My lungs seize with cold panic, sharp terror sliding in under all the other emotions. Evi—my Evi—she’s at our home with only minimal guards, vulnerable because of the strike we pulled that required nearly all our forces. The thought is shrapnel. I thrash, desperate, blind with the image of her at my house, alone and frightened as the Yakuza breach our defenses once more.
Please, let Raf have made it home in time.
But if he had, I doubt Kenji would sound so proud. And my heart stutters as my blood turns to ice. I stumble backwards, collapsing to the ground as my knees give out. All I can hear over the roar in my ears is the clack of Kenji’s shoes as he draws closer.
He leans forward, face close, breath a fume of incense and old whiskey. “You are the kind of men who trade everything for revenge,” he says. “So dependable in your fury. So easily manipulated. But I wonder, what lengths might you go to in order to save your pretty little bride.”
I lunge again, metal screeching as my hands come within a foot of Kenji’s throat before I reach the end of my chains and stopwith an agonizing jolt. “Evi,” I croak, my throat hoarse with rage. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Kenji’s smile is an invitation to madness. “Patience,” he says almost kindly. “All in good time.” Then he turns and pads out, his suit whispering like silk on stone, leaving me in my dank, cold cell.
The door clangs shut behind him, and as his footsteps recede, I’m trapped with the dripping water marking time like a countdown.
Left alone, I can only breathe hot and ragged and imagine everything that might be happening out there. I turn to the wall, gripping one chain with both hands and putting all my muscle and weight into loosening the bolts. But it doesn’t budge. With a huff of frustration, I try to stand tall and meet the stone face of the world. But suddenly, I feel very small—a man tied to the earth while his home is a door blown open to the wolves—and my forehead meets the cold rock as I brace against it in defeat.
All I can think about is her. Evi. I hate that I’m here, bound, while somewhere out there, she could be in danger. The dread that Kenji planted in his last words takes root and grows. I’m failing everyone in my world who matters. First Raf at the ascension ceremony, now Evi after I overcompensated for my shortcomings and drove her away.
I never should have said what I did. Yes, I let Evi distract me. But she is mine to cherish and protect. And I pushed her away because I didn’t trust myself around her. I left her vulnerable in my desperation to prove that my feelings for her don’t make me weak.
And now something terrible could have happened to her. Because of me.
32
EVI
Something wakes me. At first, it’s faint—the soft drag of a foot across carpet, so quiet it almost blends into the hum of the furnace. My body stills. My heart ticks faster, straining in my chest. The house is dark, silent, and heavy with sleep.
Then I hear it again—movement, deliberate and slow.
I glance toward the clock. 3:47 a.m. The space beside me is empty. Sandro still isn’t home. I’d tried to stay awake waiting for him, but exhaustion finally dragged me under sometime around two o’clock.
I sit up, the sheet slipping down my chest. “Sandro?” My voice comes out on a whisper.
No answer.
For a second, I think maybe I imagined it. But then—there. A shadow crouches at the end of the bed. Not standing. Waiting.
My breath catches in my throat as a chill races down my spine. “Who’s there?”
The shadow moves, quick and low, the gleam of metal catching faint moonlight. My panic spikes as I realize it’s a knife, the edge curved and cruel.
I launch off the bed, the sheet tangling around my legs, and my hip slams into the nightstand. The lamp topples, crashing to the floor.
I’m already running.
The door’s half open, and I yank it wider, bursting into the hall. The metallic scent hits me first. Iron. Blood. One of Sandro’s guards is on the ground, his throat cut clean through, his body twisted unnaturally. Another lies facedown near the stairwell, a dark pool spreading beneath him.
I freeze, every instinct screaming to move, but my brain can’t catch up. This isn’t possible. This house is a fortress. There are men stationed at every entry. Except now, there aren’t.
A hand grabs my arm from behind, and I thrash, nails raking skin, but he’s stronger—bigger. His hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream.
“Quiet,” a man hisses in richly accented English. “You scream, you die.”
The tip of his blade presses against my throat, and my breath locks as suddenly, all I can think about is my unborn child. If I die, so does my baby. And that thought alone fills me with the urge to comply.
Feeling my sudden lack of resistance, the man wrenches my arms behind me. Plastic bites into my wrists as he cinches the zip tie tight, cutting off circulation. Another man takes my ankles,binding them together. Then a blindfold slides over my eyes, plunging me into darkness.
A scream catches in my throat as my body jerks momentarily airborne. I struggle and squirm, but they move with mechanical precision as they lift me—slinging me over a shoulder to be carried like luggage. The smell of sweat and gun oil fills my lungs, and my heart flutters as I pray the man’s shoulder digging into my stomach won’t hurt my child.
