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“Mila?”the man continues.
“So no other men are loyal to him—all to Dimitri and Mikhail?”
When I say Dimitri’s brother’s name, Mila flinches, making me wonder if she has a crush on him. Or is that just wishful thinking?
“I think so,” she says.
“Right.”
I quickly rush to the window, ignoring Mila when she asks me what I’m doing. I can’t and won’t think about the repercussions of this. If her dad is as evil as she says, then bringing me to him isn’t exactly going to make him goeasieron Mila’s kid brother.
“Lia!”
I open the window and raise my voice, screaming, “Help! Help!”
Immediately, men start yelling from the darkness, “Miss?”
“The second house!” I scream. “There’s a man here with a gun!”
The door crashes open, and the man rushes in. My heart has neverhurtfrom beating so hard, but that’s what it does now. It starts clamping in my chest like an angry fist. Then Mila steps in front of me, her hands raised.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Get out of the way.”
“Killing her wasn’t part of Dad’s plan!”
“I’m going to take her like he told me to.” The man’s voice trembles when the main front door busts open. “Move, Mila.”
“What would my dad do if you killed me?”
“Without his permission? Nothing good.Move.”
The callous statement chills me right down to my core. Mila’s dad wouldn’t be mad if he killed her, justwithout his permission. That’s so sick. I feel sorry for her despite the circumstances.
“N-no,” Mila says, her voice bleeding bleak fear, her body trembling, but she doesn’t budge.
Then, there are footsteps in the hallway. Several men rush into the room, all holding guns, all with chunky upper bodies as though they are wearing bulletproof vests. They surround the gunman, one of them snapping something. The gunman slowly puts down his weapon.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he says as the men shove his hands behind his back and wrestle him to his knees. “Your father is going to kill me for this.”
“Don’t worry about the Petrovs,” a burly man grunts, then punches the man across his face with a loud, meatywhacknoise. “Worry about the Sokolovs.”
As they drag him from the room, Mila turns to me, her hands clasped together, eyes downcast as though she’d rather look at the floor than into my eyes. Moving forward, I gently lay my hand on hers.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I don’t have family, but I would’ve done the same if I did.”
“I just wish he’d stop,” she says, shuddering. “I wish he’d let us all go—me, my brother, the city, just everything.”
It feels weird to lean forward and wrap my arms around her. It feels almost like I’m going too far, overstepping a mark, maybe, but I can’t ignore her pain, either. As I embrace her, it’s difficult to remember that she’s supposed to be my competition.
The men drag the gunman from the room, leaving us alone. A moment later, more footsteps rush up the stairs. It’s Mikhail, his hair wild as it flops across his face. He runs into the room and stops short, looking at Mila and then at me.
After a pause, he says, “Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine,” Mila murmurs. “I…” She glances at me. “I’ll let you tell him.”
“Some freak working for the Petrovs tried to kidnap us,” I tell him.
