Caught in the Crossfire (The Shadows Syndicate #3)

1. Leona

LEONA

“ H ello, Leona.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Max .

Fear turned my body cold, numbing my fingertips. He’d kidnapped me. I wrestled against my restraints, another shock of pain filtering down my arms.

I’d been taken off the streets of New York, only a block or two away from our home.

Wynn and I had been attacked on the way to buy Ciel a new gaming mouse.

We’d fought, and he’d tried his best to protect me, but it hadn’t been enough.

My body ached with the memory of vicious arms banding around me, punches to my torso.

Before I lost consciousness, I’d screamed for Wynn.

Now, my arch-enemy sat in front of me, and I had no way to fight back.

“Get the fuck away from me,” I snapped as I shimmied backward—the best I could do with my current predicament. Metal walls formed two sides of this small cell, and prison bars formed the other two, trapping me. My mind raced as I tried to think of a plan to get free.

I had to get back to my men. There was no way I was letting Max kill me now .

He didn’t move, only tilted his head back. It thunked against the metal behind him, and the sound reverberated through the room.

“I would if I could.”

What the fuck did that mean? I breathed through my nose to calm myself despite my fear response being dialed all the way to fight . I scanned his body—why was he sitting on the floor like I was? Where were his arms?

Why was he inside this cell, instead of taunting me from the other side of the bars?

“Max…” A chill climbed up the back of my neck. The ground under me pitched and rolled again. I licked my lips to taste a hint of salt. “Where are we?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “I wish I knew, but sadly, you removed my hacker.”

“Lucia? What are you talking about?”

His arms jerked, but still didn’t show themselves in front of his body. “It appears we share a similar problem.”

Max’s arms were restrained behind him, just like me. He was inside this cell, just like me. Which meant…

“Who the fuck did this?” I whispered.

“My guess is the Albanians,” he responded with a half-hearted shrug, followed by a wince. “Given the men speaking Albanian, and that we seem to be on some kind of ship.”

Shit . I looked around, inhaling the salty air. My mouth tasted gritty, and my throat was already dry. “A ship? The Albanians?”

“I warned you, Leona.” His voice sounded exhausted.

Lifeless. It reminded me so much of how he pulled away from me and Cas after his father died, and it took weeks before we could pull him out of his shell again.

Had he…given up? “I warned you that you were paving the way for them to infiltrate the city, but you just couldn’t stop yourself. This is your fucking fault.”

“This is not my fault?— ”

At that, his eyes flared to life. He sat forward. “It is , Leona. I’ve been doing everything I could to keep you out of this—” his words cut off and his lips pressed together.

“What, Max? What have you been trying to keep me out of?”

He turned his head and shifted his arms behind him, a weak struggle to get free of his restraints. A breath hissed from between his teeth. “Nothing.”

Rage flared inside me, staving off the creeping cold blanketing my body. He’d spent years hiding things from me. He was going to do it again, and then blame me for his problems?

I struggled to my knees, my arms aching behind me. “Don’t do that. This all started because you shut me and Cas out. If you had told me what my father was doing?—”

“No.” His jaw clenched. “You weren’t capable of doing what I had to do.

You still aren’t, despite how you’ve been running around the city pretending to be some joke of a queen.

This is not a fucking game. I’m fighting a war on all sides, and now we’re both dealing with the consequences of your actions. ”

I drew a sharp breath, recoiling from his words. Somehow he still knew how to shape his words into daggers and drive them into my heart. My eyes burned with tears. If my arms were free, I would have lunged across this cell to strangle him.

I bit the inside of my lip, using the pain to keep my emotions in check. He was wrong. I was not pretending . My guys believed in me. I believed in us and our future. I’d do whatever it took to return to them, to be held by them again.

A war on all sides?

No. Max couldn’t distract me from fighting to stay alive. He might not be the most immediate threat, but if the Albanians had captured us, this would not end well. I had to focus.

Whatever was going on here wouldn’t break me.

My eyes scanned our cell and its room. There was a door on the opposite side. A single fold-up chair waited right next to it, like someone could sit there and watch the cell. A red light flickered in the top right corner of the room, just outside the bars. What was that? A camera?

If we were on a ship, we were getting farther away from the city with every second.

My finger circled my engagement ring again, the gemstones reassuring and calming. The tracker inside would lead Ciel right to me. It was just a matter of time.

But I couldn’t just sit here and wait. Especially not if Max was going to pick fights with me the entire time.

I stretched my arms from side to side, trying to loosen my shoulders. The bruises on my ribs ached, drawing a hiss from my lips, and my muscles screamed in protest.

“What are you doing?” Max challenged.

I ignored him as I focused on trying to get limber, but my body was cold, stiff, and sore.

Wynn and I had run through these exercises dozens of times now, every time we sparred in the gym.

The last I’d seen him, he was limping toward me before a gunshot tore through the air and my vision went dark.

I gritted my teeth, pushing my fear into the back of my mind.

Wynn wouldn’t give up. He was alive and waiting for me as soon as I could get free. I had to believe that.

“Leona.” Max’s voice turned stern, like a warning.

Instead of answering, I glared. He watched with wide eyes as I sat back on my butt and wiggled my arms back and forth underneath my glutes.

My muscles strained, but the bindings on my wrists weren’t too tight.

When my arms slid over the hump of my backside, I gasped in relief and pulled my legs through the loop of my arms.

“Be careful,” Max whispered, glancing up at the blinking red dot. So he thought it was a camera too. How long had he been stuck in here?

I tried to angle my body away from it so whoever was watching couldn’t see my arms, now bound in front of my body.

Ryuji’s knife remained tucked into the band of my sports bra, and I reached inside my shirt to grab it.

He’d told me he wanted me to have it “just in case.” Thank God for his knife obsession.

Max gaped when I pulled it free and flicked open the blade. I rolled my eyes at his disbelief. After a few tries, I got the knife angled underneath the zip tie. With the right amount of pressure, the binding snapped.

My hands popped apart, and I almost groaned. My shoulders and ribs immediately felt relief. Hope surged inside me. I had my knife. The guys had trained me well. I could withstand the Albanians. Who cared that we were on a ship, presumably in the middle of the ocean? One problem at a time.

One breath at a time .

My eyes flicked to Max, blade still in hand.

His gaze leveled at me, calm and collected. Back to his passive mask. “Are you going to kill me now?”

It wouldn’t be hard.

He deserved it after everything he’d put us through. After getting us caught up in whatever this was with the Albanians.

I took a step forward.

His arms were still bound behind him. Now that I was closer, I could see his labored breathing.

He leaned to his right side. He probably had a few broken ribs from however the Albanians had captured him.

I could stab my knife into his heart, just like I had when I killed Kofler in Los Angeles.

He was a sitting duck; it would be easy.

The door across the room screeched open. Footsteps thundered closer.

I turned to face a man waiting just outside the bars.

He had a large hooked nose, and his eyes were black beads.

He shouted something in another language—Albanian.

Another man ran in behind him, this one wearing a giant red puffer jacket.

Something dark, maybe oil or soot, covered both of their hands .

The two of them looked between me, Max, and the knife in my hand.

When Hooked Nose reached for the cell door, I decided. The Max problem could wait. Getting free of these assholes and getting off this ship was more important.

I sank into my training, just as Wynn taught me.