Page 91 of Captured Obsession

The lights go out, sending us into darkness.

Good. It means Luca is holding up his end of the bargain. I put a tracker on Sienna’s phone so they could pinpoint our location. Of course, a room full of venomous snakes isn’t exactly something I could prepare them for. But if one of Luca’s hounds is as good at hacking surveillance systems as he says, then surely, they can adapt accordingly.

I can’t see a fucking thing, depending solely on my instincts as I lean back to avoid a swipe of The Wolf’s blade. Serpents wriggle around our feet, and I hear asubtle grunt as one most likely bites The Wolf. I strike out to my left, feeling the tip of my blade connecting and sliding along flesh.

I can hear gunshots and screams in the distance, and my heart rate spikes. I notice my body becoming more sluggish, growing more irritated the longer I’m away from Sienna. Not comfortable with having to depend on someone else to protect her.

I assume The Wolf has fallen, as another man comes through the smoke just as the lights come back on. My eyes adjust quickly, and I plunge my blade between the man’s ribs. I catch his gun before it falls to the floor.

“Too late,” The Wolf cackles from behind me, and I can feel the muzzle of his gun press into my back. “It’s been fun,Udav,” he says, with the promise of an excitable death in his tone.

I move as he pulls the trigger, feeling the shot explode in my right side. But I force through the pain, using the blade I still have embedded in the man in front of me as leverage to swing him around. Another gunshot goes off, but instead of my chest, it’s his man between us who takes the blow.

“Not quite,” I growl as I raise the gun in my other hand to shoot The Wolf. But as my finger tests the trigger, something hits him in the back of the head, and his mouth goes wide. I pull the trigger, and the bullet enters under his chin blowing his brains out of the top of his skull.

Blood and brain matter splatter my face as I yank my knife out of the man and let him drop back toward the snake tank. When The Wolf’s body falls forward, I notice the knife shallowly embedded in the back of his head. It’s one of my knives.That’s my girl.

I look up, pushing through the smoke, my back leg dragging as pain erupts through it, and I don’t know what hurts more, the bite or the bullet in my leg. My right-side screams as I apply pressure to the wound while my vision begins to fade in and out.

I’m focused on only one thing.

“Nikolai!” Sienna screams from somewhere just ahead of me, and I barely make her out, still on the wooden ladder, holding another blade in her hand, her long jacket now open slightly, displaying the line of my blades.

She goes to jump off, but Andrei blocks her in. He’s taken a bullet graze to his arm, no doubt from protecting both of the women. Agata’s heaving in breaths, but she’s safe. My gaze locks on Sienna as I grit through the pain to get to her.

The two wooden doors split open, and I bring the knife and gun up, ready to shoot and fight through anyone to get to her. But a pair of blue eyes freeze me in place as Dmitri Volkov raises his gun at my head. Everything seems to stop in that moment, as I’m faced with the man who was handed the same cards as me but was given a different path.

My half-brother—shaved head with vicious scarrunning along it, gaze cold and shrewd as he stares at me. And then he pulls the trigger, the bullet whizzing into the smoke where I sense a body fall behind me.

“Nikolai!” Sienna screams again, trying to twist from Andrei’s grip as Luca and Dante spill into the room. The hounds follow, leaving a trail of bodies down the hallway behind them. The group parts like the sea for the green-gemmed hound, and my eyes widen when I see what he’s holding.

I only have seconds to roll out of the way, hitting the wooden ladder Sienna stands on, as fire explodes from his weapon, spewing into the cloud of smoke as snakes and men are forced back.

My chest constricts as I stumble up to reach Sienna, my hand cupping her face as I scan over her to ensure she wasn’t hurt. That she wasn’t bitten.

“Nikolai.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “You’re hurt!”

I let a small smile slip as my gaze softens, as if finally able to give in to the pain, savoring that I have such a large body if only to protect her.

“That was a fierce throw,mishka,” I say in my native tongue. I couldn’t be prouder of her for trying to defend me as she threw that knife into the back of The Wolf’s head at the same time I blew out his brains.

Her eyes glisten as she says with the same lack of humor, “I did as you said and pretended to be aiming for my ex’s face.”

My breath comes in shallow pants as I smile, still not letting her off the ladder, aware of the two snakes close by. My mouth dries as I look down at myself for the first time, noticing the blood pouring from my leg and stomach. I can feel the sting in my shoulder, and my leg feels like it’s ballooned to twice its size from that one unfortunate bite. Though, I suspect there might be more now, none of which I noticed at the time.

“Nikolai!” Sienna screams as I lurch to the side.Fuck. I straighten myself up as Dmitri steps into view. His gaze is deadly, very different from how I imagined the business tycoon to act.

The distant flames streaking from the hound’s flamethrower seem to lighten his blue eyes, which look nothing like my own. I realize the difference between us as monsters was most likely our mothers. His did everything she could to run away with him and protect him. And mine exposed me to save her own ass. But at least I had Agata. Or, perhaps the difference is he found someone to fight for first. That he found purpose beyond himself.

Suddenly, being faced with him feels anticlimactic, as all I can think about is keeping my woman safe. Anything else is irrelevant.

“Dmitri, he’s been bitten!” Sienna screams, still trying to get down, but I lock myself against the wooden ladder, willing to die in this spot so long as she isn’t exposed to the slithering snakes on the floor.

The shooting has ceased, and the smoke billows out through the open doors. And I realize it’s done. I look back over at The Wolf where he lies facedown.

The Wolf has fallen, and so have his men.

The exhaustion begins to take hold, but I fight it. Dmitri comes to a stop in front of me, pure disdain in his eyes as he says, “We finally meet, half-brother.”