No more hum, lights, or cameras.
I take a deep breath, my heart hammering from excitement.
“Let’s go.”
We sprint up the stairwell, each step soft and controlled. At the first landing, two guards are arguing about why the power’s out. Before they draw breath to shout, they’re dead. Adrien slits one throat as I slam the other into the rail and break his neck.
Second floor hallway. More confusion and more shadows moving around lazily—perfect opportunities. A pair of guards jog toward us, guns out but no flashlights. Amateurs.
I melt into the alcove and when the first passes, I hook him with my arm, crush his windpipe with my elbow and lower him silently. Adrien catches the second from behind, putting him out with a chokehold.
Pain flares behind my eyes every time a muscle tightens. Yet something kicks awake inside me. A volatile mix of adrenaline, fear, and a thin, reckless thread of hope.
The guys drag the bodies aside, step over them carefully, and we keep moving. Three more stand by the south wing door, trying to figure out how to reset the power. Marko signals to the two silencers behind us. Two soft puffs, the third from me. Three bodies fall with a loud thud.
We look around and wait. No more men seem to be here. The other groups of our men should be done with the rest of the house soon. One of the teams calmly walks toward us from the other side of the house.
“The other wing is clear. Half of them were asleep,” Sebastian says.
“Lucien?” Marko asks.
“No, he was nowhere to be found.”
This was way easier than I thought. I don’t like this. It was way too easy. Lucien is either really stupid or… I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.
We reach the reinforced door, exactly where Marko said Kiara would be.
He kneels at the lock, wires exposed. Adrien checks the hall.
“Four more guards coming from the east corridor.”
“Take them,” I gesture toward the other men. They launch forward, silent, moving like water. Then I hear two shots, suppressed, and one body slamming into a wall, then a knife struggle before a loud thud.
Good.
Marko finishes working on the lock and it makes a heavy mechanical thunk.Adrien grabs my shoulder when I launch forward into the door.
“Kas, breathe.”
I don’t.
I shove the door open and my heart stops so violently it feels like something tears inside my chest.
No.
No, please, no.
She’s slumped against the metal headboard, chained both wrists together, her dark wavy hair covering her entire face like a shroud. Her skin is pale, damp with sweat, her body frighteningly still.
Please, no.
Kiara.
I cross the room in two steps that don’t even feel real and drop to my knees in front of her.
The agony that detonates inside my ribs is instant, blinding. I grab her shoulders, too hard, shaking her like I’m trying to force life back into her body, the metal chain rattling around her wrist, when her hair finally falls down from her face.
“Kiara—”
