CHAPTER 25
SCARLETT P.O.V.
The grand staircase groaned like a dying beast beneath my feet, the marble cracking with a sound that rivaled the gunshots echoing in the foyer below.
Thick, oily smoke blinded me, stinging my eyes until they watered, blurring the nightmare into a smear of orange and black.
I was coughing up soot, my lungs burning as if I’d swallowed a handful of lit matches.
I clutched a jagged piece of metal I’d ripped from a decorative sconce, my knuckles white, though I knew it was pathetic against the assault rifles tearing the estate apart.
Ahead of me, Nikolai was a dark, terrifying silhouette. His bespoke suit—usually armor against the world—was shredded at the back, soaked in blood that I prayed wasn't his. He didn't look back. He moved with the lethal efficiency of a machine that didn't know how to panic.
"Shit!" I screamed as a section of the balustrade gave way, crashing into the inferno below. I pitched forward, staring straight into the hungry mouth of the fire, the heat singeing my eyelashes.
Nikolai’s hand shot back, catching me by the collar of my ruined silk slip. He hauled me up with a brutal jerk that nearly dislocated my shoulder, treating me less like a woman and more like a sack of concrete he refused to drop.
"Move, Scarlett," he snarled, his voice a gravelly rasp over the roar of the flames. "Or burn."
"I'm trying, you bastard!" I gasped, clawing at his wrist to relieve the pressure on my throat.
He didn't slow down. He dragged me toward the upper hallway, stepping over the bodies of his own men and the mercenaries my father had sent to slaughter us.
The carpet was smoldering, the expensive tapestries curling into ash on the walls.
I slapped at a burning ember that landed on my bare shoulder, hissing as it seared the skin.
Through a blast hole in the drywall, I saw movement. Shadows. Men with tactical gear swarming the lawn.
"Too slow," Nikolai muttered. He raised his handgun and fired three times into the wall without breaking his stride. A scream from the other side cut short. "They are everywhere."
"We are trapped!" The realization hit me harder than the smoke. We were dead. This was it.
Nikolai shoved me behind a massive, partially melted bronze statue of Apollo as a burst of automatic fire chewed up the plaster where my head had been a second ago. He kicked open the heavy oak doors to his private study, the wood already black and blistering around the edges.
"In," he commanded.
I stumbled into the room. It was the only place not yet engulfed, though the heat was rising through the floorboards. While Nikolai moved to the mahogany bookshelf, tearing through the spines like a madman looking for a lever, I drifted toward the window.
The glass was hot enough to sting my palm when I pressed against it, pushing aside the heavy velvet curtain.
And there he was.
Down the long, winding driveway, safe behind the police line and the chaos, sat a black armored SUV. The window was rolled down just an inch. Through the binoculars of a mercenary stationed on the lawn, I saw him.
Aris Vance. My father.
He wasn't crying. He wasn't panic-stricken. He looked bored. He was checking his watch, waiting for the fire to erase his fifty-million-dollar mistake.
"He’s watching..." I whispered, the words tasting like bile. "He came to ensure I burn."
The realization snapped something inside my chest. It wasn't a heartbreak; it was a bone break. Sharp, sudden, and finalizing. My father had sold me twice. Once for money, and now for silence.
Nikolai stopped tearing at the books. He turned, his cold eyes tracking my gaze out the window. He didn't offer comfort. He didn't tell me it was going to be okay. He walked toward me, kicking a burning chunk of plaster out of his path, the fire reflecting in his eyes like twin embers of hell.
"See him, Scarlett?" Nikolai stood behind me, his chest pressing against my back, his heat overwhelming the fire’s warmth. "That's what blood relations are worth."
I couldn't look away from the SUV. "He’s a coward. He’s always been a coward."
Nikolai reached out, gripping my jaw with bruising force, twisting my face away from the window to look at him. His thumb rubbed a fresh scratch on my chin, smearing blood and soot together.
"The fire hasn't reached the west ledge," he said, his voice low, vibrating through my skull. He gestured with the barrel of his gun toward the shattered balcony door. "You can jump. It’s a fifteen-foot drop, but you’ll live.
Run to that bastard. Beg him for the protection of his name. He might take you back if you kneel."
He pulled a silver pocket watch from his vest—something I’d seen him check a thousand times—glanced at it, and then tossed it casually into the flames consuming his desk. Time didn't matter anymore.
"Go, Scarlett. Reclaim your name. Be Vance."
I stared at him. "Why would you offer me that?"
"Because I need to know you are mine, not collateral," he said, his face unreadable, his free hand dropping to the hilt of the combat knife at his belt. "Choose the flame, or choose him."
I looked back at the window. The world out there—the galas, the press, the 'protection' of my family name—was a lie. A beautiful, suffocating cage. And my father was the warden who had just set the prison on fire.
Then I looked at Nikolai. The man who had kidnapped me, broken me, and now stood ready to burn with me rather than let anyone else touch what was his.
I lifted my foot and stomped on a fallen picture frame—a photo of me and Aris from my graduation. The glass shattered under my heel.
"If I go back, I am dead," I said, my voice steady for the first time since the attack started. "He doesn't want me, he wants my silence."
"Decide," Nikolai growled.
I looked at the SUV one last time and spat on the floor. "Fuck his forgiveness."
I turned to Nikolai, stepping into his space, invading the heat radiating off him. I wiped a streak of sweat and grime from my forehead, smearing it down my cheek like war paint. "Good girl," he murmured, a dark satisfaction curling his lip.
I grabbed his wrist. My fingers looked small and pale against his scarred, bloodied knuckles, but I squeezed until my nails dug in. "You brought me into this hell. Get me out."
Nikolai froze for a split second, and then his hand locked around mine, crushing it. Possessive. Absolute.
"Your choice is noted, Scarlett."
I pulled him toward the center of the room. "I’m not going back to him. We go, together. Harder, Nikolai."
He let out a harsh, jagged laugh—a sound like breaking glass. He yanked me into a bruising hold, lifting me off my feet for a second before setting me down. "Then we go into the fire. And the world thinks we die here."
"Good," I said, meeting his gaze. "I always hated my name."
Nikolai released me and shoved his shoulder against a charred portrait of some long-dead syndicate founder. He triggered a mechanism I couldn't see, and with a grinding, metallic shriek, a section of the floorboards slid back. A dark, gaping mouth appeared in the floor.
"Hold the rail. Don't look down," he ordered, slinging a small tactical bag over his shredded suit jacket.
The ceiling groaned, a massive beam cracking directly above us.
"Move!" he roared, shoving me toward the hole.
I grabbed the rusty iron ladder and scrambled down into the darkness. The air down here was cooler, but it smelled of damp earth and rot. Nikolai was right above me, his boots clanging on the rungs, his body shielding me from the sparks raining down from the study.
We hit the concrete floor of the utility basement just as the study floor above us collapsed. The sound was deafening, a roar that shook my teeth. Dust billowed down the shaft, coating us in gray powder.
Nikolai didn't pause. He stripped a panel off the wall, revealing a mess of wires and a digital console. His fingers flew across the keypad.
"Sixty seconds," he said, his voice flat. "Hold your breath."
"What did you wire this place with?" I asked, watching the red numbers flicker to life. 00:59.
"Enough to erase us completely," he muttered. "They have to think we’re in the rubble. You understand? No name. No past. Only me."
I reached up to my neck. The diamond collar he’d locked on me weeks ago—the symbol of my debt, my captivity—felt heavy and cold. I unclasped it. The diamonds caught the light of the console one last time before I dropped it onto the dirty concrete.
Click.
"I understand," I said, watching the expensive jewelry lie in the dirt. "Scarlett Vance is ash."
Nikolai glanced at the collar, then at me. "Good. Now you're just mine."
A noise from the shaft above made us both freeze. A body dropped down—one of the mercenaries had found the entrance. He landed clumsily, stumbling as he tried to raise his rifle.
Nikolai moved like a blur. He tackled the man into a concrete ventilation stack. There was no hesitation, no conversation. Nikolai slammed the man’s head against the stone, then drove his elbow into the mercenary’s throat. A sickening crack echoed in the small space.
Three seconds. That was all it took.
"Too many loose ends," Nikolai grunted, standing up and wiping blood from his brow.
"Ten seconds, Smirnov!" I yelled, staring at the countdown. 00:10. 00:09.
He grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. "Run, Scarlett. Deeper."
He shoved me toward a narrow, circular hatch in the wall. I scrambled through, splashing into ankle-deep water. The smell hit me instantly—raw sewage and decay—but I didn't care.
Nikolai followed, ripping the sleeve off his shirt and using the fabric to tie the hatch handle down from the inside.
"Where does this go?" I gasped.
"Away," he said, slamming a heavy reinforced steel door shut about thirty feet down the tunnel. He threw the deadbolt. "Brace."
He pulled me against his chest, forcing my back against the cold steel door. He wrapped his arms around my head, burying my face in his ruined suit.
"Nikolai..."
"Don't move," he commanded.
BOOM.
The world ended.