Chapter 14 Secrets in the Smoke #2
“Or myself.” He dried his hands. Turned to face me. “Speaking of which. Are you sure Dr. Amir checked everything? Because you look like you're about to pass out and I'd prefer you didn't do that while I'm here to witness it.”
“Am fine.”
“You keep saying that. I don't think it means what you think it means.” He moved back to stand in front of me. Concern etched in every line of his face. “Were you hit anywhere else? Anything Dr. Amir might have missed because you were being stoic and Russian about it?”
Despite the pain, I almost smiled. “Stoic and Russian?”
“You know what I mean. The whole 'is just flesh wound' thing while you're actively bleeding.” He crouched in front of me. Eye level. “I need you to be honest. Did you take any other hits tonight?”
I considered lying. Decided against it. “Bruised ribs on right side. From impact when we hit the ground. Nothing broken.”
“Let me see.”
“Sebastian—“
“Let me see, or I'm calling Dr. Amir back and you can explain to him why you're bleeding through his careful work.”
I lifted my shirt. Showed him the blooming bruise spreading across my ribs. Purple and yellow. Angry. He touched it gently. Testing. I winced.
“Nothing broken,” he confirmed. “But you're going to feel that for a week.” He pulled my shirt back down. “Anything else you're hiding from me?”
“Hit my head when we landed. Saw stars. Passed.”
“Concussion?”
“Possible. Minor if so.”
He sighed. Long. Suffering. “You're a terrible patient.”
“You are terrible at following security protocols. We are even.”
“Noted.” He was quiet for a moment. Then: “Thank you. For tonight. For keeping me alive. For being brave and stupid and impossible all at once.”
“Is what I do best.”
“Apparently.” His hand found mine. Squeezed. Brief but meaningful. “But maybe next time you could be brave and stupid without getting shot three times?”
“Will try. Cannot promise.”
“Good enough.” He released my hand. Started gathering the used medical supplies. “You should rest. Dr. Amir said you needed to sleep. Actual sleep. Not whatever half-conscious state you usually achieve.”
“Will rest when you leave.”
He paused. Looked at me for a long moment. Something unreadable flickering across his face. Then he nodded. “Right. Of course.”
He finished cleaning up in silence. Packed away the medical kit with the same care he'd used treating my wounds. Methodical. Thorough. Avoiding my eyes.
“Sebastian—“
“It's fine.” He moved toward the door. “You need rest. I should let you sleep.” His hand was on the handle when he paused. Looked back. “If you need anything. If the pain gets worse or the bandages need changing. Call me. Not Dr. Amir. Me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know you're okay.” Simple. Honest. “Is that allowed?”
“Da. Is allowed.”
“Good.” He opened the door. Hesitated. “Try not to die in your sleep, Viktor. Would be very inconvenient.”
“Will do my best not to inconvenience you.”
That earned me a small smile. “See that you do.”
Then he was gone. Door closing softly behind him.
The room felt colder without him. Emptier. I stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about how much I'd wanted him to stay.
How much I'd wanted to ask him to stay.
Outside, rain fell. Inside, the warmth he'd brought with him was already fading.
I closed my eyes. Let exhaustion pull me under alone.
Sleep wouldn't come.
I lay in bed for two hours, staring at the ceiling while my shoulder throbbed and my ribs ached and my arm hung useless in its sling. Every position hurt. Every breath reminded me of bullets and grenades and how close we'd come to dying.
How close Sebastian had come to dying.
At 23:47, I gave up. Pulled myself out of bed with my good arm. The movement sent pain shooting through damaged nerves. I bit back a curse. Dr. Amir's painkillers sat untouched on the nightstand. Tempting. But I needed to be sharp. Alert.
Something felt wrong.
I dressed slowly. Tactical pants. Dark shirt. Shoulder holster I couldn't wear because of the sling. Gun tucked into my waistband instead. Not ideal. But better than nothing.
My quarters had a small security station. Three monitors showing palace feeds. Standard protocol for senior protection detail. I settled into the chair and pulled up the camera grid.
Everything looked normal. Guards on rotation. Empty corridors. The King's wing dark and quiet. Sebastian's chambers showing no movement, which meant he was sleeping like he should be.
Good. At least one of us was resting.
I cycled through exterior cameras. Perimeter looked clear. East gate secure. West approach quiet. South gardens—
I stopped. Rewound.
There. A flicker on the north gardens camera. Shadow moving with purpose toward the old carriage house. Moving with a gait I recognized. Favoring the left side slightly. The same way Sebastian had moved after the attack.
But it couldn't be Sebastian. He was in his chambers. Sleeping. Safe.
I pulled up his bedroom feed. Empty. Bed undisturbed.
My blood went cold.
I switched back to the north gardens. Watched the figure emerge from the carriage house wearing dark clothes. Watched him mount a motorcycle I'd never seen in palace inventory. Watched him key in a code that opened a gate that should've been locked.
Watched Sebastian disappear into London at midnight while still healing from bullet wounds.
I was moving before conscious thought caught up.
Down corridors. Through service passages. Ignoring the screaming in my shoulder and ribs. Out an exit that led to the garage where I kept my personal vehicle.
Black SUV. Armored. Fast enough to track a motorcycle. I fired the engine and rolled out with headlights off, following the route he'd taken through the gate.
He had a four-minute lead. But I was trained for pursuit. And I knew this city better than I wanted to.
I caught sight of his taillight three blocks out.
Kept two cars back. Watched him weave through empty streets with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
East toward Belmont. Then south. Then into the warehouse district near King's Cross where old railway buildings rotted into the ground.
Not the docks. Somewhere worse. Where screams got swallowed by construction noise and bodies disappeared into foundations no one would excavate for years.
Rain started falling. Of course it was fucking raining.
He stopped near an abandoned railyard. Brick warehouses with broken windows and graffiti-covered walls. The kind of place where violence happened and nobody reported it because nobody cared.
I parked two blocks back. Watched Sebastian ditch the bike behind a burned-out car. Watched him pull something from a hidden compartment in the seat.
A bow. Dark wood. Composite construction. Professional grade. The kind you didn't buy in stores.
Then a hood. Black fabric that shadowed his face. Made him disappear into darkness.
My stomach dropped.
The vigilante. The one Akintola had been hunting. The one who'd been leaving bodies in Belmont and the cathedral district and everywhere else violence festered.
Sebastian.
All the pieces clicked into place. The injuries he couldn't explain. The way he'd moved during yesterday's ambush like he'd done it before. The calluses on his hands. The scars. The medical knowledge. The exhaustion in his eyes that spoke of too many nights without sleep.
How long had he been doing this? How many times had he gone out bleeding and come back worse?
How many times had he almost died while I slept?
I climbed out of the SUV. My shoulder screamed protest. I ignored it. Followed on foot, staying to shadows, weapon drawn. My left arm was useless. Fine. I'd trained one-handed. Wasn't ideal but manageable.
Sebastian moved through the railyard like he owned it. Confident. Sure. He scaled a wall with movements that should've been impossible for someone who'd been in a grenade blast twenty hours ago. His shoulder bandage showed white under his dark jacket. Blood seeping through already.
Fucking idiot was tearing his stitches.
I climbed a fire escape on the adjacent building. Slower. Quieter. The rust scraped my palm. Metal creaked under my weight. But I made it to the roof. Got eyes on the street below.
Armed men. At least eight. Maybe more in the buildings. Moving crates between trucks. Weapons. Drugs. Money. The trinity of organized crime.
Sebastian dropped from his perch like death descending. The first arrow took a man through the throat before anyone registered the threat. The second hit another in the chest. Center mass. The man went down choking on blood.
Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes lit the dark. Sebastian moved like water flowing around obstacles. Every shot anticipated. Every movement calculated. He wasn't just good.
He was lethal.
An arrow through a shooter's eye. Another through someone's knee, dropping him screaming. Sebastian closed the distance, bow collapsing into something smaller, knife appearing in his hand like magic.
He opened a man's throat. Arterial spray painted the wall. Broke another's arm with a kick that made bone crack loud enough to hear from my position. Put a third down with his bare hands, choking him unconscious before moving to the next target.
This wasn't self-defense.
This was hunting.
I watched in horrified fascination as he tore through them. Watched him take a hit to his injured shoulder and barely flinch. Watched blood spread across his bandages. Watched him keep fighting like pain was just noise he'd learned to ignore.
Two attackers came at him from opposite sides. He saw them. Calculated. Threw his knife at one, hitting him in the gut. Dropped into a slide under the second one's swing. Came up behind him and snapped his neck. Clean. Brutal.
The knife man pulled the blade from his stomach. Stupid. More blood poured out. He raised his gun anyway. Shaking. Dying. Determined to take Sebastian with him.
I shot him. Three rounds. Chest. He dropped.
Sebastian spun toward the sound. Saw me on the roof. His eyes went wide behind the hood.
No time for explanations. Three more attackers were converging. One from the building behind Sebastian. Two from the truck.
“Behind you!” I shouted.
He moved. The shot that would've taken his head hit brick instead. He rolled. Came up firing. Arrow through one attacker's lung. The man went down gasping.
I dropped from the roof. Fifteen feet. Bad idea with injuries. Terrible idea. Did it anyway. Landed hard. Something in my ribs cracked. Possibly recracked what had been healing. Pain exploded white and hot.
Didn't matter. The attacker from the building was raising his rifle at Sebastian's back.
I closed the distance. Grabbed his barrel, yanked it up. The shot went wild. I drove my elbow into his throat. He gagged. I brought my knee up into his face. Cartilage shattered. Blood sprayed. He went down.
“Viktor, what the fuck—“
“Explanations later! Fight now!”
Sebastian's response was an arrow that whistled past my ear and took down a man charging from my blind side. “You're welcome!”
“Did not need help!”
“You literally just fell off a building!”
“Was strategic descent!”
“It was stupid!”
A man came at us with a crowbar. Sebastian ducked under the swing. I grabbed the weapon mid-arc. Twisted. Bones snapped in the man's wrist. He screamed. I drove the crowbar into his knee. He went down. Sebastian put an arrow through his other leg. Insurance.
“Showoff,” I muttered.
“Says the man who jumped off a roof!”
We were back-to-back now. Four attackers left. They'd learned. Were keeping distance. Raising weapons with better aim.
“On three?” Sebastian asked. Breathing hard.
“On three what?”
“Trust me. Three. Two. One—go!”
He ran forward. I followed on instinct. He dropped into a slide. I vaulted over him. His arrow took the left shooter in the throat. My boot caught the middle one in the temple. Skull met concrete. He didn't get up.
The other two broke. Started running.
Sebastian was faster. He closed the distance with speed that should've been impossible. Grabbed the first one by his collar. Used momentum to slam him into a wall. The man's head bounced off brick. Once. Twice. Went limp.
I caught the second runner. Put him down with two rounds. Center mass. Professional. Clean.
Silence fell.
Just rain and our breathing and the sound of bodies settling into stillness.
Sebastian pulled off his hood. Blood streaked his face. His shoulder bandage was soaked red. His knuckles were split. But his eyes were bright. Fever-bright. Adrenaline and pain and something else.
Like this was where he belonged.
Like this was the only time he felt real.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
“Saving your reckless ass.” I moved closer. Saw how he was favoring his left side. How his breathing was too shallow. How he was bleeding through at least three bandages.
“Had to be done.”
“Had to be done?” My voice rose. “You were nearly killed yesterday!”
“I wasn't hunting. I was stopping a weapons shipment—“
“By getting yourself shot?” I gestured at his shoulder. “That is fresh blood.”
“It's fine.”
“It is not fine!” I was shouting now. Couldn't stop. “You are bleeding. You are injured. You went out alone when you should be resting. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking people would die if I didn't act!” He shouted back. “I was thinking this shipment would arm gangs who prey on the weak! I was thinking—“
A groan from one of the bodies. The man Sebastian had slammed into the wall was stirring. Reaching for something at his belt. Gun. Small caliber but deadly at close range.
Sebastian moved without hesitation. Put an arrow through the man's hand. Pinned it to his own thigh. The man screamed.
“Stay down,” Sebastian said. Voice empty. Cold. “Next one goes through your skull.”
The man went very still.
I stared at Sebastian. At the casual brutality. At how easily he switched from arguing prince to something that looked like death personified.
“Who are you?” The question came out raw. Broken.
He looked at me. Really looked. And I saw exhaustion there. Bone-deep. Ancient. “Someone who's tired of pretending.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. Getting closer. Someone had called the police.
“We need to go,” I said. “Now.”
“Let me just—“
“Now, Sebastian. Police cannot find us here. Not like this.”
He hesitated. Then grabbed his bow. Started moving toward where he'd left the bike.
I followed. Each step agony. My ribs screaming. Shoulder burning. But I kept pace.
We reached the vehicles. He swung onto the motorcycle. Winced. His shoulder was worse than he was letting on.