This is for everything she ever flinched from. Every bruise she hid. Every time his voice made her shrink.
He comes at me again, and I block his swing, twist his wrist until the knife clatters to the ground, and drive my fist into his throat again. He staggers, choking, and I hit him again. Chin. Temple. He drops to his knees.
I snatch up the knife. My fingers are half-numb and slick with blood. I grip it anyway.
Nikolai looks up at me from the floor, blood pouring from his nose and his lip split open, and for the first time since I met him, he doesn’t look cruel or smug or untouchable.
He looks scared.
“Any last words?”
Nikolai opens his mouth, blood slick on his teeth, and gets as far as “You’ll nev?—”
I drive the knife into him.
Deep.
He jerks beneath me, mouth opening on a raw, wet sound. I pull the blade free and do it again, lower this time, because I’m done playing with this bastard. I’m done with his hands on her. Done with his voice in her ear. Done with the years he spent teaching her fear and calling it family.
He goes still.
I turn toward Natalia, and the relief on her face lasts exactly one second before it transforms into horror.
“Luca!”
I spin just as a gunshot tears past my ear. Anton has Natalia by the throat, one arm locked around her, his pistol now aimed at her head.
“Everyone stop!”
The command cuts clean through the remaining gunfire. Men on both sides hesitate. The few Bratva soldiers still standing look around wildly, caught between their dying loyalty and survival. Matteo pivots, gun raised. Dario comes up on my left. I barely see any of them.
All I see is Anton with his arm locked tight around Natalia’s neck, dragging her back against his chest like she’s exactly what she’s always been to him. Leverage. Property. A shield with a pulse.
His grip is crushing. She claws at his arm, feet scraping the ground. She’s breathing fast, eyes huge, but she’s not breaking.
Anton keeps backing toward the side door. “Drop your weapons.”
No one does.
His grip tightens. “I said drop them or she dies.”
My whole body goes cold.
But there’s a line. Barely. The angle shifts every time he moves, appears and disappears with each step he forces her to take.
Natalia’s eyes find mine across the warehouse. Fifteen feet of smoke and blood between us. She’s shaking. Her father’s arm is locked around her throat, thinking the gun at her head makeshim untouchable. And she looks right at me with something that isn’t fear.
Trust.
She goes still. Completely, deliberately still.
I exhale. Pain flares white-hot through my shoulder as I steady my aim. My left eye is useless and my hands won’t stop shaking.
But I can make this shot. Because I have to.
Anton’s eyes flick to her. To me. His grip shifts.
I fire.
