She cocks her head. “You’re not that fast.”
I feel Bella tremble against my back. I hear Lily’s breath, quick and scared.
I force myself to stay calm. I can’t let Irina see any weakness. “Mother,” I say, steady, cold. “Don’t make this choice.”
“You don’t give orders here,” she replies. “You never did.”
She looks at Bella now, really looks at her for the first time. “You,” she says coolly, “have made a remarkable number of mistakes.”
I shift, putting myself fully between the gun and them. “This is between us.”
She raises the gun a fraction higher.
Time slows.
I know this moment. I’ve lived for moments like this my entire life. Where one wrong move costs everything.
I lower my weapon. Let it fall to the stone path.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I say quietly. “But you do not touch them.”
Irina studies me, searching for weakness.
Bella’s breath stutters behind me. I feel it more than I hear it, the way her body tightens, the way Lily’s small weight shifts as Bella instinctively curls around her.
“What are you doing?” Bella whispers, panic breaking through her voice. “She’s going to kill us.”
I don’t take my eyes off Irina. Her arm is steady. Her aim is perfect.
“No,” I say quietly. Calm, deliberate, because panic will get them killed faster than a bullet. “She’s going to kill me.”
Bella makes a sound like she’s choking back a scream.
Irina smiles. “That’s right,” she says softly. “You finally understand.”
Footsteps scrape behind us.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I hear them. Two men moving in fast, confident, thinking the moment is over because my weapon is on the ground and my back is exposed.
They’re wrong.
I shift my weight a fraction of a second before they reach me.
The first one grabs for my arm. I drop low, slam my elbow into his ribs, feel something give. He folds with a sharp grunt. The second lunges for Bella.
That’s the mistake.
I spin, driving my shoulder into his chest, sending him sprawling backward into the gravel. I grab his wrist, twist hard, and the gun flies from his hand. He screams. I don’t care.
“Run,” I bark over my shoulder. “Now.”
Bella doesn’t hesitate. She moves, clutching Lily tight, sprinting toward the darker edge of the garden where the hedges break and the ground dips away from the lights.
Irina shouts my name.
I don’t answer.
I kick the first man in the face as he tries to get up, then grab my fallen gun from the stones. The night explodes again—shouts, chaos, bodies moving where there were none seconds ago.
