Page 18 of Endless Love

I can’t deny that there’s a chance Ivan is right. That Nate,afterall of this, isn’t the same Nate as before. That by going to Bradley for help, I’d be putting myself in danger in more ways than one.

There’s what Bradley threatened Ivan with, too. I shouldn’t care, but the thought of Ivan being killed in prison or locked away in a solitary cell, makes my stomach churn. I don’t know what Ivan deserves, butthat?—

Yesterday, I would have said threats like those were bluffing. That that sort of thing doesn’t really happen. But now I’m no longer entirely sure. The world is a much more terrible place than I ever imagined, and I’m only just now realizing how narrowly I saw it before. How much better I thought people were than they actually are.

I can’t believe that my only options are to go home, and risk being taken captive by the Bratva, to go to a man who I should be able to trust and don’t think I can and throw myself on his mercy, turning Ivan in in the process, or go to Vegas with a man who has lied to me, and erase my entire life and start over. Thosecan’tbe my only options, and yet, they are.

I don’t know what to do, and I have no one I can ask.

In the parking lot below, I think I hear the sound of a car door closing. I lean over the railing slightly before I can think better of it, and in the shadows at the far end of the parking lot, I see three figures, dressed in black clothing. They look bulky, masculine, and I shrink back, my heart suddenly racing.

They could be anyone,I tell myself, closing my eyes tightly shut for a minute.They could just be other guys on the road, stopping for the night.But Ivan said he had three brothers. He said they would come after us. And I know, in the part of my mind that’s thinking logically through all of this even as I fight it, that three men in black clothing, moving stealthily through the parking lot, is too much of a coincidence to be that.

I bite my lip, feeling my heart start to beat faster, panic rising up thickly in my throat. I push myself away from the railing, rattling the knob on the door. I’m afraid if I knock, it will be too loud, and lead the men right to our room. I peer into the window, through the crack of the curtain, and rattle the knob again, harder this time.

The door opens a second later. Ivan’s gun is in his hand, his body tense and eyes narrow, but he relaxes when he sees that it’s just me. “Charlotte?—”

“I think your brothers are here,” I blurt out, and his eyes widen in the instant before we hear a scream downstairs, and a gunshot.

“Shit.” Ivan grabs my arm, yanking me into the room, slamming and locking the door behind us. “They’ll be up here in a minute.Fuck. I thought I gave them enough false leads to buy us more time?—”

“What was that?” All my anger has fled, replaced by cold fear, as I look up at him. “Ivan?—”

“They must have given the hotel clerk our description. Probably got it out of him. People like that aren’t built to withstand questioning from men like my brothers.”

I thought I’d already run cold, but the matter-of-fact way Ivan says it makes me feel as if my blood has turned to ice. “That shot?—”

“Either wounded him to get information, or killed him.” Ivan is leaning around me, looking through the small gap in the curtains. He turns abruptly to face me, his hands on my upper arms as he shakes me, lightly. “Charlotte, listen. I need you to do as I say.EverythingI say, without arguing or questioning it. Do you understand?”

I want to argue, but my self-preservation has kicked in, and I nod instead. I don’t know how far I can trust Ivan any longer, and I’m beyond angry and heartbroken by his betrayals, but I’mnot so foolish as to think that he’s not my best shot at getting out of here alive. And right now, if those men down there really are his brothers, that tells me that at least one thing he said was true.

His brothers are after us. And what they’ll do if they catch us won’t be pretty.

The thought of Ivan hurt or killed, makes my chest wrench, nausea flooding me. However angry I am at him, it hasn’t gone so far that I want him dead, at least. I can’t imagine wantinganyonedead.

“There are stairs to the left and right of the balcony,” Ivan says calmly. I don’t know how he can be so calm, not when my insides feel like churned butter, panic rising up and on the verge of choking me. But he keeps talking, as normally as if he’s giving me a grocery list. “The ones to the right are closer to our car. If my brothers are smart, and Lev can be wily, they’ll block off both. We’re going to go for whichever side Levisn’ton. He’s slower than us both, and Ani and Niki will be more likely to hesitate. I feel confident I can get us both through them. Not as much as him. Okay?”

“Which one is Lev?” I manage, and Ivan winces.

“The oldest one. And the biggest. Built like a bodybuilder. You’ll know. Now stay with me, Charlotte, and follow what I say.”

He checks his gun, and looks at me as he lowers it to his side. Something hot and dark flickers through his gaze, and for one wild second, I think he’s going to kiss me.

Either he changes his mind, or we don’t have time. He goes for the door, and I stay close behind him, my heart pounding so hard that I think I’m going to be sick. I look at the bed that I didn’t get a chance to sleep in, exhaustion hitting me like a wave, and I want to slide under the covers and not come out. I want to hide from all of this, and I can’t.

Ivan opens the door, and steps out onto the balcony.

I follow right behind him, so close that I’m almost pressing up against him. He looks left and right, and pivots left, his gun raised.

“Ivan!” A rough, Russian-accented voice, thicker than Ivan’s, calls from behind us. “Hand over the girl, andotetswill go easier on you. She’ll fetch a pretty price, even once I’m done with her.”

A shudder crawls down my spine, and I fight the urge to look behind us. I see two other men coming up the stairs in the direction we’re heading, the left side, and I feel certain that the voice behind us is Lev.

The other two men are built more like Ivan, lean and rangy. They both have lighter blond hair than Ivan, one nearly buzzed to his scalp and the other long, hanging in his face. They’re wearing all black, guns in hand, and they pause on the stairs, blocking our way.

“Give up, Ivan,” one of them says. “You got away last night, but you’re not going to keep getting away.Otetswants you to pay for your betrayal, and what he wants, he gets. He wants the girl, too. You’ll make it less painful for everyone if you come along now.”

“That’s right. Come along.” The voice from behind us, Lev’s voice, is closer now. I have a feeling they could have closed in on us by now if they wanted to, but Ivan hasn’t made a move, and I think they’re toying with us. Or Lev is, at least, and the other two are following orders. Lev is playing with his food.

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