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Like a deadly firework, it hits the tail of the chopper and explodes outward in all directions. The helicopter whirls around and around, the body now wrenched along by the blades. It crashes down to the ground where it erupts into a fireball so immense that I feel the heat blast hit my stunned face moments later.
“NOOO!” I shout.
My father shoves me down as more gunfire whizzes over our heads from the pursuing SUVs. Still, I catch a last glimpse of the lone man standing atop our villa, an MK 153 resting casually across his shoulder.
Even at this distance, there can be no doubt of the identity of that goliath figure. It’s Marko Moroz.
My father fires back toward the SUVs, keeping them at bay. He hits a tire and the Escalade fishtails back and forth across the road, but it doesn’t roll. The driver recovers, still following after us.
“Get ready!” my mother shouts.
She yanks the wheel to the left again, pulling us into the overlook above the marina. Directly below, a dozen boats are moored, including our cruiser.
She grabs her rifle back from Freya and she and my father take cover behind the Jeep, firing toward the approaching SUVs.
“No time to climb down!” she shouts at me and Freya. “You’ll have to jump!”
“Go with them!” my father tells her. “I’ll cover you.”
“No!” she says fiercely, her dark eyes glinting in the glare of the Jeep’s headlights. “I’m with you until the end.”
My sister is already climbing over the seawall while the SUVs screech to a halt in front of us, their headlights blinding, their doors opening. My father fires toward the windows, driving the men back inside.
Then, teeth gritted, he seizes my mother’s rifle and wrenches it out of her hands.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he says.
He picks her up bodily and chucks her over the wall.
I hear her howl of fury as she falls.
“Go!” he says, shoving me after her. “Make her leave!”
As I leap over the wall, I catch one last glimpse of my father firing in several directions at once as the Ukrainians close in on him. I see his body jerk as he’s hit in the shoulder and the leg, but he won’t stop shooting.
I fall down, down through the black night toward the freezing water. I plunge into the sea, sinking so deep that I have to swim upward with all my might to break the surface again. As soon as my head pops up, I stroke hard for our boat.
Freya has already climbed in. She casts off and starts the engine.
I see my mother’s dark head. She’s not swimming for the boat—she’s trying to reach the pier so she can climb back up to my father.
It will never work. He’ll be dead long before she gets there.
I seize a handful of her hair and haul her backward.
“LET GO OF ME!” she shrieks, twisting around in the water.
The last person in the world I would want to fight is my mother. And not out of respect—because she’s fucking terrifying. Still, I have to obey my father.
“IT’S TOO LATE!” I bellow. “You’re going to get us all killed!”
I see the wild look in her eyes, that savage determination that I’ve never seen falter, never once in my life.
Then reality hits her harder than any hammer.
Her face slackens, and she looks back toward the cliff with pure misery instead.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand and swimming for the boat.
