25. Mia
25
MIA
T he gunshot cracks through the air, sharp and final. For a second, the room stills, the sparkling hum of the casino turning to stunned silence.
Then I see him.
Leon clutches his chest, blood seeping through his suit. His knees buckle, and he collapses, the shock on his face cutting me deeper than the chaos erupting around us.
“No!”
The scream tears from my throat as my body propels forward, shoving through the panicked crowd. My heart pounds, every instinct screaming to get to him, to make sure he’s okay. He has to be okay.
God, please let him be okay.
I’m close, so close, when a hand clamps down on my arm.
I twist violently, coming face to face with a man dressed as a server. Except…no, how did the Cartel get in here? I thought Leon had them in retreat. No. No. No. This is all wrong.
“Let go of me!” I snarl, yanking my arm back, but his grip tightens, dragging me toward him.
A knife flashes in my face, and I lunge sideways, narrowly avoiding the blade.
He swings again, and I catch his wrist, using all my strength to push back. But he’s bigger, stronger, and his other hand grabs for my neck.
Out of nowhere, a blur of movement crashes into him.
Isabella.
She moves with lethal precision, blonde and furious. Her fist connects with his jaw, and he stumbles. Before he can recover, she drives her knee into his stomach and twists the knife from his grip.
With one final strike, he crumples to the floor, unconscious.
“Get up,” Isabella snaps as she offers me her hand. “We need to move now.”
I stagger to my feet, still dazed, as someone else stumbles into us, eyes feral and wild, a broken champagne bottle clutched in her hand as if her life depends on it.
“Isabella! What’s going on?” Cassandra gasps, her voice trembling.
“Cartel,” Isabella says curtly, scanning the room. “Stay close. Fight if you have to.”
The room is a battlefield now—guests screaming, glass shattering, gunfire echoing against the vaulted ceilings.
I know she’s looking for her husband, but mine is bleeding out on the floor. “We need to get to Leon.”
His sister pales and nods quickly, leading us forward, cutting through the crowds as fast as possible. Her movements are desperate as we inch closer to where Leon fell.
I just have enough wherewithal to notice an attack to the right of us. I launch myself to block the knife that would have embedded itself in Isabella’s shoulder and yank back his arm hard enough for bones to snap.
Isabella twirls in alarm and immediately goes for the two men behind him, taking one down before they even have a chance to strike.
Cassandra—never one to be outdone—swings her bottle haphazardly at the other, the jagged edge catching his arm.
He curses and stumbles back, giving me enough time to drive my heel into his knee.
I can’t wait to see if he goes down. I’m already spinning back to my original course. Through the throngs of bodies, I catch glimpses of him on the ground. Someone is leaning over him.
Someone is there already. Someone is already saving him. Please. Please. Please.
Just as it feels like we’re finally making progress, another wave of bodies crashes into us.
I reach for Isabella, but she’s swept away in the surge, dragging Cas with her.
“Mia!” Isabella’s voice is already distant.
I don’t have a choice. I can’t spare the time to follow them, not now. I have to get to him. I won’t stop. Not until I reach him.
I fight my way through the crowd, but it’s so much harder now that I’m doing it alone. Why was he so far away? Why had I let him go?
Every step feels like I’m being dragged deeper into a nightmare. The floor feels slick underfoot, and I’m dizzy from the ring of gunfire and a scream that I think is coming from me.
Then suddenly, I’m yanked backward out of the fray.
Unfamiliar hands roughly pull me to one side. My breath catches in my throat, and I spin, lashing out.
My fist connects with someone’s jaw with a satisfying crunch. But I can’t celebrate before another set of hands snatches at my wrists, pinning them behind my back.
Two men wrestle me into submission as I fight for my life. I’m thrashing and struggling in a way I never knew I was capable of as my arms are bound tight.
The sharp pressure of an arm around my neck forces the air from my lungs, and I fight against the suffocating grip. I twist, trying to break free, but my strength is slipping away, the black spots creeping into my vision.
And then, just as I think I can’t take it anymore—when the fight starts to drain from me—I hear a voice.
“Mia!”
The voice is familiar, the deep rumble of it something I’ve heard countless times before. I thrash against my restraints so that I can see my savior approaching.
“Max,” I gasp, my chest heaving. “Help!”
But the man approaches slowly, unhurried by the situation. At first, I thought he might be weighing up my would-be-kidnappers. But they don’t go for him either.
Instead, he leans over me, a curious expression on his face. “You’re a hard woman to kidnap, Mrs. Natali.”
The shock of his words is undermined by the pure adrenaline running through my veins. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Let me go!”
He pulls something from his pocket. I brace for a knife, but it’s something altogether more sinister. A syringe.
“The kind of man who isn’t going to take any chances with a firecracker like you,” he says as he flicks the thin, glass tool and levels it to my neck.
I try to squirm away, but it’s no use. There are two sets of hands holding me still when a third shoves the needle under my skin and plunges its contents into my bloodstream.
He has the audacity to look smug as he steps away. The world around us is already distorting and fading behind him.
“The Cartel don’t keep prisoners for long. I’m sure you’ll be reunited with your dear husband soon.”
Max’s voice is the last thing I hear.
The blackness pulls me under, and I can’t fight it anymore. My last thought is of Leon—praying to whatever gods will listen that he’s still alive.
My head throbs as I wake up, a dull, persistent ache that bleeds into my thoughts.
It takes a few moments for my mind to catch up, for the haze of unconsciousness to lift enough for me to recognize my surroundings. Cold stone walls. A dim light overhead. The metallic smell of rust in the air.
I inhale sharply, panic rising like a tidal wave in my chest.
I’m in a holding cell.
My wrists are bound tightly to the arms of a chair, the rough ropes biting into my skin. My body aches—head, shoulders, and stomach—they’re all sore like I’ve been dragged across the earth.
Every instinct screams at me to move, to escape, but I can’t. My limbs feel heavy, sluggish, trapped, likely a side effect of whatever they drugged me with back at the…
And then, it hits me.
Leon.
My breath catches in my throat, and my heart drops. I can barely force the thought through my mind— is he alive?
I remember his body crumpling, blood spreading across the casino floor.
No.
I force the thought away, pushing it down, unwilling to believe it. I can’t think like that. I can’t. He’s not gone. He can’t be.
Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Not now. I need to think up a plan to get out of here.
The ropes bite into my skin as I shift in my chair, trying to find an angle of weakness. But whoever tied me up knew exactly what they were doing.
Nausea curls in my stomach. Max. Had Max done this?
Oh, I’m going to fucking kill him. Slowly, painfully. The way he deserves, that traitor.
Minutes pass, or hours—I can’t tell. Time stretches, a dull blur of waiting, my body stiffening with every passing second as I attempt everything I can think of to free myself.
I let my anger fuel me through it. It’s easier than the terror of what I saw, of the possibility that he might not be…
Just as the weight of those thoughts feels too much to bear, the door to the cell creaks open. My heart skips, and I snap my head toward the sound, hoping— praying —it’s Leon.
But it isn’t.
I feel the dread settle into my bones as her dark features turn on me. As emotionless and cold as the last time I saw her.
Carmen.
The Cartel Princess.