Chapter 9 Rowan #3
Then another wave of men pours into the bay, and the chance disappears.
Hands grab my arms from behind and wrench me backward so hard my grip slips from Lila.
I kick once, hard enough to connect with somebody’s shin, but there are too many of them and too much blood on the floor, and my body is no match for men who have done this before.
Lila tries to push herself up and fails. Maria doesn’t move again.
By the time they drag me upright, the side door is still only twenty feet away. It might as well be another country.
“Easy,” one of them mutters.
The command is almost casual, which somehow makes it worse.
Two guards kneel beside Lila. One presses a thick cloth against the wound in her side while the other speaks into the radio clipped to his shoulder.
The words are quiet but urgent, swallowed by the hollow acoustics of the warehouse and the lingering ringing still echoing in my ears from the gunshots.
The air smells like burned powder and cold metal. Lila’s face has gone pale, but she’s conscious. Her eyes find mine, clear despite the pain pulling at her expression. She gives a small shake of her head.
Don’t fight.
I force myself to stop resisting the grip on my arms. Not because I want to. Because she’s right.
A few feet away, Maria lies on the floor where she fell.
Someone has rolled her onto her side, but nothing else has changed.
One arm rests awkwardly beneath her body, and the dark stain spreading beneath her has already widened into a heavy pool that glistens faintly beneath the industrial lights overhead.
No one is trying to stop it. The realization lodges heavily in my chest. Maria is gone.
The men holding me begin steering me toward the corridor again, but they stop suddenly.
Movement ripples through the room, and the guards straighten almost at once, their attention pulled toward the open end of the loading bay.
Even before I see him, I recognize the change in the atmosphere, the subtle tension that passes through the men stationed around the room.
Ivan walks in as if the chaos unfolding inside the warehouse doesn’t concern him at all. His coat remains buttoned neatly. His posture is relaxed, and his expression is composed, almost surreal, against the harsh fluorescent lights and the smell of blood still lingering in the air.
His eyes move slowly across the scene. First to Maria, then to the blood spreading across the concrete, then to Lila kneeling with a guard pressing the cloth against her side. Finally, his eyes find me.
“You moved faster than Arkady expected,” he observes.
The comment arrives in a tone that sounds more reflective than critical, as though he’s discussing a minor business miscalculation rather than a failed escape attempt that left one person dead and another bleeding on the floor.
One of the guards releases my arm when Ivan approaches. The other holds on for another second before Ivan glances at him.
“That won’t be necessary,” he instructs.
The man lets go immediately.
My wrists ache faintly where their fingers had been gripping, but I ignore it. My attention remains fixed on Ivan as he walks past me without another look and stops beside Maria. He studies her body, but there’s no visible reaction in his expression.
“Unfortunate,” he remarks quietly.
The word contains no grief, only inconvenience. Then he turns toward the guards stationed nearby.
“Take them back.”
Two men move forward immediately. One of them reaches for Lila, helping her slowly to her feet while the other starts toward me again.
I step toward her first.
“She needs pressure on that wound,” I tell them.
Ivan watches the exchange then he nods once. “Let her.”
The guard steps aside.
I kneel beside Lila and take the cloth from the man holding it against her side. The fabric is already soaked through, warm and slick beneath my fingers. I fold it tighter and press more firmly against the wound.
Lila inhales sharply through her teeth, but she doesn’t push my hands away.
“Stay with me,” I mutter.
Her lips press together as she nods. “I’m still here.”
Ivan observes us both with mild curiosity, as though we’re part of an experiment that has unfolded differently than anticipated.
“Arkady believed he was building something permanent,” he says after a moment.
Neither of us responds. He doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
“In reality,” he continues calmly, “Arkady was building a distraction.”
My eyes lift toward him. A faint trace of amusement lifts the corners of his mouth.
“He had money, influence, and just enough ambition to believe he could control both. That made him useful.”
Lila stares up at him, anger pushing through the pain visible in her expression. “You killed him,” she snaps.
“Yes.”
The confirmation is delivered with the same calm certainty as everything else he’s said since entering the warehouse. He glances briefly toward Maria again before returning his attention to Lila.
“Arkady was useful while he believed he was in charge.”
The statement fills the room with a heavy silence.
Lila lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “You think you’re better?”
“I know I’m more patient,” Ivan says matter-of-factly.
He studies her face for a moment. “If you were anyone else,” he continues calmly, “you would already be dead.”
Lila’s jaw tightens.
Ivan tilts his head as he watches her absorb that. “Unfortunately,” he adds, “blood occasionally has uses.”
The coldness in the remark sends a faint ripple through the guards standing nearby.
Lila exhales slowly, anger and disbelief mixing in her expression. “You dragged Rowan into this.”
“Yes,” he confirms.
“You set me up.”
“I presented an opportunity,” he replies evenly. “You accepted it.”
Her eyes burn with rage. “You used me.”
Ivan doesn’t bother denying it. “I did.”
The honesty is brutal. The silence that follows is deafening. Then Ivan adjusts the cuff of his sleeve as though the conversation has already begun to lose his interest.
“My father moved between cities when he worked for the Volkovs,” he says calmly. “Your mother was one of the women he left behind.”
Lila goes completely still. The information itself is not new, but hearing him reduce it to something so clinical strips away whatever distance she had been holding between herself and the truth.
“You knew about me for years,” she says. “And you waited.”
“Yes.”
Her breathing grows uneven. “Why?”
Ivan pauses momentarily. “Timing.”
The single word answers everything. “I contacted you when you became useful,” he adds.
Lila stares at him with open hatred. “You’re sick.”
“No,” Ivan responds. “I’m practical.”
They lift Lila carefully and guide us toward the corridor.
The sounds of the warehouse fade behind us as we move down the hallway, replaced by the dull echo of our footsteps and the distant metallic grind of trains somewhere beyond the walls.
When we step inside the room the walls close in around us.
One of the guards lingers just long enough to toss a small bundle onto the cot before stepping back into the hall.
The door shuts behind him a moment later, leaving the room quiet again.
When I unfold the bundle, I find fresh cloths and a roll of bandages inside, a practical reminder that they still want Lila alive.
I guide Lila onto the narrow cot and move the bundle aside so I can see the wound properly.
The blood has soaked through the fabric along her side, but when I pull the material back, I can see the damage clearly.
The bullet didn’t lodge. It tore across the muscle instead of burying itself, leaving a deep groove that bleeds freely but cleanly. It’s serious but survivable.
“Hold still,” I murmur, reaching for the bandages the guard left behind.
She grips the edge of the mattress while I clean the worst of the blood and press fresh gauze against the wound. The fabric feels rough beneath my fingers as I secure it in place, tightening the wrap just enough to slow the bleeding without making it harder for her to breathe.
Lila exhales slowly once the pressure eases.
“That didn’t go the way we planned,” she mutters.
“No, it didn’t.”
Lila leans back against the thin mattress, her eyes closing briefly before opening again. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
I don’t answer immediately. The apology doesn’t erase what happened, and it doesn’t erase everything that came before, either.
“You’re still here,” I say finally. “And you did take a bullet meant for me.”
Lila breathes out through her nose. “You would have done the same.”
Silence envelops the room again. Eventually, Lila’s breathing evens out.
I move toward the door and lean lightly against the wall beside it, letting my eyes wander slowly across the room. That’s when I notice something I missed earlier—the vent near the ceiling.
It’s small, barely wider than my shoulders, but the metal grate covering it sits crooked against the wall. One corner of the plate hangs slightly loose, the screw missing or stripped.
I stare at it for a long moment, tracing the angle of the metal and the dark space beyond it, already measuring distances in my head and wondering how much noise the plate would make if it were pried loose.
Outside the door, boots pass along the corridor.
Ivan believes the escape attempt ended in that loading bay. He believes the room is secure.
The realization takes shape quietly in my mind. The vent could be another way out. Another chance, if we need one. But a quieter part of me hopes it won’t come to that.
Kiren will find this place. The only question is whether he gets here before Ivan decides we’re no longer worth keeping alive.