Page 123 of The Harbinger

My heart stopped as he approached, his jaw set tight, his shoulders swaying back and forth as he marched.

Dammit.

I cast a hard glare at Katya, who coerced me into this situation.

With a desperate bite to my step, I walked towards him, the need for his arms to wrap around me and promise me irrepressible safety. But as I drew near, Dmitri crossed behind him and snatched me by my upper arm.

“Don’t say a word,” he said as he marched me out of the grocer. I glanced over my shoulder to see Sacha standing with the man who looked remarkably similar, his frame suggesting nothing but a normal conversation.

How did he know where I was?

Dmitri opened Sacha’s door and helped me inside, then took his seat on the driver’s side.

“Who was that?” My stomach swirled with unease, my heart racing as sweat slicked my palms. “What’s going on?”

Dmitri’s thumbs strummed along the steering wheel, and my vision stuttered.

“Where are you taking me?”

I groaned as the memory flickered without a trace of shooting pain.

Black empty tunnels formed in my vision, spotting bits and pieces of the storefront before my vision faded out.

Hands strum the steering wheel.

Dmitri’s hands replaced the strangers that had just been there when the black dots grew bigger, bleeding into one another—the light burned out with a blip.

“Where are you taking me?”

The hands on the steering wheel thrums a tune, his thumb and ring finger thumping against it in a song only he understands.

A woman occupies the passenger seat of the box van, her hair shadowed by the darkness inside and out until she turns with her finger to her lips. “Shh…”

The straight jacket binds my arms tight to my chest. It restricts my airflow, and my chest screams to expand.

“I can’t breathe.”

I gasped and jerked, bouncing the side of my head off the window.

“Ow,” I whimpered, pressing my palm to my forehead.

“Welcome back.”

Sacha sat beside me, his legs spread wide, commanding the space around him, his hand resting on his thigh. “I never thought I’d meet someone with blatant disregard for their own safety.”

“Sacha, I—”

“Did he hurt you?”

His brows furrowed as his voice lowered into a soft, caring undercurrent.

I rubbed my wrist but shook my head. “No. He didn’t hurt me.”

“You’re lucky.”

I stared at my sneakers, the same ones he’d given me on the plane. “Who was he?”

“Ruslan Vladomirovich… my papa.”

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