The detonation erupts from the south perimeter, a concussive blast calibrated to shatter attention without compromising the structural integrity of the building containing Elizabeth. The warehouse walls shudder. Dust cascades from the overhead beams in pale curtains. Every weapon in the room pivots toward the source of the explosion, and for two and a half seconds, no one is aiming at me.
Two and a half seconds is more than sufficient.
“Down!” I command.
Elizabeth drops. Without hesitation, she collapses her legs and hits the concrete floor.
I draw.
The first two rounds find the operatives nearest to me, both down before Dushku’s expression has completed its transition from confidence to comprehension.
The south entry detonates inward as Alexei’s team breaches — the door frame splintering, boots hammering concrete, the sharp staccato of suppressed weapons filling the space with anew and different percussion. The east entry follows four seconds later, a second wave crashing against Dushku’s remaining forces from the opposite flank.
The warehouse transforms.
Muzzle flashes strobe against the walls. Ricochets whine off steel beams and embed in material with dull, splintering impacts. Shouted commands in Russian and Albanian overlap and cancel each other, reducing language to raw noise. The air thickens with cordite and pulverized concrete dust.
Through it all, I move forward. Elizabeth is on the ground fifty feet ahead of me, and every second she remains exposed is a second I am failing her.
Landon runs.
I track his trajectory through the haze, acquire the shot, and squeeze the trigger. He pivots at the last second. The round catches his shoulder — the same place where I stabbed him the last time — spinning him sideways, but his momentum carries him through a side door and into the darkness beyond.
Later.
Dushku lunges for a weapon discarded on the floor. My round strikes his thigh before his fingers close around the grip, and he collapses with a guttural sound that reverberates off the concrete, dragging himself backward toward the nearest pillar.
His two remaining guards shift to provide cover, positioning themselves between their employer and the room. I put both of them on the ground in the time it takes to exhale. Clean shots.
Three operatives converge from my left flank. The magazine is spent. I release it. There’s no time for the reload. I move into them rather than away.
The first goes down from my shoulder meeting his sternum. The second absorbs an elbow to the throat. The third manages to land a strike against my ribs — a heavy, reverberating impact that will demand acknowledgment tomorrow — before I take his legs and finish him on the concrete.
I don’t let it slow me down.
My focus has narrowed to a single coordinate: Elizabeth. She’s still on the ground, bound. She raises her head, scanning the chaos with those extraordinary eyes, tracking my position through muzzle flashes and falling debris.
I detect the sniper adjusting his scope a half-second before his crosshairs settle over her.
I sprint, reaching her, using my body to cover her.
The round intended for her grazes my shoulder instead, a searing stripe of pain that I register, categorize, and discard in the span of a single heartbeat.
I haul her behind the nearest pillar, pressing her against the concrete with my body as a barrier between her and the chaos.
She produces a sound against the cloth sealing her mouth — muffled, urgent, vibrating with my name — and I tear the gag free.
She gasps. One ragged inhalation of warehouse air, then another, her chest heaving against mine.
“Rolan—”
“I’ve got you.” My hands find the rope binding her wrists. The knots are tight, deliberately cruel, and my fingers work them with a precision fueled beyond training. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
The final knot surrenders. The rope falls away, and before I have fully released it, her arms are around my neck.
I close my arms around her, press my face into her hair, and breathe. She smells wrong, like hotel laundry and industrial detergent. Like places that are not home. But beneath it, faintly, stubbornly, she smells like herself, and that’s enough for now.
“Moya koroleva,” I murmur against her hair, where no one in this warehouse or any other can hear it. “I’m here.”
