Page 105 of Shadows of the Past
I wasn’t there when my parents were found or buried, and for me, that was a blessing. My last memory of them is at dinner with Dad cracking jokes about the news anchor, Mom complaining about the gas bill. My uncle is the first family member I’ve seen dead, and nothing could have prepared me for this much blood.
Maksim pulls me out of the house, already working to wipe every camera, every bit of footage from the area. Someone’s helping Aleksandr cover his tracks—there wasn’t a single alert about a car parked out front. If it hadn’t been for my uncle and his final message, we’d have nothing.
I’m still in shock when Max’s voice cuts through.
“I found them. The car’s parked by an old building outside the city.”
?
We regroup with our eight soldiers in the apartment we use as our local base here and start planning.
The layout of the abandoned building is open, with only a few rooms, and the biggest advantage is the isolation. No one will hear the screams or the gunfire. And there will be plenty of both.
Every cell in my body is vibrating, desperate to move, but I know we need a plan. We can’t go in blind, not when their lives are at stake.
“Julia and I will go in first. Jeremy, you take three men and cover the back. Daniel, you’re on the kitchen exit.”
I just nod. We’re armed, every soldier here has our trust, and they all know the girls are the priority.
After Ivan’s death, most of our U.S. soldiers were reassigned to help liberate more victims in other locations. We don’t have a big team, but it’s enough.
I don’t know what we’ll find in there, but all I can see in my mind are my sisters, trapped on a ship, waiting to be trafficked. Aleksandr still has the connections to make that happen.
The air is thick with anticipation, and the only thing that calms me is imagining all the ways I’ll make that snake scream.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you don’t have to go in. I can take the team and get them out myself.”
Of course he doesn’t want me going in there. But he knows as well as I do that there’s no universe where I’m sitting in the car, waiting for him to come back.
“Not a chance,” I say, and I’m proud of how steady my voice is.
“Julia…” My name is a warning.
“I’m not staying in the car, Maksim. I’m going in there, and I’m making sure they get out. If it comes down to it, you get them out first then you come back for me.”
His jaw tightens, and I can see he’s biting back a thousand arguments. But he gets it now, he knows what it means to be a sibling, how that bond doesn’t break just because you’ve spent years apart.
“If it were Victoria in there, what would you do?”
He understands. He knows the girls are innocent, that they shouldn’t have to pay for the bloody past we share with his “cousin.”
No more words. We load up and head for the building, hoping this is where we finally leave the past behind.
?
( I recommend listening to The smallest man who ever lived by Taylor Swift while reading this entire part )
We park two hundred yards out. The place looks like an abandoned colonial house, its scarlet walls faded and cracked. Four more cars are parked nearby, plus an Audi with the license plate number my uncle wrote in blood. That means Aleksandr has at least seven or eight more men than we do. But our people are ex-military; they’ve seen hell in Iran and Afghanistan. The odds aren’t in our favor, but I’m hoping we can get the girls out in time.
Gun in hand, I move toward the house, Max right behind me. There’s a guy at the entrance in cargo pants, beige T-shirt, sunglasses, glued to his phone.
Ay Diosito, thank you for making his soldiers as dumb as he is.
He never even looks up from his screen before I put a bullet between his eyes.
Gunfire cracks from the back of the house, a clear sign that Jeremy’s team has company. I can’t focus on that. All I care about is getting to my sisters, who are in this mess because of me.
A man jumps out and grabs for my gun, but Maksim is on him in a flash. A few punches, and his blade draws a vertical line across the man’s throat.
