow across my back. As the pain starts up like the heated lick of a whip, the cane clatters to the floor, and Ivan’s claw-like hand snaps around my forearm.

“I don’t have time for your wicked little games!”

“The hell?—?”

Ivan doesn’t wait. With surprising strength, he drags me out of the room and into the corridor. His hand is like a vise, and no matter how much I struggle, he doesn’t appear to be phased by my attempts. It doesn’t affect his balance, even when I dig my bare heels into the ground and throw my weight backward.

He’s fueled by determination.

We go down through the corridor, past a familiar set of paintings I briefly saw on my own escape attempt until we make it to the top of a set of stairs.

It’s there that it hits me.

The air is sour with the stink of smoke and an unnatural heat warms the planks beneath my bare feet. Two breaths in, and I’m coughing as the sourness tickles the back of my throat. Beneath us, at the bottom of the stairs, lies a couple of dead guards with blood staining the ground around them. Soft yells rise up from below, followed by the familiar pop of gunfire.

Are we under attack?

“Ivan, what’s happening?”

He glares at me and his grip tightens so incredibly that my forearm bones creak together.

“Come on!”

“Ow!” My pain is ignored, and Ivan continues on, dragging me upstairs to parts of the mansion I never saw when I was trying to escape. We climb up and up, and the unnatural heat seems to follow us, clawing at our ankles no matter how high we climb. Ivan has enemies; I know that. Would any of them dare attack him here?

Is this really how my life is going to end? Caught in the middle of some conflict, miles away from the men I love.

Maybe this is karma.

We climb until my thighs burn and each step is weighed down with lead. Ivan doesn’t stop. He doesn’t pause for breath, but it’s clear he has a destination in mind based on the doors he chooses and the path he takes. Corridors narrow, and the stairs turn into spiral columns until we finally burst through the last door.

Cool, crisp night air floods my lungs like it’s the first breath I’ve ever taken. I immediately erupt into a coughing fit as the clean air mixes with the smoke in my lungs. We’re on the roof, and the carnage is a sight to behold.

Up here, it’s clear that the entire mansion is on fire. Giant plumes of smoke rise up from all over the place. The furthest away part of the mansion is already consumed with flame, giant red and orange streaks that claw their way up to the sky. Ivan still doesn’t stop and he drags me along the rough tarmac toward a landing pad surrounded by a short railing.

The dark abyss of night stretches infinitely out past the edge of the roof.

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