Guarded Rebellion (The Baranov Legacy)

31. Lev

31

LEV

T alking about my assignments was only the start of how much I opened up to Eva. It felt right. It was natural to speak freely with her. She’d gone from just a job to my friend, my partner I couldn’t keep my hands off.

Even though Kelly was in the apartment, she gave us space.

I was fine with that. I’d be as possessive as I wanted with Eva because there was no telling how her uncle might react once word got to him that we’d forged a relationship together.

But Eva fussed each time she noticed Kelly hiding in her room.

“She told me she wants to move out and find another dorm room,” she said as we prepared to leave for her first class.

I didn’t need to hear it from Eva. I saw it myself. Kelly left earlier with Rurik tailing her for protection.

“That’s her right,” I reminded Eva as she pulled her coat on.

She frowned, not swayed with what I said. “She told me she doesn’t want charity from me. From the family. To stay here with me. Which is bullshit because the dorm room was destroyed because of me.”

“I can’t blame her.” I sighed at her pissy look. “I’m not arguing, but look at it from her perspective. She is just a nobody, a stranger who can do what she wants with her life. To be viewed as a connection to the Baranov Family, she’s risking the stigma of anything someone might hold against your uncle, against the family.”

“I know, but…”

“She won’t be unprotected.” I let her head out before me into the hallway. “Rurik is with her, from a distance.”

“But I feel like she’s pulling away from me.” She kept her face down as she took my hand. “And I think…”

I gripped her fingers tighter, pulling her to my side. I hated to leave the safety of the apartment, but we had to. She had classes to get to, even if she seemed to be losing interest in her courses. And I needed to be present with her and see what happened with any rivals on campus.

Oleg called her a catalyst, to weed out any clues about whether another family had tried to claim the college as part of their protected territory. I wasn’t a fan of her being used like that, or at all, but so long as I was with her to ensure her safety and happiness, then I would do as the big boss deemed necessary.

But I wonder how she’d feel about his underlying motives for letting her come here…

“What?” I asked her.

“I think she gets kind of sad when she sees… us.”

“Us?” I glanced down at her.

“Yeah. Seeing us together when she’s alone.”

Ah. Eva and I hadn’t gone out of our way to hide how we felt about each other. I was quick to muffle her screams when we made love and fucked hard, but all the touches. The kisses. The smiles—more of hers than mine, but still.

“I wonder if that’s why my mother left, too. Why she took Sonya with her.”

I furrowed my brow. She seldom talked about the woman I never met. Eva’s mother had already left before I started working for the family. “What do you mean?”

“My father couldn’t have loved her. He cared only about having his alcohol and not pissing off my uncle too much so he’d have a lazy, cozy life at that mansion. If she was sick of not having love, if she was jealous of other women in the family settling and having a husband…” She shrugged. “It’s stupid. I’m being silly. Love isn’t something that happens in our world, but…”

I stopped her at the car, framing her face before kissing her. “It can.” I didn’t come out and say those words to her, but I wanted her to know I was coming closer to risking them. “As soon as this danger is over, this mystery about the drugs is solved, I want to tell him.”

She parted her lips in shock.

“I intend to tell your uncle that we’re…” I wasn’t sure how to word it. I was looking at the woman I wanted to protect, possess, and call mine forever.

She didn’t give me a chance to say it, anyway. “Oh, Lev.” She lunged up, kissing me harder.

“After,” I reminded her once I let her step back. “After all this shit is dealt with and we know who’s trying to cause issues.”

She nodded, getting in the car for the ride to campus. “I agree. After. When I’m no longer a target.”

We reached the campus, and I followed her out in the cold gray gloom of this late February day. She frowned when she saw that Kelly wasn’t standing and waiting for her.

I checked my phone. “Rurik said she headed to the library instead and is studying there.”

Eva nodded, masking her sorrow at her new—only—friend pulling away.

I stood at the back of the auditorium as she attended her lecture. Between looking for Bryce, a Petrov, or an Ilyin and consulting with my phone to check the messages of my men reporting in, I felt busier than I wanted to be. Staying alert was a draining routine, and with how long I’d been on edge and worried about someone making good on getting to Eva, I was near burn-out.

“I forgot something in the car,” Eva said once we walked out after this first lecture concluded.

“Do you have time before going to your next class?” I asked.

“No.” She shrugged. “But I’ll just have to be late.”

Walking quickly to stay warm, we reached the parking lot within record time. Few students were coming and going at this hour of the morning, and I mildly mused that many of them were likely sleeping to avoid being out in the cold, gloomy weather.

“I think the car was in the next aisle over,” she said when I started to direct her to the left.

I nodded. I knew where I’d parked my car. But until those two men passed, I wouldn’t feel confident about her heading down that narrow path.

“Lev, it’s?—”

She screamed as the men charged into her and carried her off.

I gritted my teeth, sprinting after them. My gun was out. I lifted it and aimed it at them, steering clear of her, but they turned around a parked van, blocking my range.

“Put her down!” I yelled. “Let her go!”

My brain couldn’t keep up with what my eyes processed. It happened so swiftly. In a matter of seconds, she was whisked away. One moment, she was right there, within reach and walking directly in front of me, then the next, she was rushed away.

“Lev!” she screamed as the man threw her into a van. I ran as it took off, but once they zoomed too far away, I stopped and aimed my gun. Firing with accuracy, I fired at the wheels, the windows. I shot until I was out, but when the vehicle continued to escape without any windows shattering and the tires staying full, I knew I wasn’t dealing with amateurs. This was a rigged car, designed for withstanding danger like this.

“Fuck!” I ran to my car, calling for backup as I went. I didn’t wait for replies, knowing Rurik would hear my message and track me to assist. I would lose precious time trying to mess with my phone any longer.

Instead, my heart racing and my head spinning with anger, I jumped into the SUV the Boss had given me and sped off after them.

They didn’t slow, speeding off campus and into the traffic surrounding it. Weaving past parked cars at the curb, gunning through red and yellow lights, Eva’s abductors used speed and reckless maneuvers to get away.

“You fucking assholes,” I growled. “I’ll see you rotting in hell.”

Tuning out the flurry of emotions that accosted me, I kept my grip tightly locked on the steering wheel and pressed the pedal to the floor. The engine revved and roared, up to the challenge of the high-speed chase, but it wasn’t so easy to stay clearheaded. I raged at the thought of them touching her and daring to hurt her. I panicked at the idea that they could kill her. And I regretted that I wasn’t quicker.

My phone rang, and I jammed my finger on the dash to answer the call. It wasn’t Rurik, but Marcus. “Lev?”

“They took her. I’m on their tail.” I gritted my teeth, careening around a sharp turn to stay with them. Two cars were between us, but I wasn’t losing sight of that black van. Never.

“I’m on them. Call backup and follow me?—”

I didn’t conclude my order to the other soldier. A loud crash deafened me, sending me sliding to the side as a truck barreled into the driver’s side. The dash was crumpled, as was the whole left wall of the SUV. Metal was dented and caved in. Glass shattered. Hit so hard at this speed, my body jolted violently to the middle console. A punch reached me as the airbag was deployed, too, but that wasn’t what stunned me.

Dizzy and jittery from the hard hit, I squinted through the web of the windshield as I watched the van holding Eva get smaller and smaller in the distance.

Blood trickled from my brow where I’d braced myself too late for a smack on the steering wheel. Sound traveled as though I were underwater, murky and distant, but I was alive. I could see. Tinkling bits of the car fell, but it was only the fast pulse that droned in my ears that I could hear.

I groaned, trying to move my aching body. My limbs felt stiff. My nerves were frazzled. From the recent fights I’d been in and now this crash, I felt electrified with too much pain and inflammation.

“Get him,” a man said from outside the bubble of destruction I was trapped in.

Shit. I knew that voice.

A Petrov soldier came into view. It was a blurry, hazy sight that I managed, but I knew without a doubt that I’d faced this man before.

I didn’t know who the man was in Eva and Kelly’s dorm. I had been attacked by Ilyins behind the library. And now, a pair of Petrovs had rammed into me.

Who the fuck was working for whom?

“Get the Baranov,” he instructed his companion.

Wait.

They were walking toward me . Heading to me. Not the car that was holding Eva. She was the Baranov. Not me. Kelly told us about the rumors from Irina that the target on campus was a Baranov.

That’s her. Eva.

But also…

Clarity struck too late. I’d been so stuck in my stupid insecurities that I hadn’t realized they were talking about me . I was a Baranov. I had a different last name as a bastard orphan Oleg had taken under his wing, but I was a Baranov soldier. I was an active member of the Baranov Family.

I was the target. Not Eva. They had been trying to get to me, not her.

“Fuck.” I squirmed, wrestling to slip out of my crushed seat and escape through the passenger side.

They’d taken her to lure me away from campus, from the men on the team I had there as backup. I understood it now. They’d captured Eva knowing I would follow her.

I couldn’t tell who wanted me—the Ilyins or the Petrovs—but all I knew was that I couldn’t let them win. I had to live. I had to survive just long enough to get Eva back to safety.