It was pride. I shouldn't feel it. She was meant to be collateral, leverage, nothing more. But she sat there with her spine straight, and her chin lifted, and I thought... she looks like she belongs here.
I dragged in a breath, tearing my gaze away before it betrayed me. And that was when the glass shattered. The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot. Instinct took over. I moved without thinking, without breathing. I hooked an armaround Emilia, yanking her from her chair and slamming her to the floor beneath me as shards of glass rained down.
A bullet hissed through the air, embedding itself deep in the wall where her head had been.
Chaos exploded, and Mikhail roared, overturning the table for cover. Roman ducked low, cursing and pulling his pistol free. Konstantin was already at the window, silently scanning the rooftops.
Emilia gasped under me, trembling, her hands clutching my shirt like she didn't know if she was alive or dead.
I pressed her down harder, shielding her body with mine. My voice was ice.
"Stay down. Don't you move, Emilia. Not for a second."
Her lips parted, but I didn't let her speak. Another bullet cracked against the wall, splintering wood.
"Sniper!" Mikhail bellowed. "Top floor, east building!"
"Cover!" Roman snapped.
Men dove, guns drawn, and shadows shifting fast. But I barely noticed them. My focus was narrow, razor-sharp, locked on the girl trembling beneath me.
Hair stuck to her cheeks, her chest heaved, and her eyes were wide with shock. It was fear, pure and simple. And still, she looked at me like I was the only thing holding her to this world.
And she was right. I cupped the back of her head; my body was a shield. Another round cracked the glass above us, spraying shards across the floor. One sliced my cheek, and warm blood dripped down.
Her voice was a whisper, and it was shaking. "Viktor..."
"I've got you," I growled. "No one touches you, no one."
Mikhail shouted something about flanking positions. Roman barked orders to the guards flooding the hall. Konstantin fired a shot through the shattered window. Then it was as calm as death itself.
But all I heard was her breathing, and it was fast, shallow, and desperate.
I bent close, my lips at her ear. "They came for me. They aimed for you, and that was their mistake."
Her fingers gripped tighter at my shirt. She tried to speak, but the words died when another shot split the air.
Rage boiled hot in my veins, and it was sharper than any wound. Whoever had dared aim at her, whoever thought she was my weakness... had just signed their own death warrant.
I looked up, past the broken glass, into the night beyond. My voice came out low, a promise forged in stone. "I'll find you, I'll drag you from your nest, and I'll make you bleed for thinking you could take what's mine."
The room fell into silence except for the ring of the last shot. Guards shouted outside, but the sniper was gone, a ghost in the night.
I stayed where I was, hiding Emilia beneath me until her trembling slowed, until her breath steadied enough that I could hear her stubborn little heart beating in her chest.
Only then did I lift my head; my hand was still firm on her back. She looked at me, her lips parted, her eyes widened with something new... something more than fear.
Maybe trust, maybe something more dangerous. I tightened my hold and whispered one final vow, too quiet for my brothers to hear.
"They'll have to kill me before they’ll ever be able to touch you."
The bullet hole in the wall smoked behind us, a sign that the war had truly started.
Chapter Nine
Emilia's POV.
The world tore open before I could breathe. One second, it was quiet, and the next, glass exploded around us, like a rain of knives. I barely had time to scream before Viktor threw his arm around me and slammed me to the floor. He folded me beneath him, using his body like a shield.
