Chapter 35 #3
Just as I hear a door creaking open, there’s a warm gust of breath near my face before a force slams into me, sending me crashing to the ground.
I can’t even scream—they’re already crushing my windpipe.
I feel the cold end of a barrel press up to my ribs, and my stomach drops at the realization that he’ll pull the trigger.
That he’ll do it before Xavier can find me in this pitch darkness.
Using all of my limbs to free myself, I manage to send my knee into his gut, using the one second of delayed reaction to flip him under me.
My gasps have become painful wheezes, and the room around me is no longer black but a static gray in my lightheadedness.
My brain and body can’t recover fast enough.
There’s a sudden faint glow that brightens the room, attached to the man’s hip.
Maybe a call, a text. I’m not sure, but my heart stops—fucking ceases to beat —when that brief flash reveals that not only had Xavier already found us, but he’s shoved a gun barrel so far down the soldier’s throat that the man couldn’t breathe if he tried.
For the first time, ever, I see Xavier in his element, choosing to make this painful. Frightening. A statement. In his eyes, burning with rage, he’s letting him know that this is a punishment for touching me. And most of all, that he fucked with the wrong man.
He pulls the trigger, the noise jarring enough to make me flinch with the man that just died. Instantly.
By the time the glow fades back to black, Xavier is holding my face in his hands, no longer frightening. Just gentle. Just scared out of his damn mind. “Fuck. You’re okay? You sure?”
I’m alive. That’s enough.
He kisses me, hard, like he’s letting out his tension with it. And then we’re moving, racing down hallways, using the slamming window pane as our guide. If we can get outside, we can get away. In here, we’re sitting ducks.
In here, we don’t stand a chance.
The basement door swings open, flooding the space with rain and light, illuminating the man standing in our way, his large shadow sprawling across the ground.
My eyes lock onto Dominic’s, my feet faltering until I'm molding into Xavier’s chest. No .
Dominic steps aside, allowing a rally of armed men to pass through the opening before following behind.
His grin burns a hole in my mind as darkness envelops the room again, trapping us in a void filled with enemies.
I sense a rush of wind just before bodies collide beside me, Xavier slamming against the wall.
I’m stabbing without a clear idea of who it might be.
Xavier’s skin is exposed; that’s how I distinguish him from the others.
I feel my way to one of the abandoned rooms, wasting a bullet on the lock before kicking the door open.
I can’t tell Xavier’s groans apart from theirs anymore.
I sprint across the cold room and slam the butt of my gun against the tinted glass, blinded by the light. Before I’m able to turn, a hand snatches the back of my neck, yanking me off my feet. “Never turn your back on the door, Cara. Have you forgotten everything I taught you?”
My stomach drops like a stone, but I manage to spit out a defiant “ Fuck you.”
Right now, Dominic looks like the men in my nightmares, unable to contain the menacing hunger in his eyes. He crushes my wrist in his grip, the cold metal of the gun aimed threateningly at the ground. “You came back.”
“Not for you.”
“Keep your end of the bargain.”
“Let us go,” I hiss, “and I won’t fucking kill you .”
Dominic shoves me aside so forcefully that the gun rips from my grasp.
A soldier entering the room falls flat on his face, losing his footing.
In that chilling instant, I see Xavier viciously dragging him by the ankles, hauling him back into the dark hallway.
The sheer brutality of it, compounded by the bone-chilling screams reverberating through the rooms, shatters Dominic’s facade of ease.
Without warning, like my husband, I spring into action, launching myself at Dominic with both fury and precision, targeting the vulnerable backs of his knees to send him tumbling.
His hands grip my thighs, pinning me down as he forces me to the ground, attempting to dislodge me.
He does it over and over, growling each time my nails dig into his throat, squeezing with all of my strength.
On his knees, he grabs my wrist and hurls me onto the concrete with an exasperated roar.
My spine protests, a jolt of pain surging through my back as breath fills my lungs again.
“I didn’t come here to hurt you! Stop, Sophia!” Dominic shouts.
He’s disoriented and desperate as he grapples to pierce through my resistance, my arms lashing out erratically.
I seize whatever I can find to inflict pain—knives, crumbling stones from the walls.
My nails claw at the ground and scrape along the door as he yanks me toward the exit, his urgency palpable while Xavier remains occupied.
“Listen to me. Sophia, listen to me!”
But my blade slices across his thigh, forcing him to a knee, and that calm demeanor, that convincing mask fractures, unveiling the darkness he has concealed so well.
Unlike Iceland, when his arm hesitated to strike after I had bested him, turned his emotions against him, now a feral rage consumes Dominic. He rushes at me, fury burning in his eyes, forcing me to retreat into the room, paralyzed by fear, unable to scream.
He wails upon me.
I can’t get away from it.
Strata sends me crashing back to the unforgiving concrete every time I struggle to my feet.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Xavier on his back, grappling with multiple soldiers.
My heart races as I close my eyes, bracing for each punishing blow, feeling my own fight slipping away with every strike.
When he knows I can’t get up, couldn’t even if I tried, Dominic crawls over me, seizing my wrists and pinning them beside my head.
“Goddamnit, Sophia! You are coming with me. I’ve sacrificed too damn much!”
Before I can even register the presence of another soul in this room, a massive hand tightens around Dominic Strata’s throat, yanking him away from me in a swift, violent motion.
My senses dull in the struggle it takes to remain conscious, distorting the indescribable violence happening around me.
Bodies clashing, echoing wild, primal sounds throughout the room.
There are more of them. They’re pulling at Xavier’s back, his arms, his legs, trying to keep him from disfiguring Strata beyond repair.
There are too many.
Get up. Get up , Sophie.
Sheer will propels me to my feet to grab a weapon.
I can’t explain how I manage to reach them, prying their arms off of my husband.
But Dominic has gotten his hands on discarded debris and wails it down on Xavier.
It does the job. It makes him lose his grip, falling into the hands of the enraged soldiers.
Strata is consuming my airspace within seconds.
I’m fighting with all of my might to breathe, pounding my hands against his wrists, my legs thrashing as he drags me out of the room, past the group of men forcing Xavier down to his knees, until rain is pelting my face.
There’s no one left out here. It dawns on me what Xavier and I have done—depleted their forces to nearly nothing. Still, it’s not enough. I’m ripping his shirt, digging my boots into the wet earth to remain upright, to keep myself from that car waiting at the curb.
Fighting blind panic, my fingers dig into Dominic’s eye sockets, drawing blood, making him unable to stabilize after the blow. Seeing that car ignites what was dying within me, reminding me of the horrors I’ve endured due to men who think they can own me. That’s all it takes.
I’m harnessing the strength I thought I had lost.
I’m finding my footing, grounding my stance to swing on him, just as he taught me. I’m pushing myself harder, remembering my father’s corpse inside that warehouse.
I did that.
One more. I just need one more.
I’m only stronger when I catch sight of Xavier stepping into the rain, a gruesome, bloody, beautiful vision. I coil my leg around Strata’s, capturing his wrist in a vice-like grip, and wrench it back until I hear the crack of his kneecap hitting the ground.
It’s blind fury as he yanks me down, wrestling me beneath him with overwhelming desperation to disarm me, completely oblivious to Xavier crouching down behind him, eyes burning with unspeakable intensity.
Dominic’s hands are a blur, trying to restrain me when he suddenly freezes, convulsing with a strained grunt. Another sound produces blood, spilling from his lips in a rush.
Xavier extracts the five-inch blade from his back, seizes his shoulder, and thrusts him against the knife again, a wild gleam in his eyes, embodying the unhinged Phantom that the streets have come to know him as.
He stabs him over and over, each squelching sound as the weapon tears from his body becoming music to my ears.
The blood pouring from Strata’s mouth seeps through my clothes. Only then, when my eyes follow the crimson streams, do I see why Dominic Strata is fading from this world with a haunting smile.
Xavier isn’t the only one with a weapon.
He rams it through my stomach in one cruel blow.
I don’t even feel it, but all of the wind is knocked out of me. I’m unable to get a breath in, imprisoned by spiteful eyes. Eyes that are determined to win—one way or another.
And he has.
The bastard still won.
Dominic slumps as the life drains from him, as Xavier wrenches the weapon from his body, pulling him off of me. Halfway through the motion, hand digging into his shoulder, Xavier’s eyes lose their triumph.
He freezes.
Not because he’s seen the knife. His eyes haven’t left mine, as if he’s too scared to look down. Somehow, through my eyes alone, he knows.
My voice breaks him out of the murderous haze he had to disappear into to get us out of this alive. It’s a weak, terrified sound that prompts his eyes to finally drift down.
“X… Xa vier.”
When he sees the gleam of silver protuding from my stomach, one of my own fighting knives, his eyes expand in horror. His breath hitches, catching in his throat.
“ No ,” Xavier gasps, his voice strangled by the clawing grip of fear. The car at the curb screeches away from the massacre once Dominic drops to the ground, lifeless. “ NO !”
Frantic hands are on my face within seconds. “No, no, no. Oh, God. Sophie.” My fingers shake uncontrollably, curling around the handle as cold sweat beads on my forehead. Xavier exhales sharply, his voice trembling with panic. “You’ll bleed. Don’t. Don’t .”
“Xavier.”
I’m not ready.
The fear is there.
There’s no one left in this godforsaken place but us.
Corpses surround us, steps away from freedom.
And I think I might be next.
“ Sophie .” Xavier grips my chin, his gaze locking onto mine. “Baby. Listen. Do you have a kit? Anything?”
He sounds so scared. So fucking scared.
The car. In the car.
I desperately want to scream the words, but they’re trapped in the back of my throat. My breaths come quick and shallow, each inhalation tightening my chest.
Xavier pulls me, broken and bloody, onto his lap, panting as I cry out, finally sensing the foreign object within me. He holds me as if it hurts him more than it hurts me.
His face becomes an eerie shade of pale.
He clasps my face, the tremor in his hands betraying his fear.
When he speaks, his voice quivers slightly, and though his head is steady, his eyes are swarmed with fright.
They dart like a trapped animal at the emptiness around us.
“Sophie, look at me. Fucking look at me. I need to get you out of here.”
My eyes are closing, too heavy to resist .
His hair is drenched to the scalp as the steady rain mingles with the blood of the dead. “Sophie, no. No, open your eyes!”
I’m able to recognize the precise moment I begin to lose my senses, and that’s when terrified words begin spilling from my trembling lips. “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t?—”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Xavier hysterical. Terrified, yes. Panicked, many times. But this?
He can’t catch his breath, choking every time he looks at the weapon lodged in my stomach.
I’m slipping right through his fingers.
“I’m dying.” I lose track of how many times I say it.
“No, you’re not. Don’t say that. You’ll be okay. I… I can fix this. I can?—”
When the words he’s muttering under his breath plummet to chilling silence, rendering him speechless, gaping, trying to find a way to change what’s happened, knowing all the while that he will fail, that’s when I know this is bad. Really bad.
“I’m sorry.” The apologies I whisper won’t change the fact that I’ve replaced his death with mine, his sacrifice. Aware that will destroy him, I can only say, “I’m sorry.”
“ Why ?” A cry rips from his chest, as if the pain is splitting him in two. “ Why did you come here? Why did you do this? Not you. Not you .”
My lips are going numb, yet I find myself gasping out the desperate words he must hear, even as he pleads for me to stop, his fear creeping in to shatter him.
He grasps my face, imploring me to keep my eyes on him.
Framed by a stormy sky, he embodies the dark angel who shadowed my every move over the past four years.
He is beaten, bloody, bruised—and alive .
He’s alive.
The man I love more than life itself is rocking back and forth, unable to breathe. “We die together . Together, you hear me? Don’t do this to me. You can’t do this to me! ”
When my eyes fall closed, Xavier shakes me hard enough to pull me back, forcing me to confront the reality that resides in his eyes. That he isn’t going to board that plane without me. That he’ll meet his fate right here with me if I don’t fight hard enough.
I watch despair turn into blistering rage, his eyes darkening with uncontrollable fury.
“You won’t die,” he growls, his voice a chilling whisper, as if he’s ready to deny the universe one more soul.
He says it again, sharper, before he hauls me into his arms, no time to be gentle. Every time he moves, the blade twists a little deeper. That’s what finally takes me under.
As darkness descends, his fierce refusals fill the vast void.
Fuck no.
You’re not going to die on me.
Not today.
Not today .