Claim Me

Chapter 2

2Yulia

As soon as I’m in the city bounds of Miraflores, I pull into a gas station and ask the attendant to use the landline in the tiny store. He understands enough of my English to let me do so, and I dial the emergency number all UUR agents have memorized. As I wait for the call to connect, I watch the door, my palms slick with sweat.

Diego and Eduardo must know I’m missing by now, which means Esguerra’s guards are looking for me. I felt bad threatening the van’s driver and forcing him to get out of the car, but I needed the vehicle. As it is, I don’t have long before Esguerra’s men track me here—if they haven’t already.

“Allo.” The Russian greeting, spoken in a mellow female voice, brings my attention back to the phone.

“It’s Yulia Tzakova,” I say, giving my current identity. Like the operator, I’m speaking Russian. “I’m in Miraflores, Colombia, and need to speak to Vasiliy Obenko right away.”

“Code?”

I rattle off a set of numbers, then answer the operator’s questions designed to verify my identity.

“Please hold,” she says, and there’s a moment of silence before I hear a click signifying a new connection.

“Yulia?” Obenko’s voice is filled with disbelief. “You’re alive? The Russians’ report said you died in prison. How did you—”

“The report was false. Esguerra’s men took me.” I keep my voice low, cognizant that the attendant is eyeing me with increasing suspicion. I told him I’m an American tourist, and my speaking Russian undoubtedly confuses him. “Listen, you’re in danger. Everyone connected to UUR is in danger. You need to disappear and have Misha disappear—”

“Esguerra got you?” Obenko sounds horrified. “Then how are you—”

“There’s no time to explain. I escaped from his compound, but they’re looking for me. You need to disappear—you and everyone in your family. And Misha. They’ll be coming for you.”

“They cracked you?”

“Yes.” Self-loathing is a thick knot in my throat, but I keep my voice even. “They don’t know your current location, but they have the agency’s initials and one former agent’s real name. It’s only a matter of time before they track you down.”

“Fuck.” Obenko goes silent for a moment, then says, “We need to get you out of there before you’re recaptured.” Before they have a chance to extract more information out of me, he means.

“Yes.” The attendant is typing something on his cell phone while glancing at me, and I know I need to hurry. “I have a car, but I’ll need help getting out of the country.”

“All right. Can you get closer to Bogotá? We may be able to call in some favors with the Venezuelan government and smuggle you out across the border.”

“I think so.” The attendant puts down his phone and starts toward me, so I say quickly, “I’m on my way,” and hang up.

The attendant is almost next to me, his forehead furrowed, but I hurry out of the store before he can grab me. Jumping into the van, I shut the door behind me and start the car. The attendant runs out behind me, but I’m already peeling out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires.

When I’m back on the road, I assess my situation. There’s only a quarter tank of gas left in the van, and the attendant most likely reported me to the authorities—which means the vehicle became compromised faster than I expected.

I’ll need a different set of wheels if I’m to make it out of Miraflores.

My heart hammers as I step on the gas, pushing the old van to its limits while keeping a careful eye on the road. One kilometer, one-point-five kilometers, two kilometers… My anxiety intensifies with every moment that passes. How long before Esguerra’s men hear about the strange blonde at the gas station? How long until they start looking for the van via satellites? I can’t have more than a half hour at this point.

Finally, after another kilometer, I see it: a small unpaved road that appears to lead to a farm of some kind. Praying that my hunch is correct, I turn onto it, leaving the main road.

A couple of hundred meters later, I spot a storage shed. It’s a dozen meters to the right, and behind it is a thickly wooded area. I turn toward it and park the van behind the shed, under the cover of the trees. If I’m lucky, it won’t be spotted for some time.

Now I need to locate another vehicle.

Leaving the shed, I walk until I come across a barn with an old, beaten-up tractor in front of it. I don’t see any people, so I approach the barn and peek inside.

Jackpot.

Inside the barn is a small pick-up truck. It looks old and rusty, but its windows are clean. Someone uses it regularly.

Holding my breath, I slip into the barn and approach the truck. The first thing I do is search the nearby shelves for keys; sometimes people are stupid enough to leave them next to the vehicle.

Unfortunately, this particular farmer doesn’t seem to be stupid. The keys are nowhere to be found. Oh, well. I glance around and see a rock holding down a piece of tarp. I grab the rock and use it to smash the truck’s window. It’s a brute-force solution, but it’s faster than picking the locks.

Now comes the hard part.

Opening the driver’s door, I climb onto the seat and remove the ignition cover under the wheel. Then I study the tangle of wires, hoping I remember enough of this to not disable the vehicle or electrocute myself. We covered hot-wiring in training, but I’ve never had to do it in the field, and I have no idea if it’ll work. Every car is a little different; there’s no universal color system for the wires, and older cars, like this pick-up truck, are particularly tricky. If I had any other option, I wouldn’t risk it, but this is my best bet right now.

Here goes nothing. Steadying my breathing, I begin testing the different combinations of wires. On my third attempt, the truck’s engine sputters to life.

I exhale a relieved breath, close the door, and drive out of the barn, heading back toward the main road.

With any luck, the truck’s owner won’t discover it missing for some time, and I’ll make it to the next town before I have to get another vehicle.

As I drive, my thoughts turn to Lucas. Did the guards tell him about my escape? Is he angry? Does he feel like I betrayed him by leaving?

I love you. I’m yours. Even now, my cheeks flame as I remember those words, said in a dream that might not have been a dream. Until that night, I didn’t know how I felt, didn’t realize how attached I’d become to my jailer. There was so much wrongness between us, so much fear and anger and mistrust that it took me a while to understand this strange longing.

To make sense of something so irrational and senseless.

I’ll miss you. Lucas said that to me as he cuddled me on his lap the next morning, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears. Did he know what he was doing to me with his confusing words of caring? Was that incongruous tenderness part of his diabolical revenge? An even more sadistic way to wreck me without inflicting so much as a bruise?

The road blurs in front of me, and I realize the tears I held back that day are rolling down my face, the adrenaline from my escape sharpening the remembered pain. I don’t want to think about how Lucas broke me, how he promised me safety and tore my heart to pieces instead, but I can’t help it. The memories loop through my mind, and I can’t shut them off. Something about Lucas’s behavior that last day keeps nagging at me, some discordant note I registered but didn’t process fully at the time.

“Do not f*****g beg for him,” Lucas snapped when I pleaded for my brother to be spared. “I decide who lives, not you.”

There were other things he said, too. Hurtful things. Yet when he took me that night, there hadn’t been anger in his touch. Lust, yes. Insane possessiveness, definitely. But not anger—at least not the kind of anger I would’ve expected from a man who hates me enough to let my only family be murdered. And that “I’ll miss you” the following morning. It just didn’t fit.

None of it fit—unless that’s how Lucas wanted it.

Maybe he wasn’t done mind-f*****g me yet.

My head begins to ache from the confusion, and I wipe the tears off my face before tightening my grip on the wheel. Whatever Lucas planned for me no longer matters. I escaped, and I can’t keep looking back.

I have to keep moving forward.