Chapter 21
CINDY
The first gunshot explodes like thunder. My world fractures into chaos. The door slams shut just as another shot rings out.
Luka moves before my brain can even process what's happening, his body slamming into mine as he tackles me to the floor. I don’t have time to register the pain in my hip from where I’ve hit the floor. He's already dragging me behind the couch.
"Stay low," he growls against my ear. His voice is deadly calm despite the violence erupting around us.
Another shot punches through the door, then another, each one accompanied by the sickening sound of wood splintering and drywall exploding into dust. I can't breathe. Can't think.
The couch is probably useless against bullets, but it's the only cover we have. Luka presses me against the floor. His heavy body suffocating me. I don’t complain. I take shallow breaths and cover my head with my hands.
Debris rains down around us. I can feel his heart hammering against my back. He shifts his weight, and the hard thing jabbing me in the side is gone.
His gun.
Thank God.
He’s armed. We’ll be okay. Luka will save us.
"How many?" I whisper, though I'm not sure why I'm whispering when they're literally shooting through the door.
"Two, maybe three," he murmurs back, his gun already in his hand. "Amateur hour. If Charles wanted us dead, he would have sent professionals."
The shooting stops abruptly, leaving behind a ringing silence that's somehow worse than the chaos. My ears are buzzing. I can taste plaster dust on my tongue. The acrid smell of gunpowder hangs in the air like a toxic cloud.
I hear a click and another shot.
"One," Luka breathes, so quietly I almost miss it.
The door is kicked open, and I hear the voices.
Another shot rings out. The bullet impacts the floor beside us. I fight the urge to scream.
“Two.” Luka murmurs.
What the fuck? Is this some kind of anxiety exercise? Really? He thinks counting to ten is going to make this situation any better?
“Shoot them!” I whisper.
Just then, another gunshot pierces the couch inches from where we’re hiding.
“Three.”
I realize he's counting. Counting the shots. My mind, desperate for something to focus on besides the terror clawing at my throat, latches onto the numbers.
“Four."
I find myself counting along, my lips moving silently with his. It's absurd, ridiculous even, but somehow the rhythm of it steadies me. Numbers I can handle. Numbers make sense when nothing else does.
"Five. Six. Seven." His voice is a low rumble against my back.
More shots, rapid fire now. They're getting desperate, or maybe just running out of patience. The sound is deafening in the small space.
"Eight. Nine. Ten."
The baby. Oh God, the baby. What kind of world am I bringing a life into? What kind of mother lets herself get trapped in a shootout?
"Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Standard magazine holds fifteen rounds," Luka murmurs, his lips brushing my ear.
Luka's counting is getting faster now, matching the increasingly erratic gunfire. I can feel the tension coiling in his muscles. He's preparing to move, I realize with a chill of terror.
"Fourteen. Fifteen."
The silence that follows is different this time. Heavier. Like the calm before a storm instead of the eye of it.
And then he's moving, rising from our hiding spot with fluid grace despite the chaos. "Stay down," he orders.
And then he's gone, leaving me on the floor behind the couch with my heart in my throat.
The silence stretches for what feels like hours but is probably only seconds. Then I hear footsteps. Not Luka's footsteps. Someone else.
I don’t move. I do my best to conjure an invisibility spell.
I inch my body to the side and peer around the couch. A man steps through the ruined doorway, gun raised as he searches for me. Of course, he’s looking for me. I live here.
Lived here.
He's big, built like a bouncer, with dead eyes that make my skin crawl.
He hasn't seen me yet, but it's only a matter of seconds before—
The man drops like a stone.
I see him hit the floor with a thud, and then Luka is there, materializing in the doorway like an avenging angel. His gun is still raised. There's something fierce and terrifying in his expression that makes my pulse skip.
He scans the room quickly, confirming the threat is neutralized, before his eyes find mine. The transformation is instant. The deadly predator disappears, replaced by the man who drops to his knees beside me with shaking hands.
"Are you hurt?" His voice is rough and desperate as his hands run over me, checking for injuries I don't have.
I shake my head, not trusting my voice. Now that the immediate danger has passed, the full weight of what just happened is crashing over me like a tsunami. We could have died. The baby could have died. We came so close to losing everything before we even had a chance to begin.
That's when I notice the blood.
"Luka." My voice cracks when I see the dark stain spreading across his left shoulder. "You're bleeding."
He glances down at the wound with the detached interest of someone examining a paper cut. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing." I reach for him, but he catches my hands, holding them still.
"Cindy." There's something in his voice I've never heard before. "I need to ask you something."
"Now?" I stare at him in disbelief. "Luka, you're bleeding. We need to—"
"Now," he says firmly, his hands tightening around mine. "Especially now."
Before I can protest further, he's kissing me.
He jerks his head back. "Marry me."
For a moment, I'm sure I've misheard. The gunfire must have damaged my hearing more than I thought. "What?"
"Marry me," he repeats, and this time there's no mistaking it. His eyes are intense, burning with something that goes beyond the adrenaline of survival. "Right now. Today. Tomorrow. I don't care when or where or how, but marry me."
I stare at him in disbelief.
"You're in shock," I say weakly. "We're both in shock. This isn't—"
"This is exactly the right time." He stands up and lifts me to my feet. "I almost lost you. I almost lost both of you. I’m not wasting any time.”
Tears are streaming down my face. "Luka..."
What am I going to say… no?
I’m not an idiot. He’s not exactly asking.
And I don’t need him to. I know what I want.
"Yes," I whisper, and then louder, "Yes."
The smile that breaks across his face is brilliant enough to light up the destroyed room.
The sound of heavy footsteps and men shouting breaks the spell. My eyes go wide.
Luka curses in Russian and shoves me behind him. "Stay behind me," he orders.
"Luka!" A voice calls from down the hall.
"Grigori," he calls back. "About time you showed up to the party."
"Sorry, Boss," comes the reply.
Three men appear in the doorway. They’re all armed and look pissed as hell.
Grigori shoots me a dirty look.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
"Boss, looks like you handled it,” one of them says.
"One of them got away," Luka reports, holstering his weapon. "Black sedan, license plate starts with 'GHY'—that's all I got before he disappeared."
"We'll find him," another man promises. "What about cleanup?"
"Handle it," Luka says curtly. "We need to move. Now."
He turns to me. "Can you walk?"
I nod, though my legs are shaky.
"The Tahoe is outside," Grigori says, gesturing toward the door.
Luka nods, his arm sliding around my waist in a gesture that's both protective and possessive. "Let's go."
We make our way through the ruined room, stepping carefully around debris. I try not to look too closely at the body sprawled near the door.
He had it coming. He would have killed me, I remind myself.
“My bag,” I say.
“Get her in the SUV,” Luka says. “I’ll get it.”
A large black SUV idles just outside the door of my building.
Another man is already moving toward the driver's side.
I'm three steps from safety when the van appears.
It materializes between two other vehicles like a ghost. Grigori goes down. Just drops without warning. I don't even have time to scream before I hear the sharp crack of electricity and feel every muscle in my body seize up at once.
The taser hits me square in the chest. The world explodes into agony. Every nerve ending fires at once, my body convulsing beyond my control as I collapse to the asphalt. Through the haze of pain, I hear Luka shouting my name and hear the sound of running footsteps.
I can’t move.
I can’t scream.
I’m completely paralyzed.
Hands grab me, hauling me up and toward the van. I try to fight, but my body won't obey. The electrical current has turned my muscles to jelly, leaving me as helpless as a rag doll.
"Cindy!" Luka's voice cuts through the chaos, but it sounds farther away than it should. They're dragging me into the van, and I can't stop them.
The last thing I see before the doors slam shut is Luka running toward us, his face a mask of rage and terror. The last thing I hear is the sharp crack of a gunshot, and then everything goes black.
My final coherent thought as consciousness slips away is Luka.
His promise to marry me.
A promise that he might never get the chance to keep.