Page 18 of Defiant Devotion

First, I took the slim bag I’d packed with Jenny’s things. A couple of changes of clothes that I hoped she wouldn’t miss, some protein bars and apples, water bottles, the cash, and the keys. Outside, I put the rusty truck into neutral and began to push it down the drive. Once I was further from the house, I started the engine and sped off.

Without a driver’s license, without any training of how to drive, I maneuvered the truck the best I could. I wasn’t stupid. I’d witnessed men driving before, and it wasn’t that hard once I got familiar with the feel of the engine.

Hours passed as I drove away, relying on a battered map I picked up at a diner. Everyone had phones, but I didn’t. If I did, I doubted I’d know how to use them well. Technology sure had changed since I was kidnapped, but for the most part, the worldoutside that Ilyin property was the same as the one I’d been snatched from.

Jenny had asked me the first morning if there was anyone I’d wanted to call. Of course, there was. I wanted to speak with Eva. I wanted to contact the top guard and mightiest soldier of the Baranov organization. Maybe that one orphan, Lev, was still working for the family. Uncle Oleg had just found him a few years before I was taken. If he was around at home, he’d be a good guard. My cousins, too. Rurik came to mind. So did Vik and several others.

Yet, I declined Jenny’s offer. I knew none of their numbers. I didn’t want to risk a call being traceable to the Petersons.

They had to already be suspicious when I said I didn’t want the cops contacted.

But as I drove south, toward the city, I wished I did have a means of communication. I wanted a way to get news too. The TV monitors at gas stations and diners looked so high-tech and new, nothing like the TVs I recalled before I was kidnapped. On one hand, I marveled at how many things had evolved since I was taken. On the other hand, I was pissed that the fucking Ilyins had kept me so damn sheltered. Still, if I were to ask anyone for news about the Baranov family in New York City, it would out me as a member of the Mafia, and I damn well knew better than to make that mistake.

I drove Kyle’s truck as far as I could. Well into the day, I burned rubber off the tires, hoping that the couple wouldn’t have called the cops on me for taking the truck. The license plate could be tracked. But that ended up not mattering. Halfway to the city, by my rough estimates, the engine started making a noise andstopped, coming to a whining stop on the side of a country road. I winced and knew I couldn’t push this old thing any further.

No wonder it was just sitting out there and rusting.

Without a vehicle, I had to resort to hitchhiking. It seemed that there was some new thing called Uber that people used. A gas station attendant offered to call me one, but I wasn’t sure how safe that could be. Going on the internet to arrange a ride with a stranger? How the hell was that supposed to be smart?

Hitchhiking didn’t prove to be any better.

“Want a ride?”

That was the question I warded off in a small town I walked to. Every creepy asshole who asked me that got a no—or I pretended I didn’t hear them. I’d killed that Ilyin guard with a butter knife, and I’d repeat that crime if I had to, this time with the steak knife I’d taken from the Petersons’ kitchen.

Riding with a middle-aged woman turned out to be a mistake too. She was a druggie who damn near wrecked her car trying to force me into giving her all my cash. In terms of defense, my steak knife wasn’t on a level playing field with her gun. But I was a Mafia princess. I was no weakling to death or gore. She didn’t know who she was messing with, and my dormant memories of self-defense lessons from guards aided me in getting out of her car.

When I was stuck walking along the highway again, doing my best to ignore an ache in my heel from running away from that druggie who’d seemed helpful, I obsessed about what to do.

I’d escaped. I left the security of my rescuers in the woods. Now that I was on my way back to Eva, I looked even further ahead.By foot or in someone’s car, Iwouldget home. I would make my way to Eva, but I worried it could be too late.

Uncle Oleg was gone. So was my mother, and now, according to those Ilyin guards, my father. The whole Baranov family was coming apart, and I just couldn’t let my sister be taken. She’d be vulnerable now without anyone else supporting her, but as soon as I was there, I’d make sure she wouldn’t be sold to some unscrupulous fiancé.

But that’s not enough.

Each time I took a painful step, walking through the downpour of rain that started, my anger and fury burned hotter and hotter.

I was taken once. Eva could be taken now. And still, the threat of being married off to this Benson man would loom large.

If the Ilyins dared to kidnap me and hold me captive for over a decade, they wouldn't give up easily.

Whatever they’d benefit from making this marriage happen could still be an option. They’d be more motivated to get me again and force me to marry that man, whoever he was. It was always about power. Always some unending game and war of leverage and strength.

However…

I narrowed my eyes as I trudged through the crappy spring storm.

“If I kill him…”

Then that won’t be a possibility.

That seemed smartest. Having this Benson man killed and eliminated would be the surest way to avoid being his wife. Itwould remove the significance and motivation to kidnap me. While there was still so much more to learn, things I’d demand to know once I got home, I was certain that this plan would thwart them all and keep me and my sister safe.

And you.I lowered my hand to my stomach, proud that I’d gotten my unborn baby out of captivity. It was a miracle that he or she had been created. I’d always wanted a child, one of hopefully several. Before I was kidnapped and during my captivity, that maternal dream hadn’t faded, but I never could’ve guessed I’d be a mother like this.

Nor could I have anticipated how protective I’d be. They weren’t joking when they said the mama bear phenomenon hit.

“I’ll get us home,” I promised my baby.

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