Chapter 24 - Athena
His face says it all.
His eyes are shining, and his lips are curved into the widest smile ever. He hasn’t stopped grinning at me. And he hasn’t let go of me either.
He wanted to whisk me out of the warehouse straight away, but there were a few things he needed to attend to before he did.
“Are you scared I’ll make a run for the door if you let me go?” I tease, watching him try to pull his phone and his keys out with one hand while keeping the clipboard tucked under his elbow.
He laughs warmly.
“Maybe I am. Why risk it?” he muses.
I take the clipboard and hold it for him, and he keeps grinning.
Once he has his pockets sorted, he takes the clipboard from me again. “I need to get this shipment schedule to the floor manager, then we can go to breakfast,” he confirms.
“At this rate, it’ll be lunch,” I tease.
My heart is so happy I can’t stop making jokes and playing around with him.
It didn’t take me long once I realized that I am in love with him to make my choice. The decision was easy. I accept him for who he is; overprotectiveness, his background, his work, his bad side, and his good side—or I don’t get any of him.
And not getting any of him wasn’t an option at all.
The relief of having him back with me is intense after the past week of heavy depression.
“And after breakfast we can go home and make space in your new cupboards,” he says, ignoring my poke at how long he’s taking.
“Maybe we could do a few other things before we tackle the closets?” I say mischievously.
“Maybe we should skip breakfast and go straight home,” he says in a husky tone.
“Is that the shipment schedule?” a man asks as he walks toward us. Adrian looks up at him, nodding. “Yes, it’s for the next week. I’ve signed it off. I need daily reports sent after each stage of packing and moving of the goods.”
“Yes, boss. Same drill as before,” he nods, taking the paperwork and glancing over it.
We’re about to finish up and leave when Antonio comes charging through the warehouse at full speed, “Adrian!” he shouts from the other side.
Adrian stops, his body tensing.
He waits for Antonio to reach us, but his arm has tightened around me.
“What?” he snaps, agitated, not at Antonio, but at the suspense of whatever he is going to say.
“We just got a heads-up,” he says, out of breath. “There’s an attack team on the way here. Rivals.” He pauses, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard.
“Here? Now?” Adrian demands, glancing at me with his eyes darkening. “How long have we got? I need to get her out of here,” he says.
“I don’t know. You need to move now,” Antonio snaps.
But even as he speaks, we hear the cars arriving. Tires skid against gravel. Outside, a chorus of shouts rises as men spill from those cars.
Adrian grabs me even closer, pushing me behind him as he turns toward the doors.
Antonio is shouting orders into the warehouse, and men in security gear are running out, carrying heavy assault rifles.
“Get her out of here!” Antonio shouts at Adrian.
Adrian shakes his head, pulling a gun from beneath his jacket. “There’s no time,” he snarls.
As he speaks, men flow into the entrance in perfect military formation. They fan out, crouching low, every single one of them aiming a weapon at Adrian, Antonio, and me.
Behind us, Adrian’s men are standing in a similar formation.
And the air in the warehouse has been charged with tension.
My fingers are knotted in Adrian’s jacket, gripping so tightly my knuckles have gone white.
“Stay behind me,” he growls.
Antonio steps forward, standing next to Adrian and also shielding me from the intruders.
Adrian mutters beneath his breath to Antonio. “It’s the same people who attacked before, when I was shot. Same emblem on the sleeve,” he says.
Antonio lifts his chin and cocks his head to the side.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands. “No one walks in here without an invite.”
Adrian is scanning the wall of men. I’ve never seen him so alert.
One man steps forward through the forces. He shoves his hands into his pockets as though he’s walking through the park.
“Antonio. You still playing second fiddle to this asshole?” the guy taunts.
“Rat, you still pretending you have any influence in this city?” Antonio snaps back.
Antonio lowers his voice to a whisper that only we can hear, “And?” he asks.
“Twenty-seven men inside, five outside,” Adrian whispers. “Might be more in the truck.”
He was taking stock while Antonio was distracting. They have clearly been working together for a long time.
Antonio lifts his gun as though he’s admiring it. “It’s been a while since I’ve fired a bullet with purpose, Rat. Did you come here to give me a reason to do just that?”
“Why the fuck am I talking to you and not the boss over there? Cat got your tongue, Adrian?” the guy snarls angrily.
Antonio laughs. “What makes you think the boss wants to talk to scum like you?”
“You fucking call me rat one more time and I’ll…” he steps forward, losing his cool, but another man grabs his arm and pulls him back.
The second man moves in front of Rat.
“You’ll have to excuse Ramit. He hasn’t learned the art of tact yet,” the new man says.
Adrian lets out a low growl of anger before he decides to speak. “Rodion Popov, this is the second time you’ve bought a fight into my territory,” he says dangerously. “Do you really think I’m going to let you get away with it?” he asks.
“I already got away with the first lot. How’s that bullet wound going for you? Heard my men got you right in the side. Must have stung a little,” he snorts.
Adrian sneers.
“What do you want, Rodion? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Rodion cocks his head to the side and smirks. “I want the girl. Give me the girl, and we’ll walk right out of here. No shots need to be fired. No one needs to get hurt,” he says.
Me? What in the world! Why would they want me? Panic surges, and I struggle with the urge to turn and run. Just run. I don’t even know where I would go. But logic wins, and I know there is no safer place than next to Adrian.
Adrian reaches behind himself and grabs hold of my arm, too tight, but his firm grip grounds me.
My heart is beating out of control. I can barely breathe.
I’ve been standing here listening to this back and forth and waiting for all hell to break loose.
I have no idea how anyone can look so calm in a situation like this.
And now I hear that they’ve come to take me. Confusion floods me.
“You’re not getting the girl,” Adrian says sternly. “So, you may as well turn and leave now.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. And from my count, you’ve got … what…. fourteen men behind you there? Maybe more on the way, but they won’t get here in time. You’re outnumbered.”
“I have more trust in my fourteen men than any amount you bring in here. Look what happened last time. Did any of your guys make it out alive?”
Rodin laughs. “Cannon fodder. We were testing your defenses and reaction time. Anyway, that’s all in the past. This situation is new, and that girl needs to come with me. Debts must be paid.”
Antonio glances at Adrian with narrowed eyes, questioning.
“Whose debts?” Antonio demands.
“Ricardo Mendelez, of course. Who the fuck else? We took his eyes. And his fingers. But it didn’t give me any of my money back.
That mother fucker got too many chances to pay me back and failed at every single one of them.
Then I find out, get this, no for real, get this…
I find out that he has his sticky, fat fingers in my warehouse storeroom, stealing my products! ” Rodion is furious.
My father was stealing from him, too. So that’s what got him killed. Even after Adrian warned him to change, he wouldn’t do it. How could he be so stupid! All he had to do was ask for help, but instead, he kept choosing the wrong things.
“Whatever her father did has nothing to do with her.”
“I’m not fucking stupid. I know she isn’t the one who stole from me or gambled like a lunatic. But blood is blood, and she will be payment enough to satisfy his debts and make me happy,” Rodion says.
“It’s not happening, Rodion,” Adrian says, almost tiring of repeating himself.
“Well... then what about another negotiation?” Rodion smiles. I notice that one of his front teeth is black.
Antonio sighs loudly. “Just leave, Rodion. And take your Rat brother with you,” he snaps.
“Give me a portion of the Kozlov contracts. We can call this whole thing settled. Forty percent. It’s not even the bigger share,” he says as though he’s being incredibly diplomatic.
“Het the fuck out of my territory,” Adrian shouts, over this game of cat and mouse.
“Give me the fucking girl!” Rodion screams back at him. I can feel the air becoming sharper as their tempers escalate.
“You are not getting the girl,” Adrian snarls, letting his anger show.
“Then I will take the girl,” Rodion snaps, just as angry.
He lifts his gun and cocks his head to the side to gesture to his men, “Kill everyone else. She’s the only one I need alive.”
His words run through me like ice.
And in an instant, the chaos erupts.
“Crates!” Antonio shouts, stepping in front of Adrian as they move in unison toward the crates, dragging me along with them. Both men are shooting, providing cover fire. I scream, high-pitched and terrified as bullets smack into the cement at my feet.
Behind me, bullets fly from his men, screaming through the air in a spiral of death.
Adrian shoves me hard, and I stumble, tripping over my own feet and falling onto piles of soft sacks behind a wall of crates. “Stay down!” he yells at me.
A man runs straight toward him, but Antonio moves quickly, firing two shots straight into the guy’s skull. Blood erupts like a mist behind him, and he falls flat on his face.
One of Adrian’s men collapses dead, right next to the crates I’m hiding behind, and I scream again, terrified and unsure what to do.
“Reinforcements are here in three minutes!” Antonio shouts over the explosive sounds of gunfire.
“We can hold them off!” Adrian shouts back.
I don’t want to watch. I want to bury my face in my hands and keep my eyes covered, but I’m terrified that if I look away, something will happen to him.
So, I see it all. I see death and blood.
I see bones snapping as bullets shatter arms and legs.
I see men collapsing to the ground with dark pools spilling out around them.
And at some point, my body shifts from panicked to numb. My instincts override the fear, and I’m so calm I don’t even feel like I’m inside my own body. The only thing that matters to me right now is that Adrian gets out of this alive.
I can’t lose him. I’ve only just got him back.
In the calm, I can see things more clearly. That is when I notice that Adrian’s forces are so much more organized than Rodion’s. They have more structure and are moving methodically, pushing forward, taking his men down one at a time.
We’re winning, slowly but surely.
But I know that anything can happen at any time, and the urgency I feel for his safety is still coursing through me.
I look around, needing something, anything to help him.
My eyes fall onto the dead man lying next to my hiding place.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I crawl forward and pry the handgun from his fingers.
I have to help them, though. I have to do my part. The only reason these men are here is to take me. I’m the cause of all of this. My father is. But it falls on me.
I crawl to the edge of the crate and lift the gun. My hands shake as I aim it at one of the rival men. My finger won’t pull the trigger. I can’t do it. I can’t kill someone.
Adrian spins to help Antonio, who gets shot in the leg.
Behind him, I see Rat running forward. He runs right next to the crate I am behind.
So close. Close enough that even I wouldn’t miss if I were to shoot him.
My heart races, thinking about pulling the trigger.
But it’s not until he lifts his gun and takes aim at Adrian that all fear and all doubt just evaporates.
Rat has a clear shot, and no one is in his way.
There’s no time to scream, there’s no time to do anything except to save the man I love.
So, I stand up. I take my aim, take a breath, and I pull the trigger.
Rat’s face explodes inward. He’s so close that I see every horrific detail of it. My stomach lurches.
Adrian’s eyes shoot toward me, realizing that I’m no longer hiding.
He sees the gun in my hand and follows the direction of my aim. He sees Rat lying on the floor near me, faceless.
I choke, fighting vomit. But someone else is running towards Rat now, angry, taking aiming at Adrian, thinking he killed him.
Without hesitation, I take another life.
Adrian is still covering Antonio while the other men drag him behind some crates on the other side of the warehouse.
The shooting dies down.
The rivals lie scattered across the floor in torn pieces.
On shaking legs, I walk out from behind the crates, my eyes dragging over the gory scene around me.
I see Rodion, his lifeless eyes staring upward at nothing.
Adrian grabs me in his arms and holds me against him, and I snap back into myself.
“He almost shot you!” I yelp. “I had to kill him. I had to…”
“You saved my life, kitten. If you didn’t do that, I would be dead. You saved me.”
He lifts me in his arms, and I drop the gun to the floor.
Antonio is standing, leaning on some crates.
He raises his brows at Adrian. “That’s one hell of a wife you have there,” he scoffs. “That was a brave shot!”
“Go to the hospital before you bleed out. Someone get a belt around this man’s leg,” Adrian shouts.
Antonio shakes his head. “It’s a surface wound, man. Get her out of here. She shouldn’t have to see this. Take her home,” he says. “I’ll handle this shit.”
Adrian doesn’t argue. He keeps me cradled in his arms with my face pressed against his chest as he carries me past the carnage and out to the car.
When we get home, he carries me straight to the shower, and we stand beneath it, me not wanting to let him go, as he slowly undresses me and lets my clothing fall to the shower fall.
My heart is still racing. My mind is still spinning.
Standing on my tiptoes, I take his face in my hands, and I pull his lips onto mine.
We are both still alive, and that is all that matters.