Chapter 24 Sophia
Sophia
The doorknob turned. Not fast. Not loud. Just that slow, deliberate creak that makes your stomach drop before your brain catches up.
Caroline squeaked, in fear or excitement I couldn’t tell. I jumped to my feet, the chain at my ankle catching and jerking me off balance.
A figure stepped through. Tall. Broad. Moving like he owned the room.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t rush. Just stood there. Watching. Assessing.
I held my breath.
He took a step forward, then the light brushed across his face.
“Sal?”
He raised one finger. “Quiet.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. My pulse thumped in my ears, loud enough I thought he could hear it too.
Caroline rose slowly, dragging her chain an inch across the floor.
“You’re not allowed in here,” she said.
Sal hesitated, just for a second. Then stepped forward.
“I’m getting her out,” he said, eyes locked on the chain at my ankle. Not looking at Caroline.
She blinked. “What?”
He knelt beside me and pulled a ring of keys from his coat. The metal clinked softly, horribly loud in the silence.
Caroline straightened. “No. You’re not.”
He ignored her, sliding the first key into the lock.
Didn’t fit.
Another. Too tight.
The third key went in crooked. He pushed too hard. It stuck. He yanked it out with a muttered curse.
My heart was beating too fast. I crouched lower, trying to keep still—hope, despair, hope, despair.
Caroline took a slow step forward, eyes glassy. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”
Fourth key. Fifth.
Every time one failed, I felt closer to breaking, to throttling him even though he was just trying to help.
The sixth key caught. So did my breath.
Click.
Wouldn’t turn.
Seventh. No. Eighth. Still no. I wanted to scream. He moved too slow and too fast at the same time. My ankle burned. The cuff bit into skin already rubbed raw.
Ninth.
Nothing.
I stared down at the chain, trailing from me to the bolt embedded in the tile like an anchor. My throat felt tight.
Caroline’s voice cut through the metal scraping. “Ivan will never forgive you for this.”
Sal spun around to face her. “I don’t need forgiveness from a devil.”
She shrank back into the corner, scared of the man trying to save us.
Sal stared at the last key. Just one left. He wiped his sweaty brow.
He slid it into the lock.
It turned—halfway.
He forced it further, but the lock refused. The key stuck inside, unmoving.
He looked at me. Then Caroline. Then at nothing, as if someone else might come through the door and finish what he couldn’t.
Caroline’s voice came again, soft but poisoned. “Good.”
Sal didn’t flinch.
He stood, slow and stiff. Caroline blinked at him.
He stepped toward her.
“You think you’re special? You think you’re the one he’ll keep?”
Her mouth opened.
He didn’t let her speak.
“I’ve seen girls like you,” he snapped. “Dozens. Maybe more. The ones who start off shaking in the corner, then start defending him like he’s some misunderstood prince.”
He pointed at her, then let his arm drop.
“He gets tired of all of you eventually. And one morning—you will be gone. No explanation. No goodbye. Just like the rest.”
Her face drained of color.
“He wouldn’t,” she whispered.
Sal stepped even closer. “He would. He has.”
Her lip quivered. “You’re lying.”
He jingled the keys in her face. “Where do you think these came from?”
She crossed her arms, gripping her elbows, trying to shrink into herself.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, but the edges of her voice shook.
“The truth is the truth, whether you believe it or not.”
Sal watched her for another heartbeat, then turned back to me.
“Maybe I…” His voice had lost all its edge. “I missed a key. Put one in backwards.”
He dropped back down to the floor like gravity had taken hold of him. One by one. Again, he tried to free me with shaking hands.
Caroline hovered near the wall now, her face tight with worry. She wasn’t pacing. Wasn’t yelling. She looked… conflicted.
“He’s not a monster,” she said, more to herself than to us.
“Then why are you chained to the floor?” Sal barked over his shoulder.
She didn’t answer.
“I know you think this is love,” I said, voice quieter now. “But love doesn’t look like this. It doesn’t feel like this.”
She let out a sob, and for just a second, I saw her—not the delusional girl chained up in a room, but the one inside her head. The girl who believed her love was inherently enough to make an evil man good. The girl who had to believe it, to survive.
It hurt to look at her now, so I didn’t.
Sal gave one last twist of the key and let his hand drop.
With a strangled noise, he flung the whole ring of keys across the room. They clattered against the wall and skidded across the tile, scattering in all directions.
He sat back, panting, hands braced on his knees.
He shook his head, then met my eyes. Mouth open like he couldn’t figure out how to tell me I was fucked.
A dull, muffled sound spilled into the room. Like a door slamming somewhere deep in the house.
Sal’s head snapped toward the bedroom door.
“What was that?” I whispered.
Another sound. Louder. Sharp.
A shout.
Caroline was frozen, her hands still clutching her elbows.
Sal scrambled across the floor, crawling on his hands and knees, gathering the keys one by one, frantically, as if he had been found out.
Then—
Gunfire.
One shot. Then two more in quick succession.
Close.
Too close.
Sal surged to his feet.
The whole house had gone still again, like it was waiting to see what would happen next.
Gunfire erupted again.
Ripping through the silence.
Rapid fire. No rhythm. No warning.
The sound came from everywhere at once.
Caroline looked at me and I looked at her. She was shaking. I was too.
The air felt too thick to breathe.
“I have to see what’s happening,” Sal said.
“No,” Caroline cried out immediately, voice small and tight.
I didn’t speak. Just shook my head. Eyes locked on him. Begging without saying it.
But he was already heading toward the door.
He cracked it open, just enough to peer through. A shaft of light arcing through the dim room.
Silence.
Then another burst—somewhere distant.
He looked back at me one last time.
His pale face looked like he might not come back.
Then he slipped out, shutting the door behind him.
We waited.
Too long.
When he finally returned, he had a shotgun.
Gunshots cracked louder now—closer, sharper. No longer distant.
Sal shut the door hard behind him, breathing heavily, eyes scanning the room.
“They’re close,” he said.
His voice barely held. He was shaking like a dog caught in a storm, the shotgun heavy in his grip.
He looked like he didn’t want to use it.
But the glint in his eye said he would if he had to.
He faced me fully now. Eyes wide. Like his whole life had led to this moment.
And then—he raised the shotgun in my direction.
“I don’t know who’s out there,” he said, voice low, apologetic. “But I’ve got one task to do that I know is right. One thing I don’t have to question or regret.”
Blinding light. Ears ringing, a deafening squeal that blanketed everything.
When I dared to open my eyes, one of the chain’s big links was mangled.
Sal was down on one knee, trying to pry one of the thick links through the twisted gap with his bare hands, blood smearing across the jagged metal as it sliced into him.
Another burst of gunfire tore through the mansion—closer than before. No mistaking it.
The bedroom door flew open.
Three men rushed inside, boots thundering across the tile. They moved like scared animals—jumpy, raw, wild-eyed. Then a fourth man barreled in, every inch of his skin covered in tattoos.
We all stared at them, horrified. But they barely looked at us. Just a passing glance.
Not here for us.
Sinclair men.
I felt my stomach drop. They slammed the door shut, dragging a chair across the floor with a shriek. Wedged it under the knob. One kicked it to secure it.
Another turned toward the others. “We’re done for,” he muttered.
Then the biggest one, the tattooed one, leered down at him with his broad, decorated face, neck veined with adrenaline.
“Shut the fuck up. Hold the room.”
“Hold the room? We’re out of fucking ammo.”
The big one pulled a long knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh and hit him in the arm with the flat side of it. “You got a knife, don’t you?” He growled his words so deep I felt the vibrations in my chest.
The smaller man nodded, pulling a blade from his boot and flicking it open, huffing air like he couldn’t get enough.
Sal slid back beside me, hiding his gun just in time. He tucked it low behind his leg, then doubled over with a pained grimace, smearing his bloody hands across his stomach as if he were injured in the fight and useless to them.
The big one glanced at him, but didn’t look twice.
“Do none of you have ammo?” he asked in that gravelly, terrifying voice.
They all shook their heads.
“Then get ready to grab the fucker when he comes in. It’s our only chance—that and stabbing.” He laughed. The others didn’t.
They fanned out in a loose half-circle around the door, blades drawn, breaths ragged and sharp.
Backs to us like we weren’t even there.
Slowly, quietly, Sal gripped the shotgun, started to raise it toward the biggest man.
A boot slammed into the door. The chair splintered. Hinges tore free. Another kick.
“Get ready, boys. It’s just one ma—”
The door flew inward, cracking one of them in the head. He dropped flat, limbs limp. A shadow stalked in through the doorway, light spilling in behind him.
Not rushing. Not shouting. Just a controlled, lethal grace—shoulders broad, eyes fixed, every step a quiet promise of violence.
He saw me.
His eyes locked on mine.
Something in me surged—recognition, hope, terror. All of it. It drowned the room for a second.
“Gabriel.” I felt his name on my lips.
Then his gaze shifted. Hardened. Saw Sal raising the gun.
He fired.
The shot cracked like thunder.
Sal collapsed beside me, his violent shaking easing into a twitch—then settling into a low, pulsing rhythm.
I blinked the bright light away, rubbed at my ears.
What?
I opened and closed my hands, smearing the red wetness, trying to understand.
Blinding light again. Ears squealing.
The big man was on his knees, face scrunched up hard—not laughing anymore. A shadow was turning his head around the wrong way.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Shook my head.
That was far away.
Had nothing to do with me.
I looked at my hands again.
Wiped them clean.
I squinted around, trying to remember something, saw a girl in the corner. She was shouting, frantic. Her hands trembled, eyes wide, tears running down her cheeks. Looking right at me.
She was trying to tell me something.
My ears still rang. Everything muffled.
Her voice came through like it was underwater, then suddenly clear as day and ear-splitting loud.
“Sophia!”
She was pointing.
Pointing at Gabriel on his back.
A Sinclair man on top of him, knife in both hands, pressing down with all his weight, snarling, blood dripping from his face onto Gabriel beneath him.
Gabriel strained, muscles flexing beneath blood-slick skin, one arm locked at the other man’s wrist, keeping the blade inches from his chest. Gabriels other arm lay limp at his side, blood flowing with each heartbeat.
His jaw clenched. The man above him grunted, pressing down with all his weight, face twisted, blood dripping from his chin.
Slowly—inch by inch—Gabriel began to turn the knife sideways. Not back, not yet. But off-center. Off-balance. Just enough to shift the fight.
I didn’t hesitate.
I dropped to Sal’s side. My fingers closed around the shotgun’s grip, slick with Sal’s blood. I hauled it up, arms straining under the weight. My pulse thundering in my head.
I braced the shotgun against my shoulder. Short, quick breaths. The barrel swayed, no matter how hard I tried to keep it aimed at his chest.
The man didn’t see me. He was too locked in—snarling, teeth bared, murder in his eyes. He reeled back, ripped his wrist free from Gabriel’s hand, gripped the knife with both hands high above his head, ready to bear down on him with everything he had.
The man leaned back a final inch, muscles flexing, eyes wide with rage. He roared, thrusting the blade down.
And the shotgun roared—slamming into my shoulder like a punch from God.
The mans chest bloomed like a rose as he flew back in a wheezing hiss, hitting the floor with a long wet slap, a dark pool of blood spreading in a huge circle around something that didn’t look human anymore.