Never Tear Us Apart - Complete

Chapter Forty-nine

Dimitri accelerated rapidly while firing question after question in Russian to his grandmother. I could see my man's jaw tense, and the needle on the accelerator inching even higher. I stayed silent, but as Yeva offered more information in their native tongue, I was getting increasingly frustrated. I wanted to know what was going on, goddammit!

Pavel's turned in his seat, starting to mutter instructions to his Guardians when he caught my expression. Appreciating I couldn't speak Russian, he quickly switched to English.

"One Strigoi, so far. Castile has engaged and is holding his own. As soon as we get there, we will exit the van and secure the area. If it is safe, we are to move the ladies to this vehicle. Rose? You and Boris will stay in the van and defend and the ladies if necessary. If there are too many for us to defeat, Boris you're to drive Rose and the women to safety."

I gritted my teeth. It was the standard plan in such situations, but if they thought I was going to stay put and leave my man in danger, then they had another thing coming. If push came to shove, and I sincerely hope it didn't, I would be by Dimitri's side, giving it my all. It wasn't just his family out there; I considered them mine now, too.

But there was no point worrying Dimitri and Pavel by announcing that fact. So I nodded in agreement, keeping my plans to myself and hoping I wouldn't need to enact them.

"We're about three minutes away now," Dimitri said, having also switched to English. "We're going to lose phone reception as we have to go through a tunnel. They're not too far on the other side."

I shuddered. I didn't need Dimitri or Pavel to spell it out. One of the first things we learned in Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection was to avoid long tunnels whenever possible when trip planning. They were a notorious hideout for Strigoi, impervious to sunlight during daylight hours. Even older style tunnels had air circulation service rooms and pedestrian emergency exits that were rarely checked. They were the perfect location for Strigoi and were often used as an impromptu den for Strigoi on the move. No one was saying it, but the fact a Strigoi had happened upon Eddie and the Belikova ladies so close to a tunnel was unlikely to be a coincidence, so we could only hope there was not a whole nest of Strigoi based there.

"The tunnel is fairly straight, and traffic is light. I'm going to take it as fast as I can," my Russian God declared.

He said goodbye to Yeva, instructing her to keep ringing the number and we'd answer as soon as we had cell coverage again.

Thankfully there were dual parallel tunnels, one for each direction, so we didn't have to factor in oncoming traffic. Dimitri centered the van between the two lanes, put the high-beams on the car and stepped up the pace even further. We were pretty much low flying through the tunnel. Dimitri and Pavel both paying close attention out the windscreen, the guardians on each side of the vehicle watching the sides for anything unusual.

"Car ahead," Pavel noted tersely, Dimitri grunting in acknowledgment. He immediately dimmed the headlights and moved into the correct lane to overtake the slow-moving vehicle. Once we'd passed, he moved back into the center of the two lanes, switching the lights back onto high beam.

"We're about halfway now," he said after what seemed like about half an hour. It was more like a minute and a half, but this tunnel just seemed to go on forever. But much as I would breathe a sigh of relief when we were through it, I was also terrified at what we might find at the other end.

Ten minutes was a long time fighting a Strigoi, and I could only hope that Eddie was still holding his own. The alternative that Eddie might meet his end on the side of a freeway so far from home was simply too horrific to consider – and that was before I contemplated what might happen to Yeva, Olena and Sonya if Eddie were unsuccessful fending off the Strigoi, or if more had appeared.