23. Charlotte

23

CHARLOTTE

T he world is spinning around me. It hurts . Everything hurts, the slamming of my body against the door and the seat and the dashboard, the shattering sound of glass, the crunching of metal as the car flips over and over, rolling down the hill to one side of the exit. I didn't see what was beyond it, and I close my eyes, feeling hot tears on my cheeks as I think about the awful possibilities. Trees. A ravine. Another road, one where traffic will pummel us until we're nothing but paste?—

My head slams against something hard, and pain explodes behind my eyes. I'm dimly aware of the sound of Ivan's voice, shouting my name, but his voice sounds far away and muffled, like he's yelling through that glass window he was on the other side of with Bradley. Every word is muffled by the ringing in my ears.

When the car stops rolling, it takes me a minute to register it. I'm hanging upside down, held in place by my seatbelt, digging painfully into my hips and chest. But god , I'm so fucking thankful that I had it on, that I never took it off while I was sitting in the parking lot. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm still alive right now.

I keep forgetting to practice safe sex with a criminal, but points for me for remembering to put my seatbelt on. I have the urge to laugh, but when I try, it hurts too much.

Blood rushes to my head, making me dizzy, my vision swimming in front of me. I blink, trying to focus on something, anything, through the haze of pain and confusion. I can hear Ivan, but I can't make him out yet.

"Charlotte!" Ivan sounds more panicked than I've ever heard him. "Charlotte, say something, please !" The urgency in his voice, the bald fear, cuts me to the bone. I've never heard anyone say my name like that. Never heard the frantic pleading that's in it now.

I try to tell him that yes, I'm okay—or at least that I'm alive, okay is still undetermined—but all that comes out is a weak groan. I can't take a full breath, and I can feel something warm trickling down my face.

Probably my own blood.

Ivan curses in Russian, fumbling with the catch of his own seatbelt. My vision clears enough for me to realize that he's next to me, scrambling out of his own seat. "I'm going to get you out of here, Charlotte," he promises. "I'm?—"

" Ivan !"

A loud, Russian-accented voice fills the air from Ivan's side of the car, and a new fear fills the hollow space in my chest. I'd wondered, for one insane second, if it had been Bradley who had run us off the road. If he'd really been crazy enough to do that.

But now I know it's not. It was Ivan's brothers. One or more of them. Lev ? My chest squeezes tightly at the possibility that it might be. Out of the three of them, I'm most terrified of him.

Ivan twists next to me, abandoning his efforts to get me out as he starts to crawl out of the shattered window on his side. I don't even realize that he's pulled his gun until I hear the shot, close enough that I know it's him, the sound only adding to the ringing in my ears as I scream helplessly.

It makes me feel weak, but I can't hold it back. This is too much. It's all been too much for too long, and this feels like a tipping point, a moment past which I can't pretend that I'm okay any longer.

None of this is okay, just like I've told Ivan from the very beginning.

The gunshot echoes outside the car as Ivan wrenches himself free, my ears hurting with the noise, and I vaguely hear a muffled cry of pain. My heart is pounding wildly, my chest hurting with a stabbing sensation that's frightening, and I don't know if it's the adrenaline or an actual injury. I struggle against the seatbelt, desperate to see what's happening, but I'm trapped upside down, helpless.

"Ivan!" I manage to croak out his name, my voice, hoarse and barely audible. "Ivan!"

There's no response, just the sound of scuffling and grunts outside the car. I strain my ears, trying to make sense of the chaos. Another shot rings out, then another. My ears are ringing, and I can't tell who's firing or if anyone's been hit.

Suddenly, a face appears at the cracked window on the other side of me, in my periphery. A broad hand reaches in to grab me, and I wrench away, screaming again. I hadn't thought I could be any more afraid than I already was, but now I know I was wrong. This fear, the fear of whichever brother is trying to drag me free of the wreckage, is new and sharp and compounds all the rest of it a hundredfold.

"No!" I scream, thrashing wildly against my seatbelt, trying to wrench further away from him. The movement sends jolts of bright, white-hot pain through my body, but I can't stop fighting. I'm more afraid of being taken by them than anything else. There's no coming back from that.

The hand withdraws for a moment, then returns with something glinting in the dim light. A knife. My heart leaps into my throat, fear of the knife jolting through me, but I quickly realize that he doesn't plan to hurt me with it. He's going to cut me loose.

I renew my struggles, ignoring the agony it causes, desperate to stay where I am. At least in here, Ivan can still come for me. I'm still free of them . His family. The future awaiting us in Vegas isn't the one I wanted, but it's a better future than I'd find in the hands of Ivan's family.

"Stop moving," a gruff voice orders in heavily accented English. "It will hurt more if I nick you with this. And otets will be displeased if you're damaged."

"I don't know who that is," I snap, still wriggling like a fish on a hook. "But I don't fucking care."

The man chuckles, reaching in anyway and starting to saw at my seatbelt, the other hand grasping the back of my neck with an intimacy that makes me shudder.

"Stop touching me!"

"Stop squirming," he retorts, still sawing away. "Better if you?—"

He never finishes his sentence. The knife jerks backward, narrowly missing my stomach as the man is hauled back, away from the car, and I catch a glimpse of Ivan, bloodied and holding a gun in his other hand—a gun now pressed to his brother's temple. The same brother that he had pinned to the car outside of our motel with that same gun.

I gasp, my heart pounding as hard as my head is as I watch Ivan drag his brother further back in the grass, blood smearing it as he does. There's no sign of the other one, and I realize with a sinking feeling that means that Ivan's either knocked him unconscious, or killed him.

I don't know what it says about my own na?veté that I hope it's the former. I should know by now, from everything Ivan's told me, that their deaths were coming when they wouldn't give up on chasing us. That Ivan gave them both their one chance, when he didn't kill them last time.

Ivan's face now is that same mask of cold fury that I saw with Bradley. There's no mercy, no quarter that he's going to grant. Cold wracks my body, and I wonder if I'm going into shock, or if this is just the natural response to watching a man who I've slept with, who I've spent days upon days with, who I could have fallen for, holding a gun to his own brother's head.

Blood trickles down the side of Ivan's face, staining his shirt collar, only adding to the savagery of the scene in front of me. But he seems oblivious to it, all of his focus on the man he has grappled in front of him.

"I told you the price you would pay if you came after us again," Ivan growls, his voice low and dangerous. He's never been more a predator than he is in this moment, violent and savage, a brutal creature on the verge of killing. "I won't enjoy killing my own family. But it ends here. I won't take this chance again."

Niki , I think I remember. The bigger of the two. I think I remember Ivan saying his name. Niki laughs, as if there wasn't a gun pressed to his head, the sound cold and hollow. "Or what, little brother? You'll shoot me? You don't have the fucking balls. You would have done it by now, if you did. And otets will never forgive you, if you kill me."

"As if I give a fuck," Ivan spits. "My forgiveness was gone the moment I ran with her, and you know it. And I don't want to go back. I don't want any part of this, not any longer. Besides," he adds, his voice cracking with a bitter laugh. " Otets won't actually give a shit if you're dead. He never would have, and he still won't."

I think, through my bleary vision, I see Niki blanch at that cruelty. And it is cruel, enough that I feel almost momentarily sorry for him—before I remember that he and his other brother ran us off the fucking road.

I see, too, that Ivan might be more hurt than he's letting on. That trickle of blood is coming from a gash on his forehead, and his shoulder looks slightly odd, as if he wrenched it in the crash. But he's holding the gun steady against Niki's temple, and I see the other man go white as it seems to settle in that Ivan isn't bluffing. Not any longer.

"You did this to yourself," Ivan snarls. "You and Ani both. Lev, too, when you brought her into this. When you made it about anything other than our family issues?—"

"And what would you know about family?"

The third, rougher voice sends my heart clamoring into my throat. It's rougher, harsher, with the heavier Russian accent that I remember from the one time I heard Lev speak, that first night.

I twist in the seatbelt again, ignoring the hot jolts of pain, and I see Lev standing behind Ivan, his gun leveled at the back of Ivan's head.

"I told you I wouldn't let you hurt her," Ivan spits, not turning to look behind him. "I told you to leave her the fuck alone."

Lev chuckles, the sound low and menacing. " Brat , when have I ever listened? To you, especially. Otets has, at times. But now, after all of this, I think he's learned his lesson. You are finished, Ivan. And I will do with her what I please."

"This has nothing to do with her," Ivan spits, and for the first time, I think I hear a thread of fear in his voice. "We'll talk this out like brothers. Let her go. Let me get her out, and she can go."

Lev laughs again. "You made it about her when you chose her, brat ."

"Ivan—" I croak out his name again, unsure if he can even hear me. My voice is a cracked whisper, the world trembling again, blurring at the edges. I have no idea if I'm that badly hurt, or if it's just that the stress and exhaustion coupled with the accident has caught up to me, but I feel as if I'm about to pass out. "Ivan?—"

I can see the tension running through every line of Ivan's body, the slight tremble in his hand now, as if he's growing exhausted, too. And for the first time, I think I see him wavering, as if he's no longer entirely sure of what to do.

That, more than anything, makes me feel like breaking. I didn't realize how much I've relied on Ivan's certainty until this moment, when I see it fading. And I want to reach out to him, to tell him?—

I don't know what I would tell him. Not to kill his brother. But I don't want to go with them, either. And I don't want to see them hurt Ivan.

That feels unbearable.

Lev's gaze flicks to me, a cruel smile teasing the corners of his mouth. "Ah, she's awake. Watching this entire petty drama play out. Tell me, devochka ," he growls, his cold blue gaze meeting mine. "Was he worth all this trouble? Was he worth throwing away the life you had? And it was a good life, too, wasn't it? A good job, a beautiful apartment. Friends who cared for you. The kind of life all women like you want. Was it worth it to have a few nights with my bastard brother?"

I want to spit something back at him, to tell him to go to hell, that every moment was worth it. That I wouldn't change a thing. I want to wipe that fucking smirk off his face, to defiantly defend Ivan in the face of this much-crueler man.

But anything I could say dies on my lips. Because, after all—that exact question is what I've been asking myself this entire time. Was it worth it? Was the time I spent with Ivan, the things he awakened in me, the things I felt with him—was it worth everything I lost?

When I walk away from him and start a blank slate of life, will it still feel worth it, even if it feels like it now?

"I'll give you one last chance," Ivan growls. "Let her go. Let her go now , or?—"

"Fuck you, brother." Lev cuts him off, and for one horrifying split second, I think I'm about to watch Ivan die in front of me.

But instead, he pulls the trigger.

I scream, the sound swallowed up by the gunshot as Niki's head explodes in a wash of red, his last words lost too in the echoing sound and the ringing in my ears. Ivan ducks forward as he pulls the trigger, flinging himself to one side as Lev fires, too.

I watch in horror as the bullet strikes Niki's dead body instead, the corpse moving in a way that seems all wrong as Ivan launches himself forward, kicking out with one foot and hooking Lev's ankle with his. Lev wrenches around as he falls, shooting at Ivan again, but Ivan rolls away, shoving himself to his feet and firing twice into Lev.

I don't see where the bullets land. I don't see if Lev is dead. All I see is Ivan, scrambling up through the bloody grass as he grabs the knife out of Niki's hand and runs to my side of the car.

"Charlotte." He gasps my name, sawing at the seatbelt in an effort to finish what Niki started. This time, I don't struggle. I don't think I could move if I wanted to, as in shock as I am.

I just saw a man die. Two men, maybe. I saw Ivan kill him— them . I saw?—

I close my eyes tight, and I feel Ivan's hand against my cheek.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and I feel the seatbelt give, his arm wrapping around me as he tries to cushion my fall down to the roof of the car. "I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry you had to see that. I don't know how badly you're hurt, Charlotte, but right now—" He looks up, over the car, as if searching for something. "Right now, we need to run."

I can barely process anything Ivan is saying through the fog of pain. It's turned from a jolting, white-hot stabbing to a sort of heavy, thick sensation that's settled over me, chilling me deeply and giving me that sensation that I might pass out again.

" Charlotte ."

The way he hisses my name cuts through the daze. I nod weakly, trying to gather myself. I must be going into shock. This must be what that feels like.

"Can you move?" Ivan asks, his voice tight with worry. "Can I move you? Do you need help?"

It occurs to me that if Lev isn't dead, we need to get out of here sooner rather than later. Not to mention the fact that Bradley wasn't far behind us, and he saw our car. This accident might attract his attention shortly. I shift in the cramped space, careful of broken glass, trying to test my limbs as much as I'm able. "I think so," I whisper. "I mean—I think I can get out."

An inch at a time, Ivan helps me crawl out of the wreckage. I see him wince when I hiss with pain, tears leaking out of the corner of my eyes. My palm scrapes over broken glass, and I cry out. The instant he hears the sound, his muscled arms go around me, pulling me free the rest of the way as he helps me to my feet in the bloodied grass.

The world tilts alarmingly around me, and I sway in place, grabbing at the front of his shirt. I feel him tense at my touch, sucking in a breath, but I'm too aware of what I'm looking at, at this moment to think too much about what that means.

"Easy," Ivan murmurs, his arm around my waist. His gaze sweeps over me, looking for anything broken, anything that—I assume—might mean I can't run. "We need to go, Charlotte. Right now."

I swallow hard as I look at Niki's unmoving body, facedown in the grass. At Lev, on his back, staring up at the sky, or?—

I think I see him move, shifting, and I swear I hear him groan.

Maybe I'm imagining things. But it's enough for me to twist away, starting to hobble past the car. I see another body, Ivan's other brother, and I can't tell if he's alive or dead. I don't think I want to know.

"There's a gas station just up the road," Ivan says grimly, his arm still around my waist as he urges me to go faster. "We need to get there. I saw a sign?—"

"But what about the people—" I start to ask, but he cuts me off.

"People have cars," he says shortly. "And we need a car."

I'm too breathless already from the pain to ask any more questions, or think too hard about what he means. I think I know what he means, anyway, and it feels like one thing too many right now.

We're going to have to steal another car. And we're going to do it like this.

We stumble away from the car, my legs feeling as if they've been dipped in lead, every step sending more of those white-hot jolts of pain through my body, piercing the fog. Ivan is supporting most of my weight as we half run, half stumble towards the road, staying slightly off the shoulder as Ivan leads me towards the gas station in the distance. I can see the lights flickering on, like a beacon in the darkness gathering around us.

"We're almost there," Ivan murmurs, his voice sounding strained. He's tense, every muscle in his body wound tight, and I can feel it radiating off of him. He's looking around constantly, glancing back every few feet as if he expects Lev to materialize behind us, chasing us down.

Except at this point, I don't think Lev would chase. I think he would just shoot us. Maybe even me. I think I might have become more of a problem than whatever value I have allows. And anyway, Ivan once said that they wanted me to get back at him. To hurt him by hurting me. If he's dead, that doesn't matter.

The thought feels so boldly foreign that it makes me almost laugh, the sound bitterly choking in my throat. It catches, and I see Ivan glance at me worriedly out of the corner of my eye.

He probably thinks I'm losing it. Maybe I am losing it. What I've been through in the last several days would test anyone. Especially when it's so far out of the realm of anything I ever imagined my life turning out to be.

I can barely even think about what's ahead of us. All I can think about is what's behind—the wrecked car, the bodies, the smeared blood turning the grass red. It feels wholly surreal, like a nightmare I can't wake up from, like a story in someone else's life. I keep seeing the wash of red as Niki's head opened up, the look on Lev's face as he pointed the gun at Ivan, the fact that it didn't seem to matter to Lev at all that one of his brothers was dead in front of him. That all three of them might have been about to be.

But then again, to hear Ivan describe it, he never cared about any of them. Their deaths would just mean that their father couldn't hang his possible replacements over his head any longer. He would be the only heir, his place unchallenged.

My head swims, trying to make sense of it all—a world that makes absolutely no sense to me.

There are three cars at the gas pumps when the station comes fully into view. Two are turned off, empty, their owners clearly inside paying. The third, a black Subaru, is also off, but the driver is standing next to it, about to hit the button on the pump to start filling the tank.

"Ivan—" I start to speak, but he shakes his head sharply.

"We need a car, Charlotte." The finality in his voice feels like a slap. He sounds cold, harsh. But he's right.

We won't get far without a vehicle. And much like the difference between knowing Ivan has killed and seeing it today, I'm only really more upset about this because I'm seeing the reality of it up close. I can admit that, at least.

I swallow hard, feeling as if I might throw up as we move closer, around the back of the unsuspecting man at the pump. The fact that it's a man makes me feel only slightly better—it might be wrong, but it would feel worse to see Ivan threaten a woman.

The man, an older fellow with a round, florid face and thinning hair, dressed in jeans and a Trans-Am t-shirt, turns at the sound of our footsteps. His face creases instantly as he takes in our battered appearance, caution and worry warring for primacy on his face.

He sets the nozzle back in the pump, hesitation evident in his movements. But his better nature seems to win out, which only makes me feel worse.

"You two alright?" he asks, his gaze sweeping over us, and Ivan's hand slips to the edge of his shirt, where I know his gun is tucked. My heart trips in my chest. Please don't shoot this man.

The man's gaze follows, too, and I see the fear that flickers in his eyes. "Hey now, I don't want any trouble?—"

"And there won't be any," Ivan says easily. "Just so long as you hand over the keys to your car. Now," he adds, his fingers twitching against his side, and the man's eyes widen as his face pales. "No sudden movements or calling for help. And then we'll leave you be."

I see the man swallow hard, his gaze darting between me and Ivan. I can see him weighing his options, considering what the best choice is. If he should acquiesce, or if trying to call for help or running is an option. If Ivan will really do what he says he will.

My stomach twists, and I stare at the man, willing him to just hand over the keys. I don't think Ivan would hurt this man. I think he would just move on to another option. But I don't want to find out.

The man lets out a heavy breath. "Alright," he says, his voice taut with fear, the whites of his eyes rolling like a startled horse. "Just—don't hurt me. Please."

"Throw the keys over here, and it'll be fine." Ivan's fingers stay at the edge of his shirt, a warning. "And don't call the cops. You call anyone on us, put anyone on our tail, you'll regret it."

That can't possibly be true. We're leaving the state, and Ivan's family isn't answering favors from him. But the man is too frightened to question if Ivan is telling the truth or not. He just nods rapidly, throwing the keys across the pavement.

"Grab them and hand them to me." Ivan's voice is still sharp, unnaturally cold for how he usually speaks to me. "And then get in the car when I unlock it."

He doesn't use my name, and I can guess why. I hate that I can guess why, because that means I'm getting used to all of this. That it's all starting to make sense to me.

I scoop the keys up, handing them to Ivan. Almost immediately, he hits the button to unlock the car, and I go without thinking, half-hobbling, half-running to the passenger's side. I fling myself into the car, not daring to look and see if anyone else is noticing us, and stare down at my scratched, bruised hands, forcing myself not to listen. Not to try to hear what else Ivan might be saying.

A second later, he's in the car next to me. He presses a button on the dash, the car revving to life, and slams his foot against the gas, pulling out of the station a little too quickly.

"He's going to call someone," I whisper. My throat feels scratchy and dry, and I desperately want water. "He's going to report the car?—"

"No, he won't," Ivan says grimly.

"How do you know?—"

"He's too scared to do anything but follow instructions. And by the time he figures it out, or his wife or grandkids or someone calls the police for him, we will have dumped this car and gotten a new one. But in the meantime—" Ivan's jaw is set as he pulls out onto the highway, his eyes straight ahead on the road. "Now we're a step ahead. For a little while longer."

I sag back against the seat, not wanting to think about what happens when Bradley catches up. If Lev is still alive. About the fact that there's still plenty of miles between us and Vegas, and once we're there, we still have to finish what we're going there to do.

There's plenty of time left for it to all go wrong.

"I'm an accomplice now," I whisper. "Murder. Grand theft auto. Probably some other stuff I can't think of right now?—"

"That's the least of your worries at this point," Ivan says grimly. He doesn't look away from the road, and I stare at him blankly, wondering if I hit my head harder than I thought.

" Murder is the least of my worries?" My voice rises to a higher pitch, and Ivan lets out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry," he says finally. "I'm not trying to diminish it. And I suppose I'm a little numb to all of this, after so long. But before too long, we'll be in Vegas, and we'll scrub everything well enough that the law won't be able to catch us. And Bradley, local police—those I'm not afraid of. But?—"

He trails off, and something in my stomach clenches painfully at the thought that he is afraid of something. Ivan, to me, seems almost invincible. I've never known anyone who lives the way he does, unapologetically and, until today, seemingly fearlessly. But I can see the pinched white at the corners of his mouth, the look in his eyes that tells me that's not entirely the case.

"I'm afraid of them getting you," he says finally. "My father. Lev, if he's not dead. Hell, even Ani, if he's survived. He's stupid, but he's still a useful enough tool. That scares me. And it should scare you, too, more than any crimes we've committed. Those I can wipe away. But if they catch us before we get to safety?—"

Ivan lets out a heavy breath. "It'll be fine," he murmurs, and I half wonder if he's saying it to me, or to himself. "It'll be okay."

He glances over at me after a moment, the car slowing to only a little over the speed limit. "Can you make it for a while? Until I can find somewhere safe for us to stop?"

My eyes feel heavy. "Can I sleep?"

"You probably shouldn't. If you hit your head?—"

Ivan is still speaking. But the rest of his voice drones away into nothingness, as the heavy fog slides over me, claiming me in the heaviest sleep I've had since Ivan stole me from my apartment.