Chapter 22 – Lydia - Glass Cages #2
We take the corridor that runs along the east wing — the one with the heavy windows that only pretend to open. The guard’s stride is brisk, honed like a drill, but controlled enough to feel rehearsed. I match it, heel for heel, refusing to look smaller than I am.
Halfway down, voices rise. A shadow first, then two figures step out from the adjoining hall.
Dom. Drazen.
Both dressed sharp, as though the night never ended. But their faces…
Not calm. Not collected. Wary. Like something isn’t right.
Dom’s smirk is thinner than usual, tugging at the edge of a jaw that looks clenched hard enough to crack. Drazen’s eyes sweep the hall once, before pinning on me.
The guard halts. Straightens.
Drazen flicks two fingers. “With us.”
The guard shifts, uncertain.
Drazen’s gaze doesn’t move. “Now.”
The man obeys. He falls in behind them, leaving me alone in the corridor with a directive tossed back over Drazen’s shoulder.
“Stay put. Go back to the library. Or your suite. We’ll come for you when it’s time.”
No explanation or context. Just dismissal.
Then they’re gone, moving down the hall with the guard at their flank, their voices dropping low, taut with urgency.
I stand frozen for a beat, the hush pressing in heavier than before.
Something’s wrong.
I retreat to my suite immediately, heart hammering like I’m already running.
I’m in my suite not more than two minutes when the first crack hits.
Not loud. Not obvious. Just a stutter in the lights above, a flicker that shouldn’t happen in a penthouse wired to perfection. The hum of the cameras skips for a fraction of a second, then steadies.
My chest tightens.
It’s starting.
The timing. The plan. Whatever Silas and maybe Elias set in motion — it’s here.
Another sound, closer this time. Metal scraping against metal, distant but deliberate. A door forced somewhere beyond this floor.
I move to the window, part the curtain just enough.
Below, the street that should be dead is alive — a van parked wrong, too close to the curb. A shadow moving where shadows don’t belong.
My pulse spikes.
They’re here.
The handle of door shifts.
I spin, a thousand thoughts racing through my mind.
Then—
Gunfire. Distant but echoing through the halls like thunder rolling closer. Shouts follow, muffled but piercing. The sound of boots hammering the marble floor.
It’s chaos. Real chaos. Not staged. Not planned by Drazen.
I know it in my bones.
The rescue isn’t just coming.
It’s already breaking the walls down.
The gunfire doesn’t fade. It grows more piercing, closer, slicing through the penthouse walls like they’re paper. The room feels suddenly too small, too exposed, like it’s waiting to collapse around me.
I press against the shelves, listening. Voices bark in Russian, clipped commands ricochet down the hall. The lights flicker again, then steady — but it’s too late. The fracture’s opened.
Another burst of gunfire tears through the air.
I don’t think. I move.
The corridor outside is chaos. Two guards sprint past me, rifles in hand, eyes wild. They don’t look at me — they’re too focused on whatever’s bleeding through the lower floors. I slip out behind them, keeping to the wall, pulse hammering in my throat.
Then I hear it. A voice.
“East stairwell’s dead! They cut the comms!”
Cut the comms.
My chest seizes, but not from fear. From recognition. That’ looks like Elias’s tactics.
Another shout: “Dom! They’re inside—”
The sentence cuts off in a scream. A body hits the marble somewhere below, the sound thick and final.
I force myself forward, weaving down the corridor, past a fallen glass, past the stain spreading across the carpet where someone bled too fast to hide it. The penthouse isn’t a cage anymore. It’s a battlefield.
The main stairwell looms ahead. Shouts. More gunfire. Then a shadow surges up the last steps, pistol first, eyes alert.
Elias.
Not dressed like Drazen’s men. No mask. No leash. Just black fatigues, eyes slice straight through me like they never forgot how.
For half a heartbeat, I freeze. He’s real. Here.
His gaze pins me, hard and unyielding. “Lydia.”
My throat tightens. I should answer. I can’t.
Behind him, another figure bursts up the stairs, covering his flank—taller, broader, familiar even in the storm. Silas.
His eyes find me instantly.
Not the room. Not Elias. Me.
The sight of him hits like a blade sliding between my ribs.
“Move!” Elias barks, breaking the charge in my veins.
Two guards round the far corner, rifles raised. Elias doesn’t hesitate. Two shots. Both men drop before their fingers twitch the trigger.
Silas doesn’t look away from me, even as he reloads. “We don’t have time.”
I find my voice. Barely. “How—?”
“Later,” Elias cuts in, sharp, brutal. “Right now, I need you to run.”
Another volley of gunfire rattles the walls. Shards of glass rain down from the overhead fixture. I flinch, but Silas is already crossing the space, his hand closing hard around my arm, pulling me in behind the cover of his body. His heat is real, grounding, dangerous.
The three of us move fast. Elias ahead and Silas shielding me as we push toward the stairwell.
A guard lunges from a side door. Silas twists, fires point-blank. The man crumples, the scent of gunpowder fills my nostrils. My pulse spikes. I can taste it on my tongue, acrid and electric.
We reach the stairwell landing. Smoke curls from below. They’ve already lit the diversion charges. The sound of men shouting over each other is a tide rolling upward.
Elias grabs my chin, forces my gaze to his. “You trust him?” He jerks his head toward Silas.
I choke out the truth before I can stop myself. “I don’t know.”
“That’s good enough,” Elias mutters. Then he pushes me toward Silas. “Get her out. Top exit, north side. I’ll cover the noise.”
“Wait—” I start.
But Elias is already gone, barreling down the steps into the chaos like a man made for war.
Silas hauls me close, his voice at my ear, ragged but steady. “Stay behind me. Do not stop.”
We move.
The stairwell shakes with every detonation below. Smoke rises, burning my eyes, but I don’t care. I hold onto the back of Silas’s shirt like it’s the only thing tethering me to the ground.
We burst through the roof access door, cold night air hitting my face.
And then I see him.
Dom.
He's standing near the edge of the rooftop, two of Drazen's men flanking him, rifles already raised. His grin is feral, all teeth and malice.
“You think you can take what’s mine and just walk out?”
Silas pulls me behind him, gun raised, body tight with rage, and for the first time, I see it — he’s not thinking like just a man anymore. He’s thinking like a man who would rather burn than let go.
The rooftop hums with the sound of danger coiled too tight.
And I realize this isn’t escape yet.
This is war.