Page 61 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

The hair on the back of my neck rises suddenly, like a cat before it attacks. A change in the air pressure, a gut instinct that’s never led me astray, quite like the one that makes animals go still before an earthquake.

Something’s—

A blast tears the road open fifty meters ahead, a fist of fire and asphalt punching upward into the evening sky, and the shockwave hits the car like a wall swung from the side. Windows shatter inward in a hail of glass teeth, the car lurching, metal screaming against metal as the Grigori fights the wheel.

Smoke floods the compressed air, thick and chemical, dust and pulverized stone raining down like the sky itself has come apart. My ears keep ringing, a high flat tone that swallows every other sound, and for one unbearable second, everything—all the calculations, the exits—goes dark, replaced by nothing but animal noise and Zara’s name in my throat.

“Zara—”

Smoke swallows the car whole.

Chapter 23 - Zara

Everything hurts like a fucking bitch.

I don’t know where the blast came from; one moment my eyes were on my husband, my heart warming to just the sight of him and what he’d done for me, and the next—

The blast split apart the ground in front of the car like a fist through a wall. The dust makes everything blurry, but I know for a fact I’m not in the car anymore.

I am on the hard ground, my knees scraped, and something in my chest sends sharp spikes of pain with each shuddery inhale.

I don’t know how I got there. My hands are bloodied and smarting as they’re scrubbed raw against the pavement, dust in my mouth, ears ringing.

“Zara, Zara!”

I turn to my left, listening to Mikhail’s voice call for me. He limps towards me, anxiously checking my arms, body, feet, everything. “You’re hurt? Is it painful? Where—”

“Mikhail,” I call his name tearfully, raising a scraped hand to his cheek and wincing at the touch. “I’m okay, it’s just a little hurt. I’m fine. Where are—”

My face darts to the car standing only a few meters from the inflamed crash, the door on my father's side open, not torn from its hinges.

“Where are Mom and Dad? Are they still—”

“There’s no one in the car, or around us. We’re all alone on this road,” Mikhail tells me roughly, chest rising and falling harshly.

I scan the street in every direction—the narrow pavement, the curve of the road ahead. Nothing. No figure moving away from the car. Just the street, complete and breathtaking indifference to the fact that my parents have just disappeared into thin air.

I tear myself from Mikhail’s grasp and try to stand, wheezing as pain shrieks from both my knees. Forcing myself to walk towards the car and ignoring Mikhail’s calls, and I scream as the car bursts into fire.

“Mom,Dad!” My scream tears from my throat as Mikhail’s arms wrap around my stomach, pulling me further away from the scene. The voice leaving my throat belongs to an eight-year-old who has just been left again and cannot make it make sense.

“Theyaren’tin the fucking car, Zara! No one was! I checked it before I came to you,” Mikhail pants in my ear, trying to calm my flailing limbs.

“That can’t fucking be! Are you fucking insane?! They were rightthereand—and—”

Something slaps my mouth shut, and I spit it out into my hand. It’s a little paper; I nearly throw it away before the words catch my eye.

‘The Khans were never yours to find. You were warned to stop digging. You didn't listen.’

“They were waiting,” Mikhail shouts into his comms, but his voice is as distant as it can be. “The blast has to be a fucking signal. Someone communicated our route and our timing.”

‘You'renext.’

My sobs turn into hiccups, all the fight draining out of my body. My parents have disappeared into thin air, and the ringing in my ears slowly dissolves into a nothingness.

You're next.

A distant screech pierces through the air and Mikhail turns around, jostling me with him. A black tinted sedan stands only a few meters from us, and the driver’s door opens to reveal him.