Page 66 of Mr. and Mrs. Novak

"Are you okay?" Ben asks, his face tight with concern.

Sophia lowers her gun and turns to me. Her gaze locks onto my shoulder, the dark stain spreading across my shirt as I struggle to steady my breathing against the pain.

"Ruslan’s hurt. He needs medical attention."

"That can wait," I grit out. "Right now, we need to get the hell out of here before they come back with reinforcements."

35. Hades Protocol

SOPHIA

Sitting in the passenger seat, Ruslan clutches his bloodied arm against him, enduring the pain in silence as I slide behind the wheel.

"We can’t go home," I tell Ben. "They’ll probably ambush us. First, we need to find secluded parking spots to ditch the cars. Then, we’ll figure out how to vanish."

Ben and Gaétan nod before leading the way. We drive only a few miles until we find a deserted alley with an empty parking space.

While our men stay at a distance in their cars, I pull out a prepaid phone and dial an emergency number.

The call is picked up on the second ring.

"Operator."

No name. That’s protocol.

"Sierra-Foxtrot-Seven. Emergency extraction. Two people. One wounded. Security compromised."

A brief silence.

"Location?"

I relay our GPS coordinates.

"Estimated time?" I ask.

"Nine minutes. Await confirmation."

I hang up.

Nine minutes. A ridiculous delay. An eternity in our situation.

"I shouldn’t have dragged you into this, it’s my fault," Ruslan says, guilt-ridden.

"Just a little adrenaline to spice up a relationship," I tease.

He smiles and looks at me with an intensity that almost makes me blush.

A message pops up on my prepaid phone screen.

"Checkpoint C23."

C23... An abandoned underground parking lot near the beltway. Secure rendezvous point.

"We move."

Ruslan doesn’t argue. We leave the car, wiping off our prints before heading toward our bodyguards’ vehicle. I give them the checkpoint coordinates with minimal details.

The car starts, and I keep an eye on the rearview mirrors. No visible tail. As planned, Ben and Gaétan drop us off at the parking lot entrance before driving away. Their mission: making our car disappear.