Rejected: A love story

Chapter 169: The threat 3

The next twenty minutes seemed like an eternity. The smallest sound from outside the apartment sent Viktoria into panic mode. However, she remained seated on the floor, leaning against the couch with Mateo in her arms tightly, causing him to move along with her. In her right hand, Viktoria held the weighty glass vase. The knuckles of her fingers went white while her palms sweated.

Mateo was now silent because he sensed that the atmosphere around them had turned tense and cold. With the teddy bear clutched to his chest, he continued to stare at the door.

There came a sudden tap from the other side of the door. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Viktoria became motionless immediately; she did not move an inch, nor did she breathe a single time as she raised the vase up and prepared herself to fight whoever was at the door.

"Viktoria?" a quiet voice called from the other side.

She didn’t answer, she waited for the only thing that mattered.

"Bluebird," the voice whispered.

Viktoria let out a breath that sounded like a sob, she stood up on shaky legs and pushed the suitcase to the side, struggling with the locks. Once she had managed to unlock the door, she saw Alex standing on the other side. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket anymore; his shirt was crumpled, and he seemed exhausted. Viktoria saw fear reflected in his eyes, just like in hers.

"Get your bags. We have to go. Right now," he said, stepping inside and quickly locking the door behind him. He didn’t look around at all, ignoring the luxurious interior. Instead, he walked towards the window and moved the curtain slightly aside.

He turned to her, his face very serious. "Turn off your phone, Viktoria. Right now. Completely off."

Viktoria reached for her purse. "I put it on silent..."

"Of course not, Viktoria!" Alex replied sternly. "But kill the power anyway. If they’re listening, they’ll track our location via the signal. Even with a dark screen, they could get our coordinates with their GPS. Shut it down or even better, remove the battery – then we’ll blend in with the environment."

With that, Viktoria kept holding the button until the screen of the smartphone became completely dark. Some odd sensation crept up her spine when she turned it off. It felt like she was cutting her last link to the world.

"What about my laptop?" she asked, pointing to the desk where the scary messages had appeared.

"Leave it," Alex said. He grabbed her small travel bag. . "In case there is some kind of Internet monitoring in this room, they’ll assume you’re just sitting there and staring at the screen. We’re going downstairs on foot. Forget any elevators because they have surveillance cameras and I’m sure as hell that someone’s watching the screens now."

Alex walked over to the sofa and gently scooped up Mateo. The boy was half-asleep and confused. "Hold on tight to my neck, buddy," Alex whispered. "We’re going to play a game. It’s called ’The Quietest Mouse.’ Can you do that for me?"

Mateo nodded sleepily and buried his face in Alex’s shoulder.

They left the room and entered the hallway. Each step sounded louder than it should. They came to the massive steel door leading to the stairs and entered. They took twelve flights of concrete stairs down, and Viktoria’s lungs hurt as if they would burst any moment, even her legs wanted to collapse, but she did not stop. She could not stop. She could not get that image of Mateo dressed in his pyjamas out of her mind.

They opened the massive door at the end and emerged into a dim alley filled with garbage. There was a silver car parked in the alley, its engine still idling.

"Go in the back and lie on the floor," Alex instructed.

She climbed into the rear seats underfoot area along with Mateo. Alex entered the car and took the driver’s position. He switched on the headlights only when they had gone two blocks far from their location.

As they were making the turn, Viktoria could not help looking through the rear window. Her blood ran cold at the sight before her eyes. An enormous black SUV with tinted windows approached the hotel’s front entrance. Two men in bulky dark coats got out. These were definitely not regular guests of the hotel. They seemed to move with military precision

"They were right there," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Alex, who are these people? This isn’t about a business deal. Normal businessmen don’t do this."

Alex had a death grip on the steering wheel, making his hands shake. He kept looking in the mirrors, driving down back streets and around in circles to make sure that nobody was following them.

"This I’m not sure about yet," Alex admitted. "But what we’re dealing with here is really serious stuff. Hacking into Nathan’s personal office file system and locating your hotel room within the hour requires both money and intelligence. And trust me when I say that this is personal, Viktoria. It’s someone who wants you gone and wants to make sure that Nathan believes he’s going insane."

"What about Natasha?" Viktoria wondered aloud, recalling how furious Nathan had been talking about her.

"She may seem intelligent," Alex explained, "but she is certainly not a genius. Natasha is simply too much of a loudmouth. No, whoever set this up knows what they’re doing. This whole thing is orchestrated by some shadow player behind the scenes."

"Where are we going?" Viktoria asked, looking at the dark trees as they left the bright lights of the city behind. "We can’t go to the police?"

"No," Alex said firmly. "If these people can get into Nathan Keith’s office, they probably have someone at the police station too. We’re going to a house Nathan owns out in the woods. He bought it years ago and almost forgot about it. He’s at his city penthouse tonight, drinking himself to sleep because he thinks you betrayed him. He won’t go near the country house."

"Why that house?"

"Because it’s old-school," Alex explained. "The security system there isn’t connected to the internet. It’s all hard-wired. No one can hack it from a laptop. It’s the only place I know where they can’t see you through a camera or a phone."

"Nathan will fire you for this," Viktoria said quietly. "He told you to get me out of the city. He didn’t tell you to hide me in his own home."

Alex looked at her in the mirror. For the first time, the fear in his eyes was replaced by something else. Guilt.

"I’ve worked for Nathan for a long time," Alex said. "I saw what happened when Fiona died. It broke him. He stopped being a person and became a machine. When you walked in, I saw him come back to life for a second. And then I saw those photos and I watched him turn back into stone. I knew in my gut those photos were too perfect. Nothing in life is that perfect. I’m not doing this for the job anymore, Viktoria. I’m doing it because I won’t be part of a lie that ruins a good woman and a little boy."

Viktoria looked down at Mateo. He had finally fallen asleep, his head resting on her lap. She looked at her own hands. She thought about her husband, Nikolai, back in Russia. He was probably sleeping peacefully, thinking she was just having a long meeting. If he knew what was happening, he would burn this whole city down to find them.

But she couldn’t call him. Not yet. She had to figure out who was doing this first. If she called Nikolai now, she would be leading the killers right to him.

"Alex," she said, her voice sounding different—harder, colder. "Once we get to this house and Mateo is safe... I want to look at those files again. I want to find the person who took that photo of my son."

"We will," Alex promised. "But first, we have to disappear."

They drove for another hour in silence. The city lights were gone, replaced by tall, dark pines that looked like ghosts in the moonlight. Finally, Alex turned down a long, gravel driveway hidden behind a thick hedge. At the end of the path sat a large stone house. It looked lonely and cold, but to Viktoria, it looked like a fortress.

Alex killed the engine.

"We’re here," he said. "Stay behind me while I open the door. And remember, keep your phone off. Don’t even think about turning it on to check the time."

Viktoria nodded. She grabbed her bag and stepped out into the cold night air. She looked up at the stars and made a silent promise. She wasn’t Fiona. She was a mother, and anyone who threatened her child was about to find out exactly who she really was.

As Alex fumbled with the heavy brass keys, a light flickered in an upstairs window.

"Alex," Viktoria whispered, freezing in place. "You said no one was here."

Alex stopped. He looked up at the window. The light was gone now, but they both saw it.

"I did say that," Alex whispered back, his hand going to the small pocketknife he kept in his belt. "Stay behind me."