Chapter 38 – Lydia - Burn the Archive
The air collapses into total chaos, and Elias caught it in time enough to give us the warning to duck.
The first bullet tears through the edge of the table, shattering wood into splinters that bite into my arm.
The second whistles past my ear and punches into the wall.
Drazen’s voice disappears under the roar of gunfire, replaced by the mechanical percussion of rifles and the echo of boots hammering against concrete.
Elias moves first. He’s a blur of motion: crouching, rolling, firing twice before I even find my aim. Both his shots hit home, two of Drazen’s men folding where they stand, their weapons clattering against the floor like punctuation marks on a death sentence.
I drop low behind the table, drag my knife from my thigh sheath and reach for the pistol tucked into the waistband of my jeans.
My heart thunders so hard it almost drowns the rest of the noise.
Beside me, Silas shoves a chair aside, his movements sharp and precise.
His control is obscene. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink.
Every squeeze of the trigger is calculated violence.
A voice shouts from somewhere behind, voice cracking but steady enough to draw attention. “Left side! They’re circling!” Must be one of Elias’s reinforcements, covering us from behind.
Elias pivots instantly, his gun barking in rhythm. One more body hits the ground.
I duck under the edge of the table and sweep out, firing twice.
The recoil punches through my arms, the smell of powder sharp in the back of my throat.
A man drops to his knees in front of me, his weapon half-raised before Silas finishes him with a single headshot.
Blood sprays across the monitors, painting Drazen’s immaculate world in the color it deserves.
He’s still standing in the corner, watching the slaughter like it’s theater. Calm. Detached. Hands still clasped behind his back. The bastard doesn’t even flinch when his last guard falls.
The silence that follows is worse than the gunfire. It hums in my bones, heavy and wrong. I keep my pistol trained on him, finger tight against the trigger.
Elias steps forward, gun still up. “End of the line.”
Drazen’s lips curve. “For someone, yes.”
A sound clicks beneath our feet. Not a gun. A trigger.
Silas grabs my arm, dragging me back as a blast rips through the far wall.
The force throws us both to the ground, air splitting with the sound of concrete collapsing.
Dust floods the room, turning everything to blur and ash, and for a moment all I can hear is ringing. A long, metallic drone inside my skull.
“Lydia!” Silas’s hand finds my shoulder. He’s shouting, but his voice cuts through the noise like wire. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
I nod, coughing, spitting grit. “Still here.”
He pulls me to my feet. The air is thick with smoke, the lights strobing in and out. Drazen’s gone. A hole in the wall yawns open where he stood. He didn’t try to kill us, just distract us long enough to vanish.
“Fuck,” Elias growls, his face streaked with soot. “He’s running.”
Outside, gunfire flares again—in shorter bursts, sharper rhythms. Elias’s men are still out there. Six? Seven maybe. I can hear them engaging, the distinct crack of automatics echoing off the warehouse walls.
He turns to me. “Lydia, with Silas. Cut him off before he reaches the yard.”
I nod once. Silas doesn’t wait for further instruction; his hand finds my wrist, pulling me toward the gap blown in the wall. The concrete edges are jagged, still warm from the blast. We climb through, boots hitting the gravel outside.
The sky’s washed in orange light from the fire spreading across the upper scaffolds. Men are shouting, boots slamming, the smell of burning oil filling the air.
Drazen’s shape flashes ahead, his white shirt a beacon against the dark. He’s moving toward the back of the compound, toward the line of black SUVs that still gleam under the floodlights. I fire once, the shot clipping the side mirror of the nearest vehicle. He ducks behind it, vanishing again.
“Left!” Silas snaps, and I follow without thought. We move like we’ve trained for this; him covering angles, me taking the gaps. The chaos around us folds into focus, every movement sharp, every sound stretched tight.
Two of Elias’s men come around the corner, blood streaked across their sleeves but still standing. One shouts, “He’s heading for the service road!”
“Cut him off!” Silas yells back, motioning them forward. They sprint ahead, weapons raised.
I press my back against the metal siding of a container, chest heaving, trying to catch air that doesn’t taste like smoke. Silas glances at me, eyes bright under the firelight. “Stay behind me.”
“Like hell,” I mutter, pushing past him. “He’s mine.”
He grabs my arm, yanking me back hard enough that it jolts through my shoulder. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
I meet his stare. “Then at least it’ll be for something.”
For a second, he looks like he might argue. Then his mouth tightens, the kind of expression that means he’s already calculating how to let me do what I want without dying for it.
We move together toward the back gate. The night hums with chaos: engines starting, tires screeching, the guttural bark of orders from unseen men.
Drazen’s convoy is forming. I can see shadows moving inside the vehicles, flashes of light glinting off weapons, looks like these men have been set aside to stand by for an escape.
Smart, because it looks like it’s working for him right now.
Elias’s men are pouring out from the perimeter now, regrouping. I spot Jax among them, face pale, rifle shaking in his hands but aimed true. He takes a shot and another one of Drazen’s men drops, collapsing beside the SUV.
“Cover!” Elias’s voice booms from behind us. He’s coming up fast, Mara still back near the entrance, shielded by the cars.
Drazen ducks behind the last SUV, his face briefly visible under the harsh glare of headlights. Calm again, like he’s already won. He lifts a small device, another fucking detonator, and smiles at me.
“Enough,” he calls out. “Well-played. You’ve proven your point. But this still ends my way.”
I lift my pistol, sighting between his eyes. “You don’t get to decide how this ends.”
“Don’t I?” His thumb hovers over the button.
Silas steps forward, weapon raised. “Try it. I promise you won’t finish the motion.”
For a second, no one breathes. The entire yard seems to freeze, waiting for a trigger pull, a misstep, anything.
Then Drazen’s eyes flick past me, to the side—and that’s when I see it. Another figure, moving behind the vehicles, carrying something heavy. A backup plan.
“Now!” I shout.
Bullets shred the space between us, tearing through metal, glass, and bone.
Silas grabs me, hauling me behind a stack of crates as rounds rip the air apart.
Sparks spray where bullets chew into steel.
Drazen’s men are firing blind now, desperate.
Elias’s squad answers with precision, disciplined bursts cutting them down one after another.
I press against Silas’s chest, his arm wrapped around my shoulders, his other hand firing around the corner. His pulse hammers against my ribs, matching mine, both of us locked in that feverish calm that only comes when death feels inches away.
The gunfire slows, sputters, then stops altogether. When the smoke clears, the only sound left is the hiss of burning rubber.
Drazen’s SUV sits half-destroyed, one tire blown, the windshield spiderwebbed with cracks. The detonator lies on the ground, a few feet from his outstretched hand. He’s down on one knee, blood pouring from a graze along his side. His men—what’s left of them—are sprawled across the gravel, unmoving.
Elias strides forward through the haze, lowering his weapon. His face is hard, but his voice carries that edge of satisfaction. “You’re out of pawns, Drazen.”
I stand beside Silas, watching as Drazen lifts his head. His smile is gone now, replaced by something colder. “You think this ends with me? You’ll never—”
The rest of his words dissolve into a cough, blood bubbling on his lips.
“No speeches,” I say, stepping closer. “You’ve had enough screen time.”
His gaze slides to me. There’s something almost approving in it. “Ah. I see. You’ve finally chosen your side.”
“I have.”
And before he can blink, I pull the trigger.
The shot cracks through the night, clean and final. Drazen drops, his head hitting the gravel with a dull sound that seems to echo longer than it should.
No one speaks. The air tastes of cordite and closure. Elias lowers his gun completely. The fire behind us throws long shadows across the yard, flickering over the bodies, over Silas’s profile as he watches me.
“You didn’t hesitate,” he says softly.
I look at him. “He wasn’t worth it.”
He nods once, eyes dark, unreadable. “You are.”
I holster my weapon and step closer, the adrenaline still coursing hot in my veins. “And that’s why you can’t walk away.”
The corners of his mouth curve. He’s right. I’m right. We’re both too far gone to pretend this ends clean.
Behind us, Elias calls out to his men. “Secure the area. Gather the wounded. Burn the rest.”
His orders echo off the walls, final and certain.
When I glance at Silas again, his gaze is still on me, something burning behind it that isn’t relief or victory. It’s possession. Recognition.
We both survived another night. But survival has never been our goal.
We move like vultures into a body. The yard is still warm where men fell.
The air tastes of iron and scorched plastic.
I leave the carcass of Drazen where it lies and follow Elias through a gap in the broken fence.
He’s all angles and purpose, a man who walks without asking himself permission.
Behind him, his perimeter teams funnel outward, locking every exit, taking inventory of the dead with the businesslike calm of surgeons after an amputation.