I drop.
Just let my body go completely limp. Dead weight. Straight down.
Then the world around me explodes into chaos.
Gunfire erupts from every direction. Bullets whiz overhead like angry hornets. Someone grabs me, drags me across rough concrete. I scream, raw and desperate, kicking out blindly.
"Fee. Solnishko. It's me."
Anton. His voice cuts through the fog.
"I love you," I hear him say.
He presses something cold and metal into my palm, closes my fingers around it. Then he's gone, running back toward the firefight.
Different arms seize me, lift me off the ground. I'm passed between bodies like a package, surrounded by a wall of men who move as a single unit. They deposit me behind cover on what I realize is a boat. Have I been on a boat all this time?
Lorenzo stands nearby, his expensive suit jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, knuckles bloodied. My father appears beside him, face grave.
"What—?" I try to ask, but the question dies when I see what's happening.
A man is on his knees, arms wrenched behind his back by two of Lorenzo's men. Blood pools beneath him where Lorenzo has methodically stabbed both legs. His hands are mangled, a severed finger lying on the deck beside him.
The man spits blood.
I tear my gaze away, searching for Anton.
There—on the dock. Anton and Kirill circle each other like wolves, neither willing to give ground. Kirill lunges, knife flashing. Why doesn't Anton just shoot him and end this?
They collide in a brutal tangle of limbs.
Anton doesn't falter. Doesn't even flinch. He just grabs Kirill's wrist, twists until something cracks, then starts punching Kirill in his gunshot wound.
That's right, he was shot, oh my god, Yuri!
Kirill howls but doesn't go down. His movements are too fast, too precise for someone bleeding out.
"Always prepared," Kirill pants, blood streaming from his mouth. "Pharmaceutical cocktail. Won't feel a thing until I'm already dead."
Anton's face remains eerily calm. "Too bad your research wasn't thorough enough."
He drives his knee into Kirill's wounded shoulder, then catches him in a headlock. "I came prepared, too."
Kirill thrashes wildly, but Anton's grip is unbreakable. There's no stylized movie fighting here, just two killers doing everything possible to end each other. Anton follows with a savage headbutt that leaves Kirill momentarily stunned.
I clutch whatever Anton pressed into my hand earlier and watch the man I love systematically dismantle the nightmare who took me.
I stare at my hand, finally seeing what Anton pressed into my palm. A gun.
Small, matte black, unfamiliar weight tugging at my wrist. My fingers trace over it like they belong to someone else.
A gun. He gave me a fucking gun.
I check the safety with trembling fingers. I don't want to shoot myself, but I will kill any bastard that comes near me.
The metal feels ice-cold against my clammy skin. My heart jackhammers so hard I can feel my pulse in my eyeballs, in my fingertips, everywhere. The dock tilts and sways beneath me—or is that just the drugs?
Through the chaos, I find Anton again. He's bleeding from a slash across his arm, but his movements haven't slowed. Every strike he lands on Kirill is calculated, vicious.
