Page 12 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

I peer inside. When I see what it is, I’m speechless.

I haven’t been so surprised since I was a boy. In my business, hesitation equals death. But I can’t help it. Can’t help staring, slack-jawed, at the last thing I ever expected to see in this beat-up piece of shit.

A woman is lying in the backseat of the car, her head resting against the window and her feet pressed against the opposite door. Her hair is a bedraggled curtain plastered to her face with sweat so I can’t see her face.

Her legs are spread and she is naked from the waist down.

I’m so lost staring at the unexpectedly shocking sight before me that it takes me a second to register that she is screaming again and waving her hand at me, gesturing for me to open the door.

“Thank God!” she cries when I open the door in a daze. “I tried flagging someone down, but no one would… Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I need help. Call for help.”

“What do you need?”

She points between her legs as if I’m stupid. That’s when I finally grasp what’s actually happening.

“For fuck’s sake!” I snarl in surprise. “You’re having a baby.”

As if to underscore what an idiot I am, she arches her back and screams through what I now realize is another contraction.

I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life that most people will never see. Lots of death and violence and brutality.

But this is something else entirely.

As soon as she can talk again, she breathlessly tells me to call 911.

Instinctively, I nearly do. Then, I remember one little flaw in that plan:The police will come.

I don’t know who I can trust. That means no cops. No telling who’s on Zotov’s payroll.

“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” I offer instead. She’ll be rushed inside to deliver the baby, and I’ll take off with the car. Win-win.

“No!” she shrieks, gritting her teeth as another contraction comes.

I can see she’s right. The baby is coming.Now.We don’t have time to make it to a hospital.

“Call someone!” Her scream is bloodcurdling.

I know what I should do—leave her, find a different car, hope that some other Good Samaritan comes along and helps this poor woman do whatever the hell it is she needs to do.

My life is under threat. Lots of violent men are trying to kill me.

But there’s a tiny little voice in my head that roots me in place. The same voice that told me to turn down the Albanians’ offer of equal partnership in their sex slave trafficking business. Call it a conscience, an angel on my shoulder, or just a fucking hallucination. Whatever it is, I can’t ignore it.

And right now, it’s telling me to stay and help.

“I can’t. I don’t have a phone,” I lie, shoving my gun back in my holster before I throw the door wide and kneel down in front of her. “We’ll have to do this right here.”

I do my best to keep my face neutral. There’s no need to make the situation worse than it already is by letting her know I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.

“Push,” I say as confidently as I can.

“I have to wait for a contraction.”

“Fine. Do that,” I instruct. “Push on the next contraction. I’ll catch the baby.”

Another contraction comes. She begins to push. We do this several times. A contraction comes, she pushes, a brief lull. Rinse and repeat.

On the next contraction, she pushes so hard her eyes roll back in her head. It’s not quite enough. I’m not sure she has many more rounds in her. We’re approaching the point of “now or never.”

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