Chapter 15
ISABELLA
Sleep doesn't come.
Every time I close my eyes, gunfire echoes through my skull.
Muzzle flashes strobe across my vision like lightning trapped behind my eyelids.
The chemical stench of gunpowder mixed with blood coats the back of my throat until I can taste it, thick and metallic.
Remy's hand on my tactical vest, dragging me through corridors while men screamed and died around us—that pressure still ghosts across my ribs like a brand.
Van der Berg's contractors disappeared the moment their obligation ended—professionals fulfilling a contract, nothing more.
Luc moved us within the hour, refusing to trust any location Van der Berg's people knew about.
An apartment on an upper floor in a residential neighborhood.
The kind of place where neighbors mind their business and landlords accept cash without asking questions. Clean. Quiet.
Remy hasn't slept. He's stationed by the window, weapon across his lap, watching the street below with the absolute stillness of a man who's done this countless times in worse places than Rotterdam.
Every few minutes his gaze sweeps the rooflines, checking sight lines and approach vectors with the same mechanical precision he uses to rig explosives.
Luc occupies the second bedroom, equally alert, equally armed.
Just the three of us now. Waiting for dawn or violence, whichever arrives first.
Around sunrise, exhaustion finally drags me under on the small couch. Not real sleep—just my body surrendering despite the adrenaline still fizzing through my veins like electricity.
The explosion rips me back to consciousness.
The blast wave hits first—raw physical force that punches through the windows and rattles my teeth, drives the air from my lungs so violently I can't even scream. It’s not our building, but it’s close.
The sound follows, massive and rolling, the kind of concussion that inverts the world and leaves ears ringing in frequencies that shouldn't exist. Glass trembles in frames.
Dishes clatter in kitchen cabinets. The couch shudders beneath me like something alive trying to throw me off.
Car alarms shriek through the neighborhood in cascading waves. Dogs erupt into frantic barking. Somewhere close, a child's scream cuts through everything else.
I'm on my feet before conscious thought catches up, heart trying to hammer through my ribs, hands reaching for weapons I don't have. The smell filters through next—smoke and chemicals sharp enough to taste, acrid and wrong, coating the back of my throat.
Close. The explosion came dangerously close.
Remy's already moving, weapon up, crossing to the window with the fluid economy of someone who's done this too many times to count. Luc emerges from the bedroom fully armed, scanning for immediate threats.
"Two blocks south." Remy's voice comes flat, cold, stripped of everything except tactical assessment. "Industrial building. Shaped charge, directional blast pattern, minimal collateral damage radius."
"How can you possibly know that?" My heart's still racing, hands trembling as I push upright.
"Because I know his work." Something goes dead in Remy's expression—not anger, something colder. "Lazarev. This is how he operates. Flush the prey, force the move, track the extraction route."
Luc's already at his laptop pulling security feeds. "Warehouse burning. No secondaries yet. Emergency services responding."
"Won't be any secondaries." Remy doesn't move from the window. "He's not destroying infrastructure. He's flushing us into the open so he can track which direction we run."
The tactical reality settles over me like ice water. "He knows we're here?"
"Close enough to bracket our position. The explosion's designed to spook without killing—at least not yet." Remy turns from the window, and the expression he wears makes my stomach drop. "Hunter's tactic. Flush the target, watch where they bolt, close the trap when they're exposed and panicked."
"So what do we do?"
"We don't run." He crosses to the table where tactical maps are spread, and I watch his mind work through the problem like he's dismantling a bomb.
"Lazarev's using the same playbook from Yemen because it worked there.
He'll expect standard extraction protocols.
We violate every expectation. We stage a panicked evacuation, make it look like the flush worked, then rig this location and wait for him to investigate. "
Luc glances up from the laptop. "You want to use this apartment as bait?"
"Too obvious for the primary trap." Remy's already calculating, fingers tracing routes on the map.
"We stage evidence of hasty departure—clothes scattered, equipment abandoned, all the markers of people running scared.
I rig shaped charges, position remote triggers, then wait nearby.
When Lazarev comes to verify we're gone and search for extraction clues, I end this. "
The words hit me like another blast wave. "You're using yourself as bait."
"I'm finishing what should have ended in Yemen.
" No apology in his voice, no room for negotiation.
Just cold fact. "The Iron Choir will eventually cut their losses and reallocate resources.
But Lazarev's vendetta is personal. He'll burn every asset he controls hunting me until one of us is dead. I'm choosing which one."
Luc leans forward, studying the tactical layout. "The Yemen precedent gives us operational advantage. You know his pattern, his methodology. You can predict his next move."
"Exactly." Remy's finger traces a line on the map. "Flush and investigate. He won't delegate verification to contractors—his obsession won't allow it. He needs to personally confirm we evacuated, needs to search for extraction route indicators. When he enters the kill zone, I detonate."
"How can you be certain he'll come himself?"
"Because Lazarev's obsessed with settling scores, obsessed with revenge for Yemen. He won't trust contractors to verify something this important." Remy meets my eyes, and what I see there is absolute certainty. "He'll investigate personally. And when he does, I'll be waiting."
Luc nods slowly, already running calculations. "I extract Isabella to secondary observation point with remote monitoring. You rig this location with shaped charges, stage panic indicators. Lazarev investigates, you spring the trap."
"Exactly."
Fear spikes through me, sharp and immediate, cutting through the tactical planning like a knife. "What about collateral damage? This is a residential neighborhood. There are families—"
"Shaped charges are directional. Minimal blast radius, full containment within the target apartment." Remy's tone suggests he's already calculated every variable, run every scenario. "Adjacent units will register concussion but won't sustain structural damage. Zero civilian casualties."
"And if something goes wrong?"
He looks at me directly, and the certainty in his expression should be reassuring but somehow makes it worse. "It won't."
The hours that follow pass in tense, methodical preparation.
Remy stages the apartment to look like a panicked evacuation—clothes scattered across furniture, drawers hanging open, equipment abandoned mid-pack.
He rigs shaped charges with the same precision he used in the warehouse, positioning each one for maximum effect within minimal blast radius.
Wireless triggers sync to his remote. His phone gets positioned at the perfect angle to capture the kill zone.
Everything designed with the precision of someone who's done this before. Many times. In places far worse than Rotterdam.
Luc works his laptop, pulling strings through Rotterdam contacts until he finds what we need—a vacant apartment several blocks away, owner traveling, perfect sight lines to our current location.
"Observation post secured," Luc explains, marking it on the tactical map. "Clear view of the street and building entrance."
Which means watching everything. Including watching Remy put himself in a trap designed to kill the man hunting him.
Later that morning, Remy pulls me into the bedroom and closes the door behind us.
When he cups my face with both hands, the touch is gentle but the grip is iron—firm enough that I couldn't look away even if I wanted to.
"I need you to understand something." His voice drops low, quiet, the kind of tone that demands absolute attention. "What happens tonight isn't about revenge or settling scores. It's about ensuring Lazarev can never come after either of us again. That's the only equation that matters to me."
I want to argue. Want to tell him his life has equal value, that he doesn't get to sacrifice himself like I'm the only thing worth protecting. But the words lodge in my throat because I know he won't hear them. Won't accept any calculation that doesn't prioritize my safety above his own.
"I know."
"Do you?" His thumbs brush my cheekbones, the touch achingly gentle despite the grip that won't let me escape. "Because you look absolutely terrified."
"I am terrified." No point lying when he can probably feel my pulse hammering beneath his fingers. "You're using yourself as bait for a man who's spent years planning to kill you. Of course I'm terrified."
Something shifts in his expression—not softening, darkening. More possessive. More dangerous.
"Good. Fear keeps you sharp, keeps you alert.
" He kisses me then, slow and deep and claiming, staking ownership one more time before walking into danger.
His mouth tastes like coffee and something darker—violence barely contained beneath the surface.
When he pulls back, his eyes hold something that looks like possession and goodbye twisted together until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
"But you trust me to handle this. You trust that I've survived worse than Lazarev and walked away. Yes?"
"Yes, Sir."