No, not someone. Viktor.
“Get out in the hall.” Matteo’s voice is sharp behind me, hard as steel. “Now.”
But I’m already moving deeper inside. I need to see. I need to know if everything is gone, if my bedroom is destroyed too, if there’s anything left of the life I built before Viktor poisoned it.
“Sierra!”
My name is a command, but I don’t stop. My feet carry me down the short hallway, past the bathroom, straight to my bedroom door.
I push it open, and?—
No.
My heart slams to a stop. Blood turns to ice. The room tilts sideways and I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t do anything but stare at the man standing by my dresser.
Viktor.
For one frozen second, we just stare at each other. He looks the same. Sharp cheekbones. Dark eyes. That handsome face that used to make me feel special when he smiled at me. Now, those eyes are flat. Cold. Wrong.
Then rage flares across his features, twisting them into something monstrous, and he moves.
He’s fast. So much faster than I expected.
I scream, stumbling backward, but I’m not quick enough. His hand catches me across the face with a crack that echoes through my skull. Pain explodes behind my eyes, white and blinding. The world tilts. I’m falling, my hip slamming into the floor, my palms scraping against carpet.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
I’m trying to push myself up when I hear the impact of fist meeting flesh. A grunt. Something crashes.
Matteo.
I look up in time to see Matteo drive his fist into Viktor’s stomach. The blow is brutal, and Viktor doubles over with a strangled sound. But he swings wildly, desperately, and Matteo dodges like it’s nothing, like Viktor is moving in slow motion.
Another punch. This one connects with Viktor’s cheekbone. His head snaps to the side and he stumbles back into my dresser, knocking a lamp to the floor.
My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. I scramble to my feet, pressing my palm to my throbbing cheek, and that’s when Viktor’s hand disappears behind his back.
The gun emerges like a nightmare made real.
“Oh, my God.”
The words fall out of me, barely a whisper, but they’re swallowed by the chaos as Matteo grabs my arm and yanks me backward. We’re moving down the hallway, and behind us, the world explodes into sound.
The gunshot is deafening. A crack of thunder inside my apartment, and it moves through me like a shockwave. Teeth. Bones. Every hollow space inside me.
We’re in the living room now, and Matteo shoves me behind the kitchen island. My back hits the cabinet hard enough to rattle the dishes left inside.
He has his own gun out. When did that happen? I don’t know. I don’t care. He fires back toward the hallway, the sound splittingmy skull open, and I clamp my hands over my ears but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
This isn’t real. This can’t be real.
But the fear climbing up my throat is real. The smell of gunpowder burning my nostrils is real. The sound of my own panicked breathing, too fast, too shallow, is painfully real.
I can’t see Viktor. Matteo is between us, his broad back blocking my view, and I don’t want to see anyway.
Another shot. Another. The sounds are starting to blur together, and I’m pressed against the cabinet with my heart trying to claw its way out of my chest.
Then Matteo’s hand closes around my arm, and he drags me up, away from the island, pulling me toward the only way out.
