Page 13 of The Allure of Ruins

“Oh, thank…you,” he said, having started out with sarcasm, but stopping because something had caught his interest as we reached the street we had to cross to get to the pub.

Even though the snow was falling steadily now, it had warmed up a fraction, which was always strange.

What was even stranger was that after a total of nine years in the city, I could tell that.

“Is something wrong?” I asked him.

He tipped his head toward the entrance of the pub, and I saw the men there in trench coats, scarves, gloves, and trapper hats. They looked like they were freezing to death.

“That’s probably the protection for the men waiting for us inside.”

“Why would FBI agents need protection?” he asked. “From whom?”

“Whom,” I repeated.

“Whom is correct,” he declared. “Heathen. But FBI agents don’t need protection.”

“Gen Antonov is scary,” I promised him. “Or, if not Gen, then whoever else is hunting for me.”

“No. Still not buying it,” he said, his eyes never leaving the men across the street even as he yanked me sideways after him. “Walk with me, and we’ll see what?—”

“Stop!” someone yelled.

“Okay, so I think you’re probably right,” I said drolly as I ran beside him.

He didn’t even snarl at me, which told me how worried he was.

Taking a right down an alley, I was pleased that it was a full one—lots of restaurants, and the last one on the left was a nightclub because people were coming out the door scantily clad and immediately pulling on coats.

It had been a good call to make Janelle change; she would have had her legs freezing off, as one woman we ran by complained.

As soon as we were on the street again, we heard an engine revving, and then Colton was tugging me after him again to the left. Bullets hit a window we ran past, then brick, making small pieces of mortar fly off the walls.

We ducked down a second alley and stopped as Colton leaned out to peer around the corner.

“Let’s split up,” I suggested. “That way?—”

“The fuck we will,” he replied angrily.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I insisted, trying to pull my hand free of his grip.

“Stop that,” he ordered, scowling, his eyes like molten gold. They changed to the darker, deeper, nearly brown color when he was mad. “We stay together. We always stay together.”

“I—”

“Like I would ever let you leave me,” he grumbled, squeezing my hand for a moment.

What?

What was he saying to me?

Why did he always include the me when I was trying to go? He’d done it the first day we met, and now here it was again. I had to wonder if he even knew when the word tumbled out of his mouth.

His head turned to the right, staring over my shoulder, and I did the same, taking in the large black SUV coming fast down the alley.

We stood at the same time, then veered left, bolting down the snow-covered sidewalk toward the intersection. A van was suddenly so close, too close, and even as Colton changed directions, the door was thrown open.

“Hurry, get in,” the woman there demanded, standing in the door, hunched over, holding out her badge.

Colton shoved me forward, putting me in the van first, then followed quickly. She threw the door closed just as the van was strafed with bullets.

“Oh dear God!” she shouted, sitting down hard across from us as the driver put the van in gear and peeled away from the curb.

“What the hell is going on?” Colton barked at her.

“I’m Special Agent Veda Walker, and we’ve been keeping an eye on Gen Antonov since Sergei Csokas was released from prison two weeks ago.”

“I don’t know who Csokas is, and I would have thought Gen was in jail because—fuck!” I shrieked as the van was hit on the side Colton and I were on, sending us both tumbling onto the floor.

“For fuck’s sake, Gabe!” Walker shouted at the driver.

“Fuck off, Veda,” he roared back. “I have no idea where to go to get us—I thought you said we had goddamn backup!”

Colton crawled on his hands and knees to the driver and unclipped the guy’s seat belt. “Hold the wheel until I have it and then dive over there,” he ordered, pointing at the passenger seat.

“Are you kidding me? You’re gonna get us killed.”

“No, you’re gonna get us killed,” he bellowed. “Now move!”

Gabe did as directed, holding on to the steering wheel until Colton had a grip on it, and then dove toward the passenger side as Colton took his seat.

“Grab something!” he yelled at us as he hit the brakes hard.

Through the front window, I saw the other SUV blow by us through the intersection, other cars barely missing it, and then flip a U-turn farther down the street. Colton immediately backed us up and took a hard left, accelerating fast.

“Speak!” he commanded Walker.

She was taking shaky breaths in and out to try and calm herself, and Gabe clipped himself in as I did the same.

“Give her a second,” I pleaded.

“Fuck that,” he retorted as bullets hit the back of the van. “We’ll be dead before she tells us what the fuck is going on.”

“What was that?” I called up to him.

“That’s an AK-47,” he replied, taking a right that tipped the van a bit before it righted itself. “And we’re gonna die if I can’t lose these assholes.”

“They can’t afford to kill us,” Walker stated. “At least not Paxton. With him dead, Csokas will not be getting any intel about his diamonds.”

“Could you please explain all this?” I asked her.

She took a nervous breath. “Diamonds went missing the day you and nine others escaped from Gen Antonov. We know he made sex slaves out of the ten of you, but you’re the only one anyone can find.”

That made me terribly happy, and there was a warmth in my stomach thinking about everyone else out there free. I hoped they were all happy.

“Basically, they all got off the planes at their destination and disappeared. None of them had families, all foster kids like you, Paxton, and so they all went poof into the ether.”

“That’s good.”

“You’re the one who kept your name. You’re the one who could be tracked. Why did you do that?”

“Because I had too much time and schooling put into my life to disappear.”

“Well, Agent Lattimer should have kept you there, or at least examined that drive you gave him before he let you get on a plane.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Antonov is a very untrusting man who recorded every horrific detail of the crimes he committed and planned for his boss, Sergei Csokas.”

“As I said, I have no idea who that is.”

“That’s because Gen was paid well to look like the guy in charge of the Kulich crime family in Los Angeles.”

“But you’re saying Gen wasn’t in charge?”

“No. He worked for Csokas, who in turn worked for Nickolai Rokov back in St. Petersburg—in Russia. Rokov has since moved to Miami, and he heads the syndicate.”

“Go on.”

“What the fuck, man,” Gabe roared from the passenger seat. “Where the fuck are you—Veda, I have no idea where this madman is taking us!”

I looked out the front window, as there were no others to check. “Oh, this is Wacker Drive. We’re fine.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” he yelled at me. “I don’t see this anywhere on—what the fuck?”

I turned back to Walker. “So the diamonds Erast thought were in the safe when I opened it belonged to Csokas.”

“Correct. After Lattimer reviewed the drive you gave him, he was able to pick up Antonov and everyone who worked for him. Antonov then made a deal with us and went into protective custody and eventually WITSEC, and Csokas went to jail. He couldn’t roll on Rokov—he was still in Russia at the time, and the CIA can’t pick up Russian citizens, no matter what the movies tell you. ”

“You could have kidnapped him, though.”

“Yes, but once Csokas was arrested, Rokov cut ties with him.”

I nodded. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Where the fuck are we?” Gabe ranted at Colton.

“Lower Wacker Drive,” I told him.

He twisted around in his seat so he could see me. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“There are three levels of Wacker,” I began enlightening the agents. “The one we’re on now, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re gonna end up on Lower Lower Wacker, and basically, God help you then.”

“I don’t—my GPS can’t even get a location under all this fuckin’ concrete!”

We came to a sudden jolting stop.

“The fuck are you doing?” Gabe shrieked at Colton.

“Do you see anyone?”

He was quiet for a moment, checking the side mirror, and then after another moment, got out of the van and checked around before getting back in.

“What the hell, man?”

Colton shrugged. “One wrong anything, and like Pax said, you’re way down there on Lower Lower Wacker.

Even people who’ve lived here all their lives can get mixed up now and then.

If you’re from out of town, you’re fucked.

It’ll take ’em a minute, or several, to get outta there, but we need to be gone when they do. ”

“Oh, thank God,” Gabe said with a heavy sigh.

“Where are we going?” Colton asked.

“The FBI office on Roosevelt Road, please.”

Colton glanced at me over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I assured him.

“Come up here and tell me. I can’t see you from here.”

Gabe was more than willing to trade places with me.