Chapter 48
THEA
The emergency lights pulse in a horrible blood-red hue.
I try to focus on Gabriel and his voice, his presence.
I can barely make out his shape in the dark, his outline illuminated, then fading over and over. His gun is steadily aimed at Kolya, and he stands perfectly still. Behind him, I see the shapes of three other men, weapons raised. They fan out, trying to find an angle to hit Kolya without hitting me.
I want this to be over, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in Gabriel’s position, knowing one wrong move could cost him both his love and his child.
“Choose, Gabriel,” Kolya says again. His voice vibrates through his chest into my back. “Let us leave. Now. Or she dies.”
Gabrel doesn’t answer. His eyes don’t leave Kolya’s face.
“No? Nothing to say?” Kolya’s grip tightens around my mouth and I struggle to breathe. I can taste the sweat on his palm, and it’s awful. “Well, I suppose this is all quite a lot to take in. Twenty years of planning leading to this moment. One wrong move, and it’s all over.”
He presses the gun harder.
“But you don’t have to take that risk. Let us leave. Then maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, and I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you have her back. There might be a price to pay, but at least you’d have her.”
I know Kolya too damn well by now. He’d give me back to Gabriel—but as a corpse. There’s no ending to this where he and I both live.
He shoves me again with the pistol.
“Now, Gabriel!” Kolya snarls. “Let us leave. I’m not going to ask again.”
Something is triggered inside of me. Something that belongs to the five-year-old girl who survived a massacre. Something that belongs to Teodora Fetisova, daughter of Lev, last of the Fetisov bloodline.
Something that belongs to a woman who didn’t come this far to die like this.
Kolya couldn’t get me then, but he has me now.
Not for long.
I don’t think about it. I just force my mouth open, that awful taste of sweat touching my tongue.
I bite.
I bite as hard as I can. I bite until I feel the flesh break and I can taste blood. I bite until Kolya screams a horrible howl of pain, and his grip loosens.
It’s enough for me to be able to slip out from under him and drop to the ground. Gabriel doesn’t need me or anyone else to tell him what to do.
“Fire!”
The single word is instantly drowned out by the sound of gunfire.
Seemingly endless booms fill the air, and I roll over just in time to watch Kolya jerk back and forth with each bullet that slams into his body, his eyes wide and his mouth slacked open.
Red blooms all over him as he staggers backward and then falls into a heap on the dirty floor.
I stay down, my eyes locked onto him, as my nose fills with the now-familiar scent of gunpowder. I want to make sure he’s dead.
I stand up slowly. My legs should be shaking, but they’re not. Instead, I feel calm, stable.
“Thea,” Gabriel says. “You—”
I glance over my shoulder. “It’s okay.”
He lowers his hand, saying nothing as he walks to my side and kicks Kolya’s gun across the floor.
I approach Kolya, stopping when I’m looming over him. There’s no doubt that he’s dead. His body is still as stone, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. His shirt is soaked in blood.
The man who murdered my family and was going to kill me and my baby is finally dead.
I turn to Gabriel. He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me up and down with frantic eyes, scanning for any signs of injury.
“Thea. Thea. Look at me. Are you hurt?”
“No.” My voice sounds weird, like it’s coming from a place very far away. “I’m alright, Gabriel.”
His hands find my stomach. He presses both palms flat against me gently. As he holds them there, I realize he’s crying.
Silent tears trickle down his cheek, running into the stubble on his jaw. He doesn’t wipe them away, doesn’t try to hide them. Instead, he just kneels there on the floor next to a dead man with his hands on my belly.
“I thought—” His voice breaks. He clears his throat. “When I didn’t have the shot. When he—”
“I know.”
“If you had—if the baby—”
“We’re okay.” I place my hands over his. “We’re here. We’re both here.”
He stands and pulls me into his arms. I grasp him tightly. We’re alive and our baby is alive. The monster who threatened us lies dead on the floor.
I feel safe.
It’s over.
It’s actually over.
Alexei’s people move with quiet efficiency. Within minutes, the building is cleared. Bodies are covered, exits secured, and vehicles repositioned. Someone wraps a blanket around my shoulders.
Gabriel keeps one arm around me as we move across the main floor toward the exit. I try not to look at the bodies.
“He said more of his men are coming,” I say to Gabriel as he leads me out. “Are—”
“No sign of that so far,” he replies. “But in the event he wasn’t bullshitting, we’re going to be long gone before any backup arrives.”
His words send a rush of calm through me. We’re safe, and Kolya is dead.
When he opens the door and the night air hits my face—cold, sharp, and real—I breathe it in so deeply, my lungs ache.
Then I see her.
Sylvie is seated in the back of a van, a blanket around her shoulders, the cut above her eye cleaned but not yet bandaged. A man is crouched beside her, speaking quietly as he works on the injury. She looks up as I approach.
I don’t say anything, neither does she.
I open my arms.
For a moment, she doesn’t move. Her expression is guarded, all the hardness she was forced to develop with Kolya locked in place. But then something cracks. She hops out of the van and walks into my arms. I hold her tight.
She’s so thin. I can feel her ribs through the blanket, the sharp angle of her shoulder blades. We’re both shaking.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair. “I’m so sorry I left you.”
Her arms tighten around me.
“You came back this time.”
“Yes, I did.”
She pulls away, wipes her face with the back of her hand, and nods once. That’s enough. For now, that’s enough.
She heads back to the van, where the soldier continues to work on Sylvie’s cut. Gabriel places his hands on my shoulders.
He guides me toward the opened back of a different van. A man approaches, his face familiar. He looks me up and down and nods.
“Good to see you, cousin.”
I’m confused. “Cousin?”
He smiles—a surprisingly warm smile for a man who was just engaged in battle not twenty minutes ago.
“Cousin Alexei. It’s been a while. But we have all the time in the world to get to know each other. For now, how about we get the hell out of here?”
I have so many questions. But he’s right. I want to get as far away from this place as possible.
“Yeah. Let’s do that. And thank you.”
He winks. “That’s what family is all about, right?”
Gabriel claps his hand down on Alexei’s shoulder, offering a silent thank you of his own. Then Alexei steps back, gesturing toward the back of the van.
“Come.”
Gabriel wordlessly helps me inside. The interior is warm and dark. Safe. I sit on the bench seat, Gabriel sliding in beside me. I lean into him and the tears finally come.
They’re not ugly, body-shaking sobs. They’re quieter, deeper. The kind of crying that happens when your mind finally understands the danger has passed and releases everything—every moment of terror and helplessness, every moment of Kolya’s gun pressed to my temple.
It’s over.
Gabriel holds me, cradling my head against his shoulder. He presses his lips against my temple—the same spot where the gun was—keeping them there and breathing me in.
His killer’s composure and coldness are gone. Now, he’s a man holding the woman he loves, the woman he almost lost.
“It’s over,” he says quietly.
I press closer and close my eyes.
And for the first time since this all began, since that horrible night when I woke up in a daze and was shoved onto an auction floor, I believe it.
It’s over.
We’re safe.
And we’re going home.