47. Anastasia
I’m looking at Alistair’s elaborate manor in the woods, hand in hand with Rhett with Shadow by my heel, picturing the next time I’ll stand here, when we’ll feel the heat across our faces as we watch it go up in flames.
We have Xoid in every possible surrounding place, hidden nearby and remotely, though we have no plan and no idea of what we’ll face once we go inside.
Jacob is watched by two of our guys beside us. He’s been beaten up pretty badly, bound and gagged, and I have to say, it’s satisfying to see his face not so pretty and smug anymore.
“We’re not here to try to attack Lanshall today,” Rhett says.
I think he’s trying to convince himself more than anything. It’s going to be damned hard to face him and only hand over Forthson for Liam and Allie. He has the alliance of Silas Balenheizer now, and we’re severely outmatched against the both of them.
“One day,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“Nice ring,” Jacob says, barely coherent through the tight fabric tied between his teeth. “I would have done better though.”
I let go of Rhett’s hand, and he shifts as I step in front of Jacob. I hate him so much my hands tighten painfully to keep from trembling.
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” I say.
“I think you despise me because I know you too well.”
His mere presence has been probing at a trigger within me, and now I can’t stop my impulse. My arm pulls back, and I put everything I have into the punch I deliver across his jaw. Pain lances over my knuckles and up my arm too, but unaware, Jacob sprawls to the ground, and it’s worth it to see the freshly bleeding cut along his cheekbone.
I grit my teeth, flexing my tender fingers as I stare down at him with loathing. Large, gentle hands take my throbbing one, and I’m drawn to watch Rhett examine my injury with a slow-blooming smile.
“You’ve gotten far better at that,” he mutters bittersweetly. “No splits, but it will bruise significantly. You pack a powerful punch, little bird.”
“With the right motivation, yeah, I think I can.”
Rhett huffs with a shake of his head and then leans in to kiss my forehead.
“I’m hoping you won’t be inspired again.”
I grip the front of his black T-shirt to coax his lips to mine. The kiss is short but needed.
We head to the entrance, which is eerily open for us. My skin is crawling with a sense of dread, but I measure my breaths. Inside it’s too quiet. I’m used to seeing several intimidating men floating around the place, but there’s no one. We go to Alistair’s office. Shadow remains alert by my side, and the only noises disturbing our tense silence are Jacob’s shuffles and groans of pain as he’s dragged along behind us.
We don’t find Alistair in his office, but my heart goes from leaping at the sight of Kenna, perched cross-legged on his desk, to falling to my stomach at finding Liam gagged and strapped to the chair behind it.
“About time,” Kenna drawls, bored.
She looks absolutely lethal in tight black jeans, heeled ankle boots, and a leather jacket. Her long, straight black hair is in a high ponytail that swings when she hops off the table.
“Kenna,” Rhett says, as if he’s seeing a ghost and the name is uncertain to him. When he last saw her, they were only sixteen and he knew her by another name.
“I don’t know you, just as you don’t know me,” she says coldly. “Who we became under these names. We’re strangers and enemies, Kaiser.”
“You don’t mean that,” he says, pain slipping through his mask of indifference.
“Don’t make me show you just how much I mean it.”
I ask, “Where’s Alistair?”
“Leaving the fun to me,” she says with a sinister playful edge. Kenna retrieves a knife from her side, and I tense as she circles around to Liam, who locks his terrified green eyes on me.
“Don’t hurt him,” I snap. Rhett grabs my arm to stop my advance. “We brought him Forthson. That was the deal to let him and Allie go.”
“He will stick to his word, but it’s no fun to just hand them over.”
My blood chills at the way she says that.
“Allie is being watched by Micah.”
Rhett arms himself that instant, and it’s me who has to stop him from storming out of here in his rage and erupting through his fists and his gun until he finds her. The idea of Micah with Allie turns me nauseous and ice-cold. He’s alive. I thought the pencil in his neck surely must have killed him, but I guess my mistake was snapping them all as it can’t have sunk in deep enough.
“You should go to her while we have our time here,” Kenna says to him.
“What happened to you?” Rhett snaps.
I squeeze his arm in warning. He doesn’t mean to lash out at Kenna—she’s not responsible for any of this.
“I survived,” she says, devoid of any emotion.
Rhett vibrates beneath me. “Go find Allie. I’ll be okay here,” I say.
Conflict wars in his eyes, but he nods tightly, cupping my face for a lingering second before he follows one of Alistair’s men waiting to escort him.
“It’s not too late to let us help you,” I say gently.
Kenna doesn’t take well to it. Her smile is cruel and beautiful. “It’s not me who needs any help, Ana. Not from you or him or fucking Silas.”
“I understand why you didn’t come to Lumina. It would have felt like being passed from one possession to another,” I say.
“You don’t know anything.”
“He came for you anyway. Except this way, he betrayed us for it instead.”
I shiver at the new voice that interrupts.
“Only seems fair, don’t you think?” Alistair circles around like a vulture from behind me. “After all, you betrayed me.”
“You had Rhett captured and tortured all this time,” I seethe.
“I did. And had you been good, and he cooperative, I would have allowed you to reunite. It’s all I wanted. I see how strong you are together.”
“We had a deal. Forthson for Allie and Liam.”
“We had no such thing. Don’t twist my words, dear.”
“You said?—”
“I know what I said.”
Shadow growls at him, and I’m tempted to get him to bite.
“Watch that dog before I put him down without a second thought.”
It’s the only reason I keep Shadow glued to me. We brought him only to aid us if things went to shit, which is looking pretty fucking likely right now.
“This place will erupt into a war zone if you kill me or Rhett.”
“I have no desire to kill either of you.”
“Then let us all go.”
Alistair walks deeper into the office before he turns back to me. His eyes dip to my hand. “Congratulations,” he says. “From the moment you came to me, I knew you would be part of this family one way or another. My niece. I don’t wish you harm.”
I recoil at the new term, claim,he stakes on me. “You locked me away for weeks.”
“You may find my methods harsh, but you turned out better for them.”
There’s no getting through to someone as delusional as Alistair. He sits in a chair by the unlit fireplace. I wander closer, shifting a look at Liam, who tracks me, but I give him a nod—the only slight reassurance that I’m okay and he will be too.
“I can get him cleared of the charges, you know,” Alistair says. He takes out a cigar but doesn’t light it yet. “I can spin a whole new story that will have your father convinced by the police and politicians around him that he was wrong and this was all a big misunderstanding. Rhett will be free. You will be able to be seen together. All you have to do is swear your fealty to me.”
I want Rhett more than anything. For our relationship to be open and free.
But not like this.
I come around his chair, standing over him as flame sparks from his Zippo to catch on his cigar. “He’s not like you,” I say. “He never has been, and he never will be.”
I pull out my gun, aiming for his head. Alistair doesn’t flinch.
“We’ve been over this before. You’re no killer, Anastasia.”
“You made me one.”
“No. I made you smarter, braver, harder. I made you a master of deceptive charm and allurement. I thought it would work on Silas, but it seems I chose the wrong woman for him.”
When I look up, I see Kenna poised with a gun aimed at me. The reason Alistair is so calm about my threat. Our stares challenge each other, and my chest pounds.
Her eyes flick behind me for a second, and that’s when I throw all sanity away and shoot.
Alistair’s yell of agony from the bullet in his thigh cuts the tension in the room. His cigar flies from his hand, catching on the long curtains, which catch fire instantly.
Well, shit.
I’m still free of bullets, and I look up with my heart in my throat at Kenna, who’s still pointing hers at me. She approaches slowly, tracking me with the barrel, while Alistair flounders in his chair over what to do with the blood pouring from his leg.
“He’s not my kill,” I say, trying to keep my voice from wavering as I can’t be certain she won’t kill me. “He’s not Rhett’s either.”
“Get out,” Kenna says calmly. She reaches down for the cigar, watching the curtains get engulfed rapidly by flame.
Liam’s muffled struggle spikes my adrenaline. We have to get out of here.
“Come with me,” I beg her.
She merely takes an inhale of the cigar and wanders over to the next window. Kenna pulls out another lighter, flips it open, and holds it to the curtains.
“What are you doing?” Alistair hisses. “I made you, Kenna Radley!”
When her eyes flick to him, so does her gun, and I tense at the sudden gunshot. It hits his abdomen, and the room becomes a tango of his wails of pain and the crackling of spreading fire.
“You killed Kenaleigh Aster. I made Kenna Radley,” she says, so cold and detached. Kenna takes one final drag of the cigar before she flicks it into the growing flames.
I’m stunned, heartbroken for her all over again learning her birth name. Her dead eyes lift to me, and I snap into action, racing over to Liam and undoing his bonds. When he’s free, he surges up, grabbing me as if he can protect me, but we both look to Kenna, frozen with what to do. I want to yell at her to come, try to drag her away, but I know it would be futile.
Smoke starts to sting my eyes, and I cough, stuffing my face into my elbow.
“We need to go,” Liam says, pushing me toward the door.
“We can’t just leave her!”
“She’s made her choice!”
Kenna is so cold and chillingly calm in the destruction around her as she climbs onto Alistair’s lap, straddling him. I can’t begin to understand her mind, what this means to her to slay her monster, and maybe she believes she’s truly become part of him too. Her lips angle to his, but there’s nothing in the kiss. Like she’s a ghost.
“We have to believe she’ll get herself out before it’s too late,” Liam says. This time I yield to his push with the heat climbing dangerously.
It breaks my heart to leave Kenna though I don’t know her well. The image of her in that room is a tragic end to a tale I’ll carry forever.
“Rhett should be with Allie,” I say, looking around the hall frantically as I don’t know which room they could be in.
“Allie!” Liam calls, uncaring of who else it could attract.
“Rhett!” I join in.
No one echoes back.
Both of us flinch at the loud sound of shattering glass.
“This whole place is going to go up in flames soon,” Liam says, panic lacing his voice.
Gunshots ring out, and we clutch each other, scanning for the source, but it’s not inside.
I rush toward the exit despite Liam’s protests, in case it’s Rhett in trouble. Or Rix and Adam, who are stationed somewhere around the property along with so many others from Xoid.
It’s none of them.
He has his back to me, one hand in his pocket while his other tattooed hand pulls a cigarette away from his mouth. Fear rattles me as Silas begins to turn around.
When we lock eyes, I realize I was right to harbor the small kernel of hope.
“Only a fool can feel betrayed.” I echo his words from the chapel.
Silas smiles, pleased. “You’re no fool, Anastasia.”
It’s what he told me in his speech.
My next exhale is a whoosh of relief. “You never allied with him?”
“Why accept a seat when you can take the empire? I just had to buy a little time for backup to do so efficiently.”
I regard the two men he indicates with his gaze. One leans smoking against the front pillar of the house. His hair is as dark as Silas’s, but a little longer, more rugged. He sports a wicked scar over his left eye, which is dark green.
“Mason Balenheizer.” He greets me with a smile as daring as Silas’s.
I’m taken aback, and when I slip my sight to the other guy sitting on the steps flipping a dagger, I realize these are his two brothers.
“This is Teirnan, since he won’t bother to introduce himself.”
Teirnan doesn’t even look up at me. “You said there’d be action,” he complains to Silas in a grunt.
“Soon, brother.”
“Where’s Rhett?” I ask Silas.
He shrugs. “Said he had to retrieve something and headed back inside after passing off a woman to one of his guys. Where’s Kenna?”
My eyes widen. “Inside. And there’s a fire.”
That shifts his expression immediately. His brothers swear and straighten before shifting into action, heading away from the property.
“A fire?” he demands darkly. “You should have fucking started with that the moment you came out.”
“You caught me off-guard!”
“Damn it, Ana. Get the fuck away from this place. Run, as fast as you can, now!” He storms up the steps.
“What is it?”
“We have the basement of this place set up with explosives. If that fire reaches it before we can clear out, we’re all fucked.”
“Liam!” Allie shouts from across the front lawn.
I spin to him with a new trembling coating of fear, but my adrenaline keeps me sharp.
This is really fucking bad.
“Go! Warn them all and get as far away as you can! Take Shadow with you.”
He takes Shadow’s collar, but Liam doesn’t want to leave me. Allie is struggling in Rix’s arms and will head this way if he doesn’t.
“Find him and get the hell out, please,” Liam says.
I nod and don’t waste another second, running back inside the ticking time bomb of a house.
The fire has spread so quickly I blanch at the inferno. It seems crazy, but I race upstairs.
“Rhett!” I call, heading along the hallways to my room as the first place I know.
I barge in. He’s not here, but a flicker outside the full-length window catches my attention. The figure disappears, racing though the trees at the edge of the cut lawn, and I know it’s Rhett.
Back downstairs I pass Silas carrying Kenna, who appears unconscious, but I hardly regard them, shooting past. He calls my name, but I’m sprinting to make it out the back door. Raging flames lick up the walls in this part of the manor, but I keep going against the heat sweltering on my skin and the smoke choking the air. Suddenly, the house is too big, too fucking long, but I make it.
The fresh air hits me like a first breath and I inhale it greedily. My vision clouds, and I curse the dizzy sweep from the smoke? Adrenaline? I have to keep going.
I run in the direction I saw Rhett disappear. He didn’t get far into the woods, and I stumble toward him, stopping just past the tree line and trying to blink him into focus.
He’s kneeling over someone. Alistair. I make him out with my next attempt to see straight. My urgency to get us far away from the house pushes me forward as Rhett lands another punch.
When I get close enough, I break at what I see. The tears down his face, the agony that contorts it. The limp form beneath him. His monster finally slain. It pricks my eyes to watch him mourn, because I know it’s not for what he had to do to get here; it’s for all he lost in himself.
“Rhett—”
I barely get to croak his name before the world around us ... erupts.