Istep over the bodies. My father and his men have reached the subterranean hallway door, soft voices moving from within. My heart is in my throat. I can’t breathe. My shoes plant in pools of blood, and I tighten the silencer fixed to the end of my Glock.
What if I’m too late?
Why have I let my father lead me down this path?
He’s just there, just ahead. It would be easy, in a way. I could shut off my mind, my consciousness. I could raise this gun, touch the trigger, and watch him crumple. Zane and Maya could be saved.
I could be saved.
“Son.” He looks at me over his shoulder, gesturing me closer. “Remember what I said. Lebedev is the target.”
Meaning Maya and Zane can die for all he cares, so long as Yvan does not emerge from this room alive. Hatred boils deep inside of me. I’ve never realized just how much I despise my father. I’ve been the soldier too long.
I can’t be anymore.
They kick in the door.
Gunfire erupts instantly. A few of my father’s men go down as expected. But Artur takes a hit as well, staggering back into the doorway. Adrenaline seethes through me. I forget my own injuries. My own fear. My own anger.
Because she’s here.
Zane.
Her eyes meet mine. She’s bound to a chair, effectively helpless, Maya beside her. But they’re both alive. Relief catches me in the ribs, an unexpected wind. Until Lebedev, a dark, black-silk slip of a man, rises to his feet and touches the barrel of his pistol to Zane’s temple. His expression is vividly cool, even as his men shout and fall around him.
I flashback to the day they first brought Zane into HQ. I was there, in a room much like this one, when they dragged her beaten and bound down the stairs. I remember the fire that struck up inside of me, the unstoppable inferno that shouldn’t have come in reaction to a woman who had left my life five years before, and not looked back.
Soldier, I had told myself. I iced my veins, schooled my expression. I watched as Zane and her father were abused into submission. I obeyed when I was ordered to make her my wife. I was a loyal son. A soulless man. Without conscience, without purpose—without love.
I am not that man anymore.
My father strides through his men, his pistol rising neatly. In the time it will take for his bullet to strike Lebedev, Zane will be blasted with a bullet of her own. And Maya will no doubt go next.
I raise my pistol.
Crack!
The scream that peals from my father’s lips is animal. I know him well enough to recognize it as surprise more than pain. The gun flies from his grip and skitters across the floor, landing at Lebedev’s feet.
My father cradles his mangled, bloody hand to his chest. His eyes go to me, and his face is full of absolute murder. Both sides are evenly matched—too evenly matched. As the blood roaring in my ears quiets, I realize nearly every man in this room is dead. There are only a few guards left on either side, all gathered close to their commander and awaiting orders. It’s a powder keg, and I’m in the middle.
“You fucking bastard,” my father snarls. His men aren’t sure who to aim their weapons at. Lebedev—or me.
“Well. Isn’t this interesting?” Yvan Lebedev speaks with a sleek calm I can’t help but envy. He shifts his pistol toward my father and cocks it.
It wasn’t armed?Alarm bells are going off in my head. What kind of a fucking gamble was that? He wasn’t even going to shoot Zane? It occurs to me now that she too is exhibiting a level of calm that doesn’t quite align with her life being in mortal danger. Her eyes meet mine, pointed and wide. She’s trying to tell me something. I shift my gaze past her to Maya, whose expression is set in a grim, resolute smile. Her ribs are bandaged, I note, almost peripherally.
And Lebedev hasn’t killed them.
Why?
“We have more men up there,” my father spits. “And more on the way. You really think that now we’ve found your little snake pit, we can’t smoke you out? Tell your men to stand down, and we’ll end it here.”
Lebedev chuckles. “That’s what I never liked about you Sokolovs—you’re so predictable. This little snake pit stretches further than you could possibly guess. And anyway, I’m quite confident your short stint in power is near its end.” He jerks his chin at one of his remaining men, who picks his way over the bodies on the floor—and cuts Maya free.
What the hell is going on?
He cuts Zane free as well, and the two women stand, looking worse for wear, but alive and free, beside Lebedev. Maya and Zane lock hands, and the picture of them there, together, fills me with something I thought long lost.
