Chapter 28 After the Fire
AFTER THE FIRE
VIKTOR
Shoulder screaming. Thigh burning. Head pounding like someone had used it for percussion practice. Each breath tasted like ash and copper and failure.
I tried to move. Couldn't. Something heavy pinned my legs. Timber. Stone. The ceiling that had tried to bury me alive.
Darkness pressed down. Complete. Suffocating. For a second I thought I was dead. That this was hell. That I'd finally arrived at the destination I'd been running toward since Anya died.
Then I heard voices. Distant. Muffled through layers of debris.
“—here somewhere—”
“—thermal signature—”
“—fuck, the whole place is coming down—”
Dom's voice cut through everything else. Sharp. Desperate. “I've got him! He's under the east support beam!”
Hands. Pry bars. The sound of men straining against weight they shouldn't be able to move.
“On three. One. Two. Three!”
The timber lifted. Slightly. Just enough.
Someone grabbed my jacket. Started pulling.
Every nerve in my body lit up like napalm. I tried not to scream. Failed. The sound that came out was animal. Broken.
“Almost there,” Dom gasped. “Come on, you stubborn Russian bastard. Move!”
I moved. More accurately, they dragged me. Through rubble and smoke and my own blood. Into air that tasted less like death.
Hands lowered me onto something hard. Wet pavement. Rain hitting my face like small fists.
“Med kit!” Luka's voice. “He's bleeding out!”
I forced my eyes open. Rain. Smoke. Fire painting the night orange and red. Emergency beacons strobing through the chaos.
And no Sebastian.
“Where—” My voice came out wrecked. Barely human. “Where is he?”
Dom's face appeared above me. Blood streaming from a cut on his forehead. Eyes hollow. “Viktor—”
“Where is he?”
The question came out as a roar. Ripped from somewhere deep I'd kept sealed for eighteen years. Since I'd dug a grave for my sister with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
Dom's expression told me everything before his mouth opened.
“Marcel took him.”
The words hit like bullets. Each one finding its mark. Each one tearing through whatever was left of me.
“No.” I tried to sit up. Strong hands pushed me back down. “No. We have to—”
“You'll bleed out in ten minutes if we don't stop this.” Luka was doing something to my thigh. Tightening a tourniquet. Pain exploded. White. Blinding. “Stay still.”
“I don't have ten minutes!” I grabbed his wrist. Squeezed hard enough to feel bones grind. “He has Sebastian. He has—”
“I know.” Luka's face was carved from stone. “But you're no good to him dead.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to throw them all off and tear through what was left of the mansion until I found the tunnel. Found the convoy. Found him.
But my body wouldn't cooperate. Blood loss made the world tilt. Swim. Fade at the edges.
“How long?” I managed. “How long has he been gone?”
“Five minutes.” Dmitri's voice from somewhere to my left. “Maybe ten. Thermal picked up his convoy for ninety seconds. Then dropped off grid. Pre-staged jammer.”
Pre-staged. Marcel had planned this. Planned to lose. Planned to take Sebastian as insurance.
And I'd let it happen.
I'd failed.
Again.
The realization settled into my bones like concrete. Heavy. Permanent. Final.
“Viktor.” Dom's hand on my good shoulder. “Stay with me. We're going to find him.”
“I lost him.” The admission tasted like poison. Like admitting I'd killed him myself. “I was supposed to protect him. That was my job. My only job. And I—”
My throat closed. Wouldn't let the rest out.
Couldn't say I'd failed the only person who'd mattered since Anya.
Couldn't admit I'd let history repeat itself.
Couldn't face the fact that loving him had made me weak. Distracted. Compromised.
That Marcel had been right about everything.
“We're wasting time.” I forced myself upright. World spun. Tilted. Righted itself through sheer will. “We go after him. Now.”
“You can barely stand,” Troy said.
“Don't care.” I was on my feet. Somehow. Vision swimming. Ground feeling too far away. “Get me in a vehicle. Give me a weapon. Point me at Marcel.”
“You'll collapse before we make it five miles.”
“Then I collapse five miles closer to Sebastian.”
I started walking. Toward the vehicles. Toward something. Anywhere that wasn't here. Wasn't standing in the ruins of another failure.
My leg gave out after three steps.
Dom caught me. Again. Always catching me when I fell.
“Easy,” he murmured. “We'll get him back. But we do it smart. Not suicide.”
“Smart didn't save Anya.” The words came out bitter. Raw. “Smart got her killed while I followed protocol.”
“This isn't—”
“Yes it is!” I shoved him away. Or tried to. Didn't have the strength. “It's exactly the fucking same. Someone I was supposed to protect. Someone I—”
Loved. The word stuck in my throat. Wouldn't come out.
Because saying it made it real. Made the loss concrete. Made failure absolute.
Dom's expression shifted. Understanding flooding in. “Viktor—”
“Don't.” I couldn't hear sympathy. Couldn't handle kindness. “Just. Get me to a vehicle. Get me moving. I can't. I can't just stand here while he—”
My vision blurred. Not from blood loss. From something worse.
From eighteen years of holding back finally cracking.
“He promised,” I said. Voice breaking. “We both promised we'd come home. Together. And I—”
Noah appeared. Moving fast despite the chaos. Tablet in hand. Rain soaking through his clothes. “Convoy went dark under Blackfriars. Multiple exit vectors. Adrian's got people on every route but—”
“But Marcel's had months to plan this,” I finished. Forced the tactical part of my brain to engage. Pushed emotion down where it couldn't interfere. “He'll have safehouses staged. Multiple fallback positions. We won't find him randomly searching.”
“Then how?” Luka asked.
I looked at the burning mansion. At everything Marcel had built and abandoned. At evidence turning to ash.
“The King,” I said. “Alexandre knows him better than anyone. Knows his habits. His contingencies. His—”
The world tilted again. I grabbed Dom's shoulder to stay upright.
“Medic,” Dom ordered. “Now. Before he bleeds out being noble.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're dying. There's a difference.”
Hands guided me toward one of the vehicles. Medical supplies appearing. Someone cutting away my jacket. My shirt. Exposing damage I didn't want to assess.
“Shoulder's through and through,” a voice said. Medic. Young. Competent. “Thigh's worse. Bullet's still in there. Needs surgery.”
“Later.”
“Now. Or you'll go septic in six hours.”
“Don't have six hours.” I tried to stand again. Failed again. “Sebastian doesn't have six hours.”
“Then you better let me work fast.”
Pain exploded. Worse than before. The medic was digging in my thigh with instruments that felt like fire. I gripped the vehicle's door frame. Let pain anchor me. Keep me conscious. Keep me focused.
“Viktor.” Adrian's voice through the comm. Tight. Controlled. But I heard the fear underneath. “What's your status?”
“Operational.”
“Bullshit. Noah says you're barely conscious.”
“I'm conscious enough to find Sebastian.”
Static. Then: “Marcel's gone to ground. Every traffic cam within five miles is scrubbed. Border control's on alert but he's got diplomatic immunity in four countries. If he leaves UK soil—”
“He won't.” I forced the words through clenched teeth. “He needs Sebastian close. Needs leverage over the King. Running defeats the purpose.”
“Then where?” Adrian's frustration bled through. “We've hit every property registered to him. Every shell company. Every—”
“Not the obvious ones. The secret ones.” I looked at Dom. At the team. At my family bound by blood and battle. “We need the King. He's the only one who knows Marcel's true contingencies.”
More static. Then: “I'll arrange transport to the palace. ETA twenty minutes.”
“Make it ten.”
“Viktor—”
“Ten minutes, Adrian. Or I'm walking.”
The call ended.
The medic finished. Bandaged me tight enough to keep me upright. Shoved pills in my hand. “Antibiotics. Painkillers. Take them.”
I dry-swallowed both. Tasted nothing. Felt nothing except the hollow ache where Sebastian should've been.
Sirens wailed closer. Police. Fire department. All the official responses that came too late to matter.
“We need to move,” Luka said. “Before they lock down the scene.”
We climbed into vehicles. Blood-soaked. Ash-covered. Moving on adrenaline and rage and the desperate need to fix this.
To undo the last ten minutes.
To rewrite history before it became permanent.
I stared out the window as we drove. Watched the burning mansion disappear into rain and smoke.
Watched the place where I'd lost him fade into the dark.
My hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists. Made them stop. Made myself stop.
Emotion was weakness. Weakness got people killed.
I'd learned that lesson eighteen years ago.
Had apparently forgotten it somewhere between falling in love and pretending I deserved it.
“He's alive,” Dom said quietly. Not looking at me. “Marcel needs him alive.”
“For now.”
“For long enough to find him.”
I wanted to believe that. Wanted to hold onto hope like it was something solid instead of smoke.
But I'd hoped before. Had believed I could save Anya. Had been wrong.
Hope was just another word for delusion.
The palace appeared through rain. Golden. Beautiful. Completely empty without Sebastian in it.
Guards met us at the entrance. Tried to stop us. Adrian's name opened doors. The King's direct order opened more.
We moved through corridors I'd memorized. Past rooms where Sebastian had smiled at me. Teased me. Kissed me in shadows while the world turned.
All of it felt like memory now. Like something that had happened to someone else.
Someone who'd been stupid enough to believe he deserved happiness.
The war room was chaos when we arrived. Maps spread across every surface. Screens showing traffic feeds and border alerts and all the useless data that wouldn't bring him back.