Page 13 of A Surprise Baby for the Russian

He comes at me fast and low. Honestly, he’s too old for this shit, though these guys will never admit it. I let him get close before I break his wrist and a quick, clean twist and take the blade of him. It’s a mistake he should’ve unlearned years ago, but he always has been cocksure, which suits me. He recovers surprisingly quickly, catching me with his working fist under the ribs. For a few seconds it’s the noise of fists impacting flesh, and the taste of copper. He’s good; the crafty fuck got a couple of good punches in, but I’m better. I get the blade back into my hand and put it through him, as his hand goes to grab around the hilt in response. He goes down against the concrete, eyes wide, the life slipping out of him fast.

I crouch down anyway. I need to know. “Where’s your friend?”

He laughs a wet bubble. “Gone for the bitch.” His eyes are glazing over, but I see him struggling to hold on so he can see my reaction. “You won’t make it.”

I lean into his ear and whisper, “We’ll see about that, you miserable fuck,” as I give the blade one final twist into his gut, sending him on his way.

I’m back in the car within seconds, tires screeching out of the garage, calling Raya on the handsfree.

“Get your things, malysh,” I tell her calmly, though calm is the last thing I’m feeling right now. “Be at the door in five minutes. We need to move.”

“Yakov?”

“Five minutes, Raya.”

She hears what I’m not saying, because my girl is sharp in a way that makes everything both easier and significantly more complicated. When I pull up, she’s already at the door with her bag, and that’s when I spot the second one stepping off the sidewalk at the end of the road, ready to meet us head-on. Blyat.

“Get down!” I bark at Raya; she drops, and I lean over to push her as far into the footwell as I can. “Good girl, good girl.” I stroke the top of her hair, trying to reassure her as I speed up. If he wants to stand in the middle of the road, that’s his problem. He unloads a couple of shots at us. The windshield spiderwebs into a sheet of white, and something hot punches through my shoulder hard enough that my vision goes gray at the edges. Fuck. I’ve not got time for this; I’m not stopping the car, and he doesn’t move. The hood catches him at the knees, bringing him up and over, one hand scrabbling against the cracked glass inches from my face. I slam the brakes to get him off, but he goes nowhere; he’s disoriented, but he’s still got his gun in one hand while he grips onto the wiper with the other.

“Raya, close your eyes and put your head down. Now.”

I don’t wait to see if she listens. I stick the Glock through the gap in the windshield and finish him, then lean over and reach out with my good arm, grab a fistful of his jacket, and shove him off the hood onto the asphalt.

“Okay, you can look now.”

“Oh my god,” Raya says from her crouched position. “Oh my god, oh my god, are you okay? Are you hit? Are we being followed? What the hell just happened?”

“We’re clear. Sit up.”

“Are you sure? How are you sure?”

“Because I’m looking.” I am looking. The mirror, the road, back to the mirror. Scanning the whole three hundred and sixty degrees. “Sit up, Raya. I need to see you.”

She climbs back into her seat. Her hair is everywhere, and her eyes are like saucers; she’s breathing like she’s been running. I pat down her body, checking that she’s in one piece and she’s whole; the relief of that is something I don’t have words for.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I ask her.

“No. You?”

“Fine. I don’t know how the old bastard did it, but he found us. I’ve got another house; it won’t take long to get there, okay?”

She nods. I keep us moving for another twenty minutes, taking turns I don’t need to take, making sure we haven’t got a tail. The adrenaline does its job until it doesn’t. Twenty minutes in, the high starts to ebb, and the pain catches up. My shoulder is bad. I knew it on some distant, I-don’t-have-time-for-this-shit level, but the wall I’ve built against the pain is crumbling fast. I adjust my grip on the wheel, but my right hand doesn’t respond the way I want it to. I move my left hand to compensate, trying to keep my face neutral while I drive. Raya’s already been through enough; she doesn’t need this. I’ll deal with it when I get to the other house.

Raya’s voice breaks the silence we’ve been sitting in for several miles. “Yakov.”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re looking kind of pale.”

“I’m fine.” I manage through gritted teeth. I’m not okay. I feel like shit; the pain is unfuckingbelievable.

“You’re sweating.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, malysh, it’s been a bit of a stressful afternoon.”

She shifts her whole body in her seat to look at me. Ordinarily I’d be delighted by this turn of events, but this is not good; she’s going to notice. I stare straight ahead, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

“Yakov. Oh my god! You’ve been shot! Yakov, your shirt!”