Pain explodes across my body, a constellation of agony that has no beginning or end. My head throbs. My arm hangs at a wrong angle. Everything hurts.
Not the beach. Not 15. Not safe.
The memory of my mother’s face flickers and dies, replaced by twisted metal and shattered glass. I’m not sitting on a sun-drenched blanket beside my pregnant mother. I’m trapped in the wreckage of a car that tumbled down a cliff.
And no one is coming to—
An impact rocks the crumpled car, jolting me back to full consciousness with a gasp of pain. The vehicle groans, settling deeper into the rocks.
Voices filter through the broken windows. Harsh, urgent Russian. A different dialect than my kidnappers’. More commanding. More controlled.
I force my head up—barely—and through the spiderweb of broken glass, I see shadows moving. Boots pounding the ground. One of the doors wrenches open with a scream of torn hinges.
A rough hand grabs my arm.
I thrash weakly, panic surging hot through my broken body.
“Easy,” a voice growls. Deep. Familiar. Viktor.
Another hand—steadier—cuts through the plastic binding my wrists. The sudden slackness makes me sob out loud. Pain. Relief. Too tangled to tell them apart.
“Got her!” someone barks.
Strong arms yank me free, dragging me backward through the wreckage. The world spins. Smoke fills my lungs. I cough, choking, clawing uselessly at the air.
A man—one of the kidnappers—lunges out from the other side of the wreck, blood pouring from his head, screaming in rage.
A gunshot cracks the air.
The man drops like a puppet with its strings cut.
Viktor doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even glance at the fallen kidnapper. His focus stays locked on me.
Timur leans in, wiping blood from my forehead with the edge of his sleeve.
“She’s bleeding. Bad.”
I try to speak. To say something. Anything.
Nothing comes out but a raw gasp.
Movement—behind them. A darker shape. Bigger.
Konstantin.
My heart stops.
He’s coming toward me, fast and terrifying and silent. His face carved out of stone. His jacket flaring behind him with every stride.
I want to hide. I want to collapse against him and never move again. I can’t decide which. I can’t move at all.
Konstantin drops to one knee in front of me. His hands—big, rough, furious—cup my face with terrifying gentleness. His thumb brushes my split lip and my bleeding temple, like he’s memorizing every wound.
His breath saws through his chest. His eyes—those cold, silver-blue eyes—burn.
He says nothing.
He just lifts me.
