The screech of tires woke me. A strong and heavy scent of smoke filled the car, as I ducked in the backseat of the black SUV. I averted my stare.
Gunfire erupted from every side. The driver U.S. Marshal Stanford, who had been rather quiet for the past several hours, bled profusely from the chest, gasping and moaning, struggling to breathe.
I couldn’t do much from the backseat. The second agent, U.S. Marshal Blakely, who had been seated on the passenger side of the vehicle was now slumped over from a bullet to the head.
The dark-haired driver gasped for breath. “Hold on,” he shouted, his foot stomping on the gas as he steered us into the men with guns blazing, ramming into one of the black SUV’s before backing up and doing it again.
My body jolted around in the SUV. My heart hammered in my chest.
The driver hit the vehicle’s gas hard in reverse. I glanced over my shoulder out the broken back window as we catapulted past the men, the vehicles, and kept going away from the men who wanted me dead.
The pounding in my heart hadn’t ceased. The moment of agony stretching onward. I wanted to escape, to reach for the door and throw myself outside into the unknown and pray that I could outrun the bastards. Nearly twenty hours ago, they’d wanted me in their possession like property, and Franco wanted to marry me. Now bullets were spraying all around me. It seemed he changed his mind about the arranged marriage.
While I wanted to be brave, I was terrified. Shaking profusely in the back of the vehicle, I crawled onto the floor in a ball, sobbing as the SUV continued its course in reverse. U.S. Marshal Stanford no longer gasped for breath. He too was slumped over like U.S. Marshal Blakely, not offering me the least bit of protection.
I needed to get my shit together. I hadn’t come this far, escaped the Russian mafia only to wind up dead in the middle of nowhere.
My arm stretched out in an attempt to unfasten the U.S. Marshal’s weapon. He no longer had any use for it. My fingers stretched, fiddling with the holster from my position on the floor, the vehicle still hauling backward toward who the hell knew what. With a hard thud, the vehicle jolted and bounced, the suspension made me feel like we were on a springboard.
What the hell did they hit? I didn’t dare glance up. The men and their gunshots sounded further in the distance, faded and forgotten. Except they wouldn’t have given up unless he’d injured them and forced them unable to follow when he hit the vehicles.
I couldn’t quite remember how many impacts I had felt, at least three. Had there been four collisions? My body still jarred, my neck sore, and my stomach ached, but that had more to do with terror than anything else.
I carefully peered up, glancing out the back window.
Shit. We were heading toward a ravine.
“Stop! You have to stop the truck!” I didn’t know why I screamed it at Stanford. He was dead. He couldn’t help me. His foot remained like lead on the pedal, refusing to lighten up.
I couldn’t tell how far the drop was, but the grass was gone, and there were mountains in the distance. It didn’t look promising.
Forgoing the gun, I was out of time. I reached for the handle of the back door and popped it open. The grass rushed by, the crisp winter air hit my cheeks. I had to do this if I wanted a chance at survival, and I did, more than anything. I wanted a second chance at life.
I climbed with haste from the floor to position myself on the seat. I took two quick breaths before flinging myself out of the vehicle, hearing the crunch of metal down below.
I rolled as best I could out of the truck. My cheeks burned, my knees ached, and I had a terrible headache, but I was alive.
Gasping for breath, I lay staring up at the sky, grateful to still be alive.
After several seconds, I pulled myself from my reverie and stalked toward the ravine, staring down at the ledge where the vehicle had gone. Down below, the SUV lay on its ceiling, crushed. A part of me wanted to go down and make sure both U.S. Marshals were dead, but I already knew the answer, they’d died saving my life.