He's gone.
I sit frozen. Every muscle locked. Adrenaline screaming at me to run while my brain tries to process what just happened.
Thor appears in the doorway, face pale. "We need to evacuate. Now."
"What happened?"
"Gas line. The pool house is gone. Everyone out until we're sure the building's secure."
I stand on legs that feel disconnected from my body. I follow Thor through halls filling with smoke and the particular chaos that comes when men trained for violence face threats they can't shoot.
Outside, the mansion glows with emergency lights as fire trucks scream in the distance. Staff huddle in clusters on the lawn while guards sweep the perimeter.
I scan faces, looking for one in particular.
There, across the lawn, half-hidden in shadow near the tree line, watching. Always watching.
Volk.
CHAPTER 13
Volk
SONG: MY OWN SUMMER (SHOVE IT) BY DEFTONES
I watchAnatoly circle her like a shark that caught blood in the water. He's close. Too close. His head tilts in that particular way, recognition scratching at the edges of his vodka-soaked brain. Any second now it'll click. Any second now he'll see past the makeup and dyed hair and ten years of survival that changed everything except her eyes.
My thumb hovers over the small, simple device in my hand. The kind of thing you can buy at any hardware store if you know what you're doing.
Anatoly steps closer to her, saying something I can't hear from my position outside the window, but I can see her face and the moment fear fills her eyes.
I press the button.
The explosion rocks the house as the pool house is incinerated in mere seconds. Just enough. Gas line rupture—that's what they'll think. Accidental. Tragic. The kind of thing that happens in old houses with aging infrastructure and overconfident maintenance crews.
They won't know I spent three hours yesterday rigging it. That I've been planning contingencies for every possible waythings could go wrong. They won't know that saving her has become more important than breathing.
Fire alarms shriek, and chaos erupts exactly the way I calculated it would.
Anatoly's head snaps toward the sound, hand on his gun, he forgets about the girl. Forgets recognition hovering just out of reach. He moves toward the crisis like the obedient dog he's always been.
I slip through the servant's entrance. Nobody sees me—they're all running toward the fire instead of away from it. Idiots. In a real crisis you evacuate first, you don’t make finding a potential intruder your priority. But this isn't a real crisis, just theater. Expensive, dangerous theater designed to save one person.
Sofiya sits frozen in the sitting room. Still as a corpse, only her eyes move—preparing to run or fight depending on which option presents itself first.
Smart girl. My girl.
I appear in the doorway and watch her register my presence. Watch relief flash across her face before she can hide it. That look does things to me. Dangerous things. The kind of look that makes men forget duty and honor and every oath they've ever sworn.
"Come with me." It’s not a request.
"Thor said?—"
"I don't give a fuck what Thor said." I cross to her and grab her wrist, not rough but not gentle either. Purposeful. Possessive. Mine. "Move."
She moves. Smart enough not to argue when every second counts. Smart enough to trust me even though logic says she shouldn't.
We navigate the chaos. Servants running, guards shouting into radios. Smoke mixes with sprinkler spray to create a fog thathelps us more than it hurts us. I know this house , spent years memorizing its layout, its weak points and secret ways in and out.
