Page 97 of Frozen Heart

The dark room suddenly lit up orange as flames licked across an entire tabletop.Shit!The chemicals must have been flammable. Fire was dripping down onto the floor, spreading to other tables. The workers began to scream and run and choking gray smoke began to fill the air.

The workers spilled out into the hallway. It was chaos, now: the whole place was still dark, with only flames and a few flashlight beams to light it up, and already the air was becoming hazy. My lungs were burning and like everyone else, I followed instinct.Get out, get out!

But as we reached the end of the hallway, the guard at the door raised his gun and yelled at us in Russian. The workers ducked in fear and retreated.

Oh fuck.Spartak couldn’t let the police find out about this place. The guard would be under orders: don’t let anyone out, no matter what.

They’d let us all die down here.

73

RADIMIR

We’d circled rightaround the dance floor and there was no sign of Bronwyn or Spartak.Where the hell are they?!I tried to push towards the center again, but the crowd was packed so tight I could barely move. I couldn’t even scare a path by waving my gun because there was nowhere for people to moveto.

And then it got worse. My nose wrinkled and I whipped my head around to stare at Alexei. He nodded, looking worried.Smoke.

You could see the realization spread through the crowd. Then someone started to cough, and the panic began, people’s fears kicking in even before the smoke was really visible. The crowd surged towards the doors. But the guards at the doors wouldn’t open them: they were under orders because Spartak knew I was here. I ground my teeth.This is on me. People are going to die because I came here.

And Istillcouldn’t find Bronwyn. The smoke seemed to be drifting up from somewhere below. Was there another floor? I couldn’t find any stairs leading down and we’d tried every door.Where the hell is she?

There was a gunshot and Alexei shoved me aside. I heard a bullet pass between us. As the screaming started, I grabbed Alexei’s shoulder and ran with him to the bar that lay along one side of the hexagonal club. We dived over the bar and crashed head-first to the floor behind it. I got my foot trapped between two mini-fridges and twisted it trying to get it free. Pain blossomed in my ankle, and I cursed and finally got it loose. As more bullets passed over our heads, we knelt and peeked over the top of the bar.

Spartak and a handful of men were firing at us from across the club, not caring who they hit. The gunfire finally cleared some space on the dance floor, with people retreating to the edges and up onto the balconies, but that only made the crushes there worse. And the smoke was thickening: it was getting difficult to breathe and it was getting hotter, too: there was a full-on fire happening somewhere.

More bullets hit the bar. Alexei and I shot back, but we were hopelessly outnumbered. If we didn’t get out of here, we were dead. I saw Alexei’s jaw tighten and knew that he was thinking abouthiswife, out in the alley. The guilt crushed my heart in a fist. He’d been out of the Bratva, he’d been safe, and I’d dragged him back into it. Now he might never see his wife again. And I might never see mine.

74

BRONWYN

I doubled over,coughing. The smoke was so thick, now, that we could barely see. The room where the fire had started was an inferno and the flames were spreading down the hallway. The workers were screaming, hysterical. But there was still no way out. The guard at the door had tied a cloth over his mouth to help him breathe through the smoke and even though he was clearly panicked, he wasn’t moving. He probably knew Spartak would execute him if he let us escape. It actually made a grim kind of sense: Spartak could buy more trafficked women to work in the drug factory, rebuild what the fire damaged...but he couldn’t recover if the police found the place and arrested him.He’ll let us all die.

And it was my fault: before I’d come along, these women were prisoners but at least they were alive. I leaned back against the wall, my eyes streaming from the smoke, my joints burning so much from all the stair climbing and running around that I could barely stay standing.

I was dimly aware that Liliya was speaking in Russian to two of the workers, trying to reassure them. She pointed in mydirection. And then, to my horror, all three of them turned to me.

I blinked at them.Oh shit.They expectedmeto think of something.

One of the workers grabbed my sleeve. “Please!I have child!”

I stared at her, frozen in fear. Now they werealllooking at me.What do I do? I don’t know what to do!I remembered Spartak’s words. I wasn’t a leader. I wasn’tanything.

But as more and more women clustered around me, I felt something shift inside. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a leader. It didn’t matter that I ran a freakin’ bookstore. It didn’t matter if I was scared. They needed me.

I took a shaky breath and thought. “Okay,” I said at last, my voice croaky from the smoke. “This is what we’re going to do.”

I laid it out and then Liliya translated my plan into Russian for the workers who didn’t speak English. As it spread through the crowd of workers, I slipped a hand down my dress and pulled out the switchblade. I pressed the button, and the blade shot out. I swallowed...and stepped out into the hallway, keeping the knife hidden behind my back.

Down at the far end, the guard was still trying to keep order. He was panicking and choking on smoke himself, the sweat running down his face as he swung his gun left and right, warning everyone to keep back.

I started to run. I heard footsteps following and checked over my shoulder: Liliya was following behind me. She gave me a nervous thumbs up and I nodded.

At first, the guard didn’t notice me: lots of people were running back and forth, trying to get away from the flames, and he was more worried about what was happening down athisend of the hallway. When I was halfway to him, he seemed to see me...but he still wasn’t too concerned. A whole crowd of frantic workers were between me and him.

I pushed myself to go faster. My only chance was to reach him before he realized I was a threat. My knees felt as if bone was grinding on bone, sending white-hot pain shooting up my body, but I kept going.

The crowd magically opened up as I reached it, the workers dodging back out of the way at the last second as we’d planned.Nowthe guard paid attention. He swung his gun up, faster than I’d anticipated.Shit!I was still a few steps away?—