Page 77 of Guarded Rebellion

My brain couldn’t keep up with what my eyes processed. It happened so swiftly. In a matter of seconds, she was whisked away. One moment, she was right there, within reach and walking directly in front of me, then the next, she was rushed away.

“Lev!” she screamed as the man threw her into a van. I ran as it took off, but once they zoomed too far away, I stopped and aimed my gun. Firing with accuracy, I fired at the wheels, the windows. I shot until I was out, but when the vehicle continued to escape without any windows shattering and the tires staying full, I knew I wasn’t dealing with amateurs. This was a rigged car, designed for withstanding danger like this.

“Fuck!” I ran to my car, calling for backup as I went. I didn’t wait for replies, knowing Rurik would hear my message and track me to assist. I would lose precious time trying to mess with my phone any longer.

Instead, my heart racing and my head spinning with anger, I jumped into the SUV the Boss had given me and sped off after them.

They didn’t slow, speeding off campus and into the traffic surrounding it. Weaving past parked cars at the curb, gunning through red and yellow lights, Eva’s abductors used speed and reckless maneuvers to get away.

“You fucking assholes,” I growled. “I’ll see you rotting in hell.”

Tuning out the flurry of emotions that accosted me, I kept my grip tightly locked on the steering wheel and pressed the pedal to the floor. The engine revved and roared, up to the challenge of the high-speed chase, but it wasn’t so easy to stay clearheaded. I raged at the thought of them touching her and daring to hurt her. I panicked at the idea that they could kill her. And I regretted that I wasn’t quicker.

My phone rang, and I jammed my finger on the dash to answer the call. It wasn’t Rurik, but Marcus. “Lev?”

“They took her. I’m on their tail.” I gritted my teeth, careening around a sharp turn to stay with them. Two cars were between us, but I wasn’t losing sight of that black van. Never.

“I’m on them. Call backup and follow me?—”

I didn’t conclude my order to the other soldier. A loud crash deafened me, sending me sliding to the side as a truck barreled into the driver’s side. The dash was crumpled, as was the whole left wall of the SUV. Metal was dented and caved in. Glass shattered. Hit so hard at this speed, my body jolted violently to the middle console. A punch reached me as the airbag was deployed, too, but that wasn’t what stunned me.

Dizzy and jittery from the hard hit, I squinted through the web of the windshield as I watched the van holding Eva get smaller and smaller in the distance.

Blood trickled from my brow where I’d braced myself too late for a smack on the steering wheel. Sound traveled as though I were underwater, murky and distant, but I was alive. I could see. Tinkling bits of the car fell, but it was only the fast pulse that droned in my ears that I could hear.

I groaned, trying to move my aching body. My limbs felt stiff. My nerves were frazzled. From the recent fights I’d been in and now this crash, I felt electrified with too much pain and inflammation.

“Get him,” a man said from outside the bubble of destruction I was trapped in.

Shit.I knew that voice.

A Petrov soldier came into view. It was a blurry, hazy sight that I managed, but I knew without a doubt that I’d faced this man before.

I didn’t know who the man was in Eva and Kelly’s dorm. I had been attacked by Ilyins behind the library. And now, a pair of Petrovs had rammed into me.

Who the fuck was working for whom?

“Get the Baranov,” he instructed his companion.

Wait.

They were walking towardme. Heading to me. Not the car that was holding Eva. She was the Baranov. Not me. Kelly toldus about the rumors from Irina that the target on campus was a Baranov.

That’s her. Eva.

But also…

Clarity struck too late. I’d been so stuck in my stupid insecurities that I hadn’t realized they were talking aboutme. I was a Baranov. I had a different last name as a bastard orphan Oleg had taken under his wing, but I was a Baranov soldier. I was an active member of the Baranov Family.

Iwas the target. Not Eva. They had been trying to get to me, not her.

“Fuck.” I squirmed, wrestling to slip out of my crushed seat and escape through the passenger side.

They’d taken her to lure me away from campus, from the men on the team I had there as backup. I understood it now. They’d captured Eva knowing I would follow her.

I couldn’t tell who wanted me—the Ilyins or the Petrovs—but all I knew was that I couldn’t let them win. I had to live. I had to survive just long enough to get Eva back to safety.

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