Chapter 14
1149 Words
BELLA'S POV - THE NEXT DAY
I carry a tray of dirty dishes to the kitchen when I see them through the café window.
Four men in black suits.
Looking exactly like the same men from two weeks ago.
My heart stopped as the tray slipped from my suddenly numb fingers, crashing to the floor in an explosion of ceramic and glass.
"Draga!" Mrs. Kovač rushed over. "Are you..."
"They're back." The words came out strangled. I couldn't look away from the window, watching the men spread out around the building. Very coordinated and professional. "The men who were looking for me. They're outside."
Mrs. Kovač's face went pale. She glanced at the window, then back at me. "Use the back door. Now."
"But..."
"NOW." She grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the kitchen. "You go. I deal with them."
My feet finally moved, muscle memory taking over where my frozen brain couldn't. I stumbled through the kitchen, past the surprised line cook, toward the back exit.
The door burst open before I reached it.
There are two more men blocking my escape.
"Isabella Volkov," one of them said in Russian, his smile cold and predatory. "You've been very difficult to find."
I backed up, my hand instinctively going to my stomach. My baby. I am pregnant and trapped between six armed men who work for Dmitri Sokolov.
"I don't know who you're talking about," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "My name is Elena. You have the wrong..."
"We know who you are." The man took a step closer. "We've been watching you for three days. Watched you go to the pharmacist. Very interesting, that visit. Does Viktor Konstantin know you're carrying his bastard?"
Ice floods my veins. They know. They know about the baby.
"Get away from her!" Mrs. Kovač appeared in the kitchen doorway, wielding a heavy pan like a weapon. "I call police!"
"Call them." The man didn't even look at her. "We'll be gone before they arrive. Now, Miss Volkov, you can come quietly, or..."
I didn't let him finish.
I grabbed the nearest thing...a pot of hot coffee from the burner...and threw it directly at his face.
He screamed, stumbling backward, his hands clawing at his scalded skin.
I ran immediately.
Toward the stairs that led up to the storage area on the second floor. I know this building. Mrs. Kovač had shown me every corner when she'd hired me.
Including the fire escape that led to the roof.
"STOP HER!" someone shouted behind me.
Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs after me. I burst through the storage room door, shoved a shelf in front of it to buy myself seconds, and scrambled up the ladder to the roof access.
My hands were shaking so badly I almost couldn't work the latch. Behind me, the door shuddered as they rammed it.
The latch gives in. I shoved the hatch open and pulled myself up onto the roof, my ankle screaming in protest...it is still not fully healed from that jump some weeks ago.
The roof of the old town building is a maze of tiles and chimneys, adjacent buildings are close enough to jump to if I am desperate enough.
And I am absolutely desperate enough.
I could hear them behind me, climbing through the hatch. I have no time to think, to calculate odds or plan routes.
I ran across the tiles, my café uniform and flats completely wrong for this, heading for the neighboring building.
"Bella, stop!" one of them yelled. "You'll kill yourself!"
Maybe. But I'd definitely die if they caught me.
I jumped.
For one terrible moment, I am airborne, the alley below yawning like an open mouth ready to swallow me whole. My baby. Oh God, my baby...
My feet hit the neighboring roof hard enough to jar my teeth. I stumbled, caught myself, and kept running.
Another gap, another building, this one further.
Too far.
But I jumped anyway because what choice did I have?
I didn't make it.
My fingers caught the edge of the roof, my body slamming into the side of the building with enough force to knock the air from my lungs. I dangled there, my legs kicking in empty space, as my grip slipped on the old tiles.
"HELP!" The scream tore from my throat. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
My fingers are sliding. I could feel it. In seconds, I'd fall. Two stories onto cobblestones with an eight-week-old baby in my belly.
We'd both die.
"I've got you!" A hand grabbed my wrist.
But it wasn't one of Sokolov's men.
It is a young guy...maybe in his twenties, in a delivery uniform...is leaning over the edge, gripping my arm with both hands. "Hold on! I'll pull you up!"
He hauled me up with surprising strength, dragging me over the edge and onto the roof. I collapsed there gasping, with my whole body shaking.
"Are you insane?" he demanded in accented English. "What are you..."
"Thank you," I choked out. "Thank you, but I have to go. They're..."
I could hear shouts from the previous building. Sokolov's men had seen where I went.
"This way." The delivery guy grabbed my hand, pulling me toward a different roof access. "My van is down there. I can..."
We didn't make it.
Three of Sokolov's men burst through the roof access ahead of us, cutting off our escape.
I was trapped. Again.
A different man that is not the one I'd burned approached us slowly, his hands raised like he was trying to calm a spooked animal.
"Miss Volkov. Please. We don't want to hurt you. Just come with us peacefully."
"f**k you." I backed up toward the edge of the roof, the delivery guy stepping protectively in front of me. "I know what Sokolov does to people. I know what he did to Elena. You think I'm going to just..."
"Elena was a message," the man interrupted. "You're leverage. There's a difference. Viktor will pay anything to get you back. Especially now that you're pregnant with his heir."
His heir. They kept calling the baby Viktor's heir, like this tiny life inside me was just a political tool.
"Viktor doesn't care about me," I said, my voice breaking. "He made that very clear. So taking me won't get you anything."
"We'll see." The man took another step closer. "Now, you can come down on your own, or we can..."
A gunshot cracked through the air.
The man jerked, looking down at the red bloom spreading across his shoulder. He collapsed.
More gunshots rings out as shouting and chaos erupted below us on the street.
"What the..." I started.
"DOWN!" The delivery guy tackled me to the roof as bullets whistled overhead.
Through the chaos, I heard a voice that made my blood freeze.
A voice I knew better than my own.
"BELLA!"
Viktor.
- Writer
