Page 90 of Corruption

Like the last time I was in this situation, I decide not to waste any time on panicking. Panicking will take away from the energy I need to think of a way out of this. I look around. Two drivers in the front, separated by tinted glass so they can’t see or hear us. Good. That means they underestimate us. Now I have to figure out how to surprise them.

“With the money Mr. Vorobev was so gracious to give us, I won’t have to work. Which means I can stay at home and keep my eyes on you. Maybe with me to raise it, that bastard baby will come out better than you did,” my mother says.

“You raised me. So maybe rethink that part of the plan,” I remind blandly. “And you’re assuming we’re ever going to see that money.”

“He either pays me, or I go straight to the biggest national news network and expose them.”

I turn in my seat and look at my mother incredulously.

“Are you serious?” I ask. Then without waiting on an answer, I say, “This is why it was so easy to get away from you once I got the courage to do it. This is why it was so easy for me to read and learn about the outside world and want to be a part of it even though you tried to lock me away from it. You think you’re so smart. You think you’re so genius. You think no one can outsmart you. But you can’t even figure out that we’re not being taken to an airport and that we’re being taken out to the middle of nowhere to be killed.”

“Stop being so dramatic. You’re just upset that—”

“They’re the mafia! The only rules they follow are the ones they make up and decide to live by. And one of the biggest rules is to not leave two people alive who could tumble their whole ruse down,” I snap. “If you weren’t so arrogant, you’d—”

My mother slaps me again.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you. But two years ago, you knew not to raise your voice at me, and you better learn it again.” My mother then scoffs. “And take that fucking glossy color shit off your lips. Just because you’ve been acting like a whore doesn’t mean you have to look like one.”

She reaches forward to wipe my lips, and rather than feeling any fear of my mother, I only feel rage. I’ve been away from her for a year and a half. I created a life for myself. Alik and Nadia made room in their lives for me to create my own life while allowing me to explore the person I want to be. Addy and Adrian did the same. Yes, they’re all liars, murderers, and kidnappers, but they let me be free. They let me be myself. They didn’t micromanage everything I did and said and constantly keep me walking on glass to be around them. No one is going to take that freedom from me again. Especially not my mother.

I slap her hand away and then hit her back for slapping me earlier. She tries to attack me, but I fight back. Tussling with her in the large back seat of the car relentlessly until I have her on the floor of the car with my hands pulling tight on her ginger hair.

“If you want to live, you’re going to stop treating me like a child and listen to me. You got that?”

I don’t wait for an answer. I just get off her and get back in my seat. She slowly gets up, nursing her bloody and likely broken nose.

“Little bitch. As soon as you have that baby, I’m putting you on the street where you belong.”

As I straighten myself up, I snap, “I survived without you once. I can do it again. So why the hell do you think that’s a threat?”

How I ever let such a stupid woman trap me and stop me from experiencing life, I’ll never know?

My mother says nothing else as, like I assumed, we’re driven out the city. Out to a lone road surrounded by trees and probably headed towards upstate New York. The car pulls to the side of the road. I get ready, just like I did a month and a half ago. But this time, I know what I’m doing. Or, at least, more than I did last time. I hope. If that father-daughter bonding time Adrian insisted on paid off…

“Tell me, Kiya. What do you do if someone points a gun at you?”

“Hope they change their mind?”

Adrian chuckles. “You fight like hell. Because either you don’t fight and they shoot you. Or you fight and maybe they shoot you, maybe they don’t. Fighting back always gives you the better chance no matter how hopeless it seems.”

Both men get out. One on either side to get my mother and to get me.

As soon as I see the handle click, I push my feet forward with all my might to force the door open faster than my executioner would have expected so the door slams into him. He stumbles back. I immediately use the momentum of my kick to launch out the car with my feet on the ground. I waste no time ducking down and head-butting my would be killer in the stomach.

He’s hardly phased and throws me off him instantly, but I wasn’t trying to take him down. Just distract him long enough to get my hands on his gun. That’s going to slow him down from killing me.

I get to my feet and run into the woods. Run as fast as I can even though I’ve never been very athletic. But running for my life is all the motivation I need to keep going and not stop. Not when I feel twigs cutting up my face and hands. Not when I hear the sound of a single gunshot and assume my mother is dead thanks to her own hubris. Not when my ankle begins to hurt, already bad from an accident in my childhood. I run and I don’t know how long. Until I find a spot I can hide in between some trees behind a mossy rock that will give me cover.

I don’t make a sound. Hardly even breathe as I listen for my pursuer. Hands shaking as I fiddle with the gun in my hand. I make sure the safety is off and grip it with both hands, though it still feels awkward because it’s made for hands much large than mine. There’s a second gunshot behind me. Then a third, but I don’t dare move from behind my cover.

When a few moments have passed, I turn around, gun in hand, peek around my rock—

I scream as I see the shadow of a person moving and raise my gun at them.

“Kiya! It’s me!”

“Nadia?” I say, laying eyes on the red-headed woman and then dropping the gun to leap into her arms. “Oh my god. Oh my god. You’re… Nadia.”

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