Then another.
Finally, she lets it fall to her side. The barrel points harmlessly at the floor, but her hand is still shaking around it. Adrenaline leaving the body always looks a little like grief.
King cuffs Mikhail with unnecessary enthusiasm, shoving him face-first into the wall before wrenching his wrists behind him. “Try anything,” he mutters, “and I’ll redecorate with your teeth.”
Mikhail wisely shuts up.
I turn back to Delilah.
She’s still trembling now that the adrenaline is crashing. Her lip is split. There’s soot on her cheek. Her hair is a mess. She looks like war and resolve and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
She gives a shaky laugh. “Ask me tomorrow.”
I don’t. I pull her into my chest before I can overthink it, one hand cradling the back of her head, shielding her from the mess behind us. From Mikhail. From the bodies. From the blood. From herself, maybe, for just one second.
She doesn’t resist.
She melts into me.
And in the middle of smoke and sirens and shattered glass, with the man who ruined her life finally in chains—
I hold her and think,
Yeah—definitely in love.I’m so fucked.
Chapter 24
Delilah Barrinheart
I barely remember walking out of the building.
I know I do. I know my feet move and my hands hold my weapon and my shoulder bumps King’s as we escort Mikhail through the wreckage, but it all feels like it’s happening underwater. Everything is slow and loud at the same time—sirens, shouted orders, radios crackling, glass crunching beneath our boots, smoke curling through the night in dirty ribbons. The country club behind us is no longer a place for cake and speeches and polished family pride. It’s a wound. A split-open thing full of alarms and blood and truths no one can put back.
Mikhail is between us, wrists cuffed, head bowed, blood drying dark on his sleeve.
The man who took everything.
The man who made my nightmares.
The man whose name has lived under my skin so long it stopped feeling like a word and started feeling like a threat.
And somehow… he’s justwalking. Breathing. Existing.
My stomach twists so hard I almost taste bile.
King's mouth is a hard line, his knuckles still streaked with blood, his steps heavy and deliberate like he’s imagining ten different ways this could end and dislikes every single one that doesn’t involve Mikhail in pieces. “Almost feels wrong he’s still alive.”
“Don’t,” I say quietly. My voice sounds scraped raw, thinner than I want it to. “We need him.”
“I know,” he sighs, not sounding convinced in the slightest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
I nod, but I don’t answer. Because I don’t like it either. Because some ugly, furious part of me wants him facedown in the dirt, wants his blood where mine was, wants all the damage to become visible for once instead of living mostly in memory.
King mutters something under his breath in German that I’m pretty sure isn’t a compliment.
Jon walks a few steps ahead, scanning constantly, posture rigid with control that I know is mostly for my benefit. Every line of him looks locked down too tight. Every movement says he’s still expecting another wave, another strike, another angle none of us caught in time. Every time I look at him, my chest tightens. There’s still adrenaline in my veins. Still fear. Still something warm and dangerous and confusing from the way he held me in that office after I almost pulled the trigger.
