“Clear!” another voice echoes.
Boris appears through the smoke with his weapon still raised. “Where’s Belmont?”
I spin around, searching frantically. The spot where Adrian and Sasha stood moments ago is empty. In their place is nothing but concrete and shell casings.
“There!” Boris points toward the rear of the warehouse.
My blood turns to ice.
Adrian has Sasha against his chest with his arm locked around her throat and a pistol jammed against her temple. He’s backing toward a door, dragging her with him as a human shield.
“Nobody move!” Adrian screams. “One step closer and I put a bullet in her brain!”
I raise my weapon and aim it at Adrian’s head. The shot is there. Barely. A sliver of his skull visible past Sasha’s blonde hair.
But barely isn’t good enough. Not with her life on the line.
“Let her go, Adrian.” I keep my voice calm despite the terror clawing at my insides. “It’s over. Your guards are down. Your coalition is finished. There’s nowhere left to run.”
“There’s always somewhere to run. I’ve been running from people like you my entire life. I always find a way out.”
Boris’s men fan out on either side of me, creating a semicircle around Adrian’s position. Twelve weapons are aimed at a single target, but none of them can take the shot without risking Sasha.
“Think about what you’re doing,” I continue. “If you hurt her, you lose your only leverage. We’ll kill you before her body hits the ground.”
“Then we’ll die together.” Adrian’s smile is wild and unhinged. “Poetic, don’t you think? The woman who destroyed me, dying in my arms?”
Sasha’s eyes find mine across the distance. She’s terrified, but she’s also thinking. Looking for an opening that won’t get her killed.
I give her the smallest shake of my head. Not yet. Don’t try anything yet.
37
Sasha
It feels as though there’s a vise around my throat as Adrian shoves the gun barrel into my temple hard enough to leave a bruise.
I meet Tony’s eyes across the warehouse. He’s frozen with his weapon raised, and I can read every emotion on his face. Fear. Desperation. Love. Not for himself. For me. In all the weeks I’ve known him, through firefights and betrayals and moments where death seemed certain, I’ve never seen him look like this. Like he’s watching everything he cares about slip through his fingers.
“This should have been different.” Adrian’s voice is ragged in my ear as he drags me backward toward the exit. His fever-hot breath washes over my neck with every word. “You were supposed to understand. You were supposed to see what you threw away and regret it.”
I stumble over debris, and his hand tightens on my neck until spots dance at the edges of my vision. The door is getting closer with every step. Ten feet. Eight. Six.
“I’ve spent two years building alliances and gathering resources and imagining the moment you’d finally admit you were wrong. I pictured your face when you realized how badly you’d underestimated me. How you’d beg me to forgive you. How you’d finally see that everything I did was because I loved you.”
“Adrian—”
“Shut up.” He jerks me backward, and I gasp as my airway constricts even more. “You don’t get to talk. You’ve said enough. All those pretty words. All that righteous anger about manipulation and control. You made me sound like a monster when all I ever wanted was to give you the world.”
Tony takes a small step forward, and Adrian swings the gun toward him for just a second before jamming it back against my head.
“Don’t!” Adrian screams. “I will kill her. I swear to God I will paint these walls with her brains if you take another step.”
Tony freezes again. His knuckles have gone white around his weapon, and a muscle twitches in his cheek from how hard he’s clenching his jaw.
“And you,” Adrian snarls at Tony. “You were supposed to be my instrument. My perfect weapon against her family. I paid you a fortune to make her fall in love with you and then break her heart. Instead, you went soft. You let her get under your skin just like she got under mine.”
“Let her go, Adrian,” Tony urges him. “This doesn’t end well for you no matter what happens next.”
