He mouths something at me—something I can’t fully hear but don’t need to.Mine.That’s what he’s saying. That’s what they all think.
I shudder, every muscle trembling with disgust and fury. The room feels smaller, the air thicker. My wrists ache against the rope, my skin raw where it’s rubbed too long. I want to scream, to tear the place apart, but I force myself still. I can’t give in now.
Because if I lose it—if I break—then he wins. My father wins.
So I keep my eyes locked on the man, and for the first time, I smile. Just a little. The kind of smile that promises blood. His own falters.
Chapter 26 – Roman
The intel was clean, surgically precise: Chang’s decoy warehouse was hit just as the auction began. He thought he was playing a shell game, buying himself time to sell Elara before I located the real site. He was wrong.
My heart is a war drum in my chest, beating only for blood and vengeance. I am not a strategist now. I am a feral beast, driven by the absolute certainty that if I am a second late, David Chang will ruin her. Auction her publicly, punish her. These words are a mantra of rage.
Luka is at my shoulder, and Niko and Adrian are behind me. Dimitri and Lev are coming from a few feet away. We don't use the doors. Grenades shatter the walls on the north side, turning drywall and steel into dust and noise.
We storm the estate like an avenging army.
The first wave of Chang’s mercenaries—idiots hired for a simple security detail—are caught entirely off-guard. Bullets rip through the hallways, shredding plaster and flesh. I move through the carnage with one goal—Elara.
The noise is deafening. I don't hear the screams; I only hear the silence where her voice should be. I track the layout of the complex based on the initial breach reports. Chang keeps his prized assets in the main house, typically centered on a grand social space. The auction is in the ballroom.
A man steps out of a utility closet, raising an automatic rifle. Before he can pull the trigger, I’ve emptied my clip into his chest. He drops, his body slamming the floor, silenced. I don't look down. I move.
We hit the ballroom corridor. It's heavily fortified, but Lev’s team has already disabled the surveillance and security locks. We kick down the double doors.
The noise of the assault—the gunfire, the shouts, the pounding boots—collides with the sickening, contained noise of the auction room. Laughter. Clinking glasses. That oily voice announcing the bid price.
The scene freezes me for one critical second: a chandelier glittering like mockery, men in immaculate suits, and Elara—my wife—standing on a makeshift stage, dressed like a prize, her face bruised, but her eyes blazing with defiance.
She is being held by two men. Her father is at the edge of the room, sipping his drink, utterly detached.
The world tilts red.
“That’s my wife!” The roar tears from my chest, primal and unrecognizable.
I empty the rest of my tactical clip into the air above the crowd, shattering the glittering chandelier and showering the room in darkness and raining glass. Chaos erupts. The buyers scream, diving under tables.
I don’t pause. I move straight toward the stage, cutting through the panic. The man who had just announced Elara’s price tries to grab me. I smash the butt of my rifle across his jaw, and he collapses without a sound.
The two guards holding Elara freeze, too slow to react. I cut them down with merciless precision, two quick bursts to the center mass, and they fall, releasing her.
She stands there, swaying slightly, the ropes still tight on her wrists, her silk dress torn. She looks terrified, but her gaze—that beautiful, furious defiance—is fixed on me.
I reach the stage. I am a machine of vengeance.
The idiot who was obviously about to buy Elara starts to beg, but I’m way past caring. He scrabbles for a gun. He doesn’t get the chance. I kick the gun away. I don’t use my rifle. I use my hands. I grab him by the collar, haul him onto the stage, and slam him down.
I don't shoot him. I find a velvet rope used for crowd control, wrap it once, twice, around his throat, and pull until his face turns purple and the life leaves his eyes. I wanted him to feel the choke, the helplessness, the final price of crossing me.
His body goes limp. I toss the corpse at Elara’s feet, my breath coming in ragged, guttural gasps. My knuckles are bloodied.
I turn to Elara. She is trembling, but she’s standing. I rip the rope free from her wrists, the action tearing the skin, but I can’t be gentle now. I pull her hard against my bloodied shirt.
“You’re mine,” I repeat, the words a raw, fundamental truth, a marriage vow rewritten in the language of the Bratva. “You’re mine.”
She sobs into my shirt, clutching me as if her life depends on it. She doesn’t fight the blood, the grime, or the violence I just unleashed. She just holds on, clinging to me as if I am the only anchor left in the broken world.
With her weight locked against my side, I turn, facing the hail of gunfire and the panicked chaos of the room. I fight my way through the pocket of Chang’s mercenaries near the exit, my rifle still hot, my arm locked around Elara’s waist. My men take my lead, covering our retreat as we clear the path. We are a single, urgent unit moving through the carnage.
