"I'll be back," I promise. "I'm getting you out of here."
Then I'm moving again, back into the hallway, back into the chaos.
—
The next twentyminutes are a blur of violence. I move through the estate like a force of nature, taking down anyone wearing Volkov marks. My men rally around me, feeding off my fury, pushing back against the assault with renewed aggression. We retake the gardens, secure the south entrance, and drive the remaining attackers back toward the breached east gate. A man comes at me with a shotgun and I take him down with three rounds to the chest. Another tries to flank me and I catch him with a burst that nearly cuts him in half.
Blood soaks into the grass. Bodies litter the grounds. The fountain runs red. My men are fighting like demons, but we're losing people. I see one of mine go down with a bullet to the leg. Another takes one to the shoulder but keeps fighting. Another guard catches a round to the head and drops instantly.
But we're winning. Slowly and brutally, but we're winning. The Volkovs are falling back, their coordinated assault breaking apart under our defense. They retreat toward the breached gate, dragging their wounded and leaving their dead.
"Push them out!" I shout into the radio. "Don't let them regroup!"
My men surge forward, driving the last of the Volkovs through the gate and into the street beyond. Gunfire follows them, cutting down stragglers, making sure they understand the cost of attacking us.
And then, suddenly, it's over. The gunfire stops. The estate falls silent except for the moans of the wounded and the crackle of flames from the burning vehicle at the main gate. By the time Viktor calls the all-clear, there are bodies everywhere. Most of them are Volkov's men, but we've lost five of our own. Good men. Men who died because one man refused to pay a fucking ransom.
Because I demanded it of him. As if I had any fucking choice, myself. My own men would rather die than see me show the kind of weakness they'd perceive if I'd just cut Liesl loose.
And if I had, I wouldn't have…
I don't have anything.I need to remember that.
And the only thing I need to focus on right now is that I need to get Liesl out of here.
I stand there in the wreckage of my estate, surrounded by bodies and blood and the evidence of how close I came to losing everything. Not the estate. Not my position. Not my power.
Her.
I almost lost her.
I need to see her. Need to make sure she's really okay, that the terror in her eyes has faded, that she's?—
I stop myself.
She's not mine. She made that clear two days ago. And after what just happened—after she watched me kill a man in her room, after she saw exactly what my world looks like when it comes crashing down—she's probably even more certain of that now.
But I'm taking her to the safe house anyway. I'm not giving her a choice.
Not about this.
—
I findher in her room, sitting on the bed, staring at the wall.
The body has been removed and the blood has been cleaned up. But the broken window remains, a gaping wound letting in cold air and the smell of smoke.
She doesn't look at me when I enter. "We're leaving," I tell her. "Pack what you need. We have twenty minutes."
"Where are we going?" Her voice is so flat that it doesn't even sound like her.
"A safe house, outside the city. It's secure."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes."
She finally looks at me then, and the expression in her eyes makes my chest tighten. There's no warmth there. No softness. Just cold resignation. She's distanced herself from me in every possible way that she can.
