Page 3 of Mafia Christmas Vows

However, as I follow the flight attendant out of the airport, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

Because right now?

‘Safe’ is the last thing I feel.

One thing I’ve learned about Russia… it is reallyreallyfreaking cold.

Even in my trusty Eddie Bauer puffer jacket, I’m shivering in the back of the car.

After the airport, the flight attendant brought me to a long black SUV. I got in, the panic that I felt at the airport intensified as the driver slammed on the accelerator, barely looking out at the world as he did.

Alarmingly, we almost hit not one, but two people on the way out.

I’m not sure why, but I definitely got the impression that the chauffeur is on a timeline.

However, I don’t speak Russian, and my squeak of terror did nothing to change his mind, so I just did the best I could. I settled in and watched the sights as they zoomed by my window.

The city that I flew into started to fall away. Disappeared, actually.

It was swallowed by the snow as we sped away.

It’s been a few hours since the airport, and I’m beginning to feel panic creeping back into the edges of my mind. The fact that I’m stuck in this tin can doesn’t help either, and my senses are on overdrive as we keep moving through the night.

The inside of the car is so quiet, I can hear the individual flakes of snow pelting the windshield. The driver looks like he injects protein straight into his veins, and the leather seats smell like way too much cologne.

It’s kind of nauseating.

I’m doing my best just to stay warm and stay alert.

I’m not doing well at either of those goals.

The overwhelming smell of the cologne is choking me, clawing at my throat, and the puffy coat that I’m zipped into isn’t doing anything to keep me from feeling cold.

All in all, this sucks.

I tug my phone out of my pocket, turning it on. It’s not my regular phone; my dad took that and smashed it before I left, giving me this one instead.

He insisted that it was for my own good. That whoever is hunting us, his enemies or whoever they are, could track me through my old phone.

This one has two numbers programmed in it. My mom, who I am supposed to text very sparingly, and my biological father.

I definitely ignore his number and go for my mom instead.

Me: Landed.

Mom: Oh thank god. I’ve been hoping to hear from you, Mini.

I smile. It’s definitely her. My dad doesn’t know the nickname, and we agreed on it before I left so we could verify communication.

Me: How’s it going with the sperm donor?

Mom: Weird.

In the rushed hours before I left, my mom explained that my biological father was kind of a one-night stand situation. They were never married, and she met him when she was a cocktail waitress in a hotel in Vegas. She had no idea that he was part of a Russian mob until…

Well.

Until the house burned down.

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