her, Maya cussed in a hiss, shooting another look into the mirror.
Violet glanced through the back window to find the black car was mere inches from their back bumper. While they’d hit the highway, Violet didn’t think the roads were good enough for this kind of fast driving.
“What was that?” Kolya asked.
“I broke a fucking nail when I shifted into last gear,” Maya snapped.
Kolya went deadly silent.
Out of the corner of her eye, Violet watched Maya frown and glance down at her fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.
Her nails, natural and clipped short, were fine.
“Where are you now?” Kolya finally asked.
Maya rattled off a location.
“Next exit is in two miles,” Kolya said. “Take it and hit the safe house.”
“Kolya—”
“I watched you take your nails off last night,” he said quietly. “They’re too short to break. You really shouldn’t lie to me, dushka. Hit the safe house.”
The call clicked off, and Violet’s grip on her phone tightened.
“Is that Kaz?” Maya asked, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Yeah,” Violet replied.
“Can I have the phone, please?”
Violet handed it over without asking why Maya wanted it.
“Kaz,” Maya said, her usual cheeriness gone as she spoke, “let Konstantin know that if he’s behind Kolya, he should probably pick up the fucking pace.”
With that, she handed the phone back to Violet.
“Sit tight and hold on to something,” Maya said, “I don’t have time to slow down for this exit with the way he’s on my ass right now.”
“Everything is fine,” Kaz said, his dark tenor calming Violet’s frayed nerves.
“Is it?” she asked.
“It will be.”
That was the last thing Violet heard him say before Maya was taking the curving exit ramp fast. Right behind them, the black car followed. Just as their car hit the sharpest point of the turn, Violet felt the hit.
It lurched their car forward with enough force to send the back end spinning sideways.
The surprise tap from the black car scared the fucking hell out of Violet, and she dropped the phone to the floor. Her heart found her throat as Maya somehow managed to keep the fucking vehicle from falling into a total spin, and then corrected it so they were straight again and coming out of the ramp into a more residential area.
Violet wanted to grab the phone, but she would have to take her seat belt off, and given that they had just been hit from behind, she seriously believed it could happen again. She did not need to be unbuckled when that happened.
But the phone call was still connected.
That she could see.
That was all Kaz asked for.
Violet’s gaze snapped back and forth between the phone on the floor, the road in front of them, and the car driving way too close to their ass end. Maya never once took her eyes off the road as she took turn after turn, weaving through street after street.
They passed neighborhoods and apartment complexes.
A schoolyard with children playing safely behind a chain link fence.
“Almost,” Maya murmured, more to herself it seemed.
The black car wasn’t giving up, apparently. It didn’t matter how fast Maya drove or the many streets she took in what seemed like an effort to confuse their pursuers, the car behind them never faltered.
Violet knew at least one person in the car was Vito.
She wondered who else was with him.
Was it someone who knew these streets like Maya did?
Someone who knew Chicago?
Another minute passed, and Violet realized they were in an area a lot less dense with houses than it had been. More trees, more space between homes, and more privacy.
“How far behind us do you think they are?” Violet asked.
Maya didn’t even ask who she meant. “Kaz and Konstantin? About five minutes. And they’re not coming from behind.”
“And Kolya?”
She didn’t answer, her gaze cutting from Violet’s face to the road ahead of them before she jerked the wheel hard to the side, taking them off the road and onto the large patch of gravel.
Violet blinked and took a hard breath at the sight of a black Hummer coming straight at them.
Except it bypassed them.
Even as Maya hit the brakes, and the tires slid and screeched on snow and gravel, she still heard the smash of metal as the Hummer hit the black car head-on.
“For fuck’s sake.”
The curse was out of Kaz’s mouth as they drove up to the scene in front of them. A totaled car sat in the middle of the road, while Kolya’s Hummer was some feet away with barely a scratch. As Konstantin rolled to