Sounds filter down from somewhere above us. Thumps. Crashes. The distant pop of what might be gunfire.
Victor's head snaps toward the ceiling, his composure cracking for the first time since he emerged from the shadows.
"That's not possible." The words come out tight, controlled, but I hear the fear beneath them. "They're supposed to be dead."
Hope surges through my chest, wild and dangerous. I crush it down before it can show on my face, but my heart pounds against my ribs with renewed ferocity.
Drake.
It has to be Drake. Because the alternative is impossible. Because the man who promised to protect me would not let something as trivial as death keep him from fulfilling that promise.
Victor pulls a knife from somewhere on his person and grabs me by the hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat. The blade presses against my pulse point, cold and sharp and absolutely fucking real.
"If anyone comes through that door," he hisses, "you die first. Understand?" He cuts the ropes holding me in the chair and he drags me in front of him like a shield.
I do not answer. My eyes are fixed on the doorway, on the chaos building somewhere above us, on the impossible hope that refuses to die no matter how hard I try to smother it.
The door bursts open.
Drake stands in the frame, backlit by harsh fluorescent light, and the sight of him steals what remains of my breath.
He is covered in blood. His shirt is torn. His face is a mask of cuts and bruises that speak of violence he barely survived. But his eyes burn with a fury that makes the air in the room feel suddenly thin and charged with an energy that brings death.
Behind him, shadows move. Kon's massive frame. Then Rafael. Luca and Rowan flanking them like soldiers prepared for war. The full force of the Red Letter Syndicate, descended into this basement to stomp out evil.
"Let her go." Drake's voice is deathly quiet and controlled.
Victor presses the blade harder against my throat. I feel a warm trickle of blood slide down toward my collarbone.
"Stay back." Victor's voice has lost its cultured softness. The grandfather mask has crumbled, revealing the cornered animal beneath. "One more step and I open her throat."
"You've already signed your death warrant." Drake takes a step forward anyway. "The only question is how much you suffer before the end."
"I'll kill her!"
"And then you'll have nothing." Another step. The distance between us shrinks with every word. "No leverage. No shield. Nothing between you and the very painful death I've been planning since the moment I learned you touched her."
Victor's grip on my hair tightens. The knife trembles against my throat, his hand shaking with fear or rage or both.
"You've already killed your brother." Victor's laugh carries a hysterical edge. "How much more blood can you take on your hands?"
“Jonah's not dead. Yet. And to answer your question, as much as I need to." His gray eyes find mine through the chaos. "Hold on, little rose. This ends now."
Victor's attention shifts to Drake for just a fraction of a second.
I move.
My bare foot drives down onto Victor's instep with every ounce of strength I can muster. He howls in pain, his grip on my hair loosening. I throw my head backward, feeling my skull connect with his nose in a satisfying crunch of cartilage. Blood sprays across my shoulder. The knife jerks away from my throat as he stumbles.
Drake closes the distance in two strides.
His hands close around Victor's wrist, wrenching the knife away with a twist that makes something crack. Victor screams. Drake silences him with a blow to the jaw that sends him crashing to the concrete floor.
And then Drake is on him.
The violence that follows is methodical. Brutal. Utterly without mercy. Drake's fists rise and fall with the rhythm of a man exorcising five years of rage, reducing Victor Kedrov to a broken, bleeding mess on the concrete floor.
"You touched her." Each word is punctuated by another blow. "You threatened her family. You tried to sell her like property."
