Chapter 26
Kara
I had always known they were going to take me. That was always part of the plan, but as my eyes flickered open and my head pounded like a drum, it all felt like it was falling apart.
Everything hurt.
My skull pulsed behind my eyes like someone was squeezing it in a vise. My tongue was dry. My limbs felt heavy, like my blood had turned to syrup. I blinked hard, trying to make sense of my surroundings, but the edges of my vision blurred and doubled before it cleared enough for me to see.
Metal. There was metal all around me.
The smell of industrial oil, salt, sweat, and metal hit me and then I realized that I was inside something narrow and cold.
My back pressed against steel. My knees were pulled up awkwardly against my chest, my spine cramping from the way I’d been folded.
A crate. Maybe a modified shipping pod. The inside had padding on the floor, but it was thin.
I shifted, groaning as I tried to move. Every muscle screamed. I bit the inside of my cheek to stay quiet. I didn’t know who was listening, or how close they were. I reached up to see if the earpiece was still in my ear, but was disappointed to find it gone.
ARCHEON had apparently found it.
Shit.
Then I remembered the ring on my finger and its tracking capabilities. I tapped my hand against the wall of the crate twice, just in case. The ring was pressure sensitive. Hopefully Demyan had his eyes on me. I had no idea how much time had passed. For all that I knew, it could have been hours.
Please let them be close.
Outside the crate, I could hear distant footsteps. Voices. But not in English. Russian? No. Arabic. One of the Gulf dialects. Probably the local port crew. Good. That meant we hadn’t left yet.
How long had I been out?
I twisted again, trying to shift my weight around so I could figure a way out of here.
If I could get the lid open. If I could just—
A voice. Close now. “She still out?”
Another voice. Male. Casual. “Yeah. Checked on her ten minutes ago. She’s dead to the world.”
A long silence. Then the sound of some heavy metal thing being set down. A water bottle maybe, or tools?
“You think they’ll keep her alive?”
That question hovered in the stale air like a wasp.
“Not my call,” the other man replied. “They only said to get her on board. After that…”
I stared up at the metal ceiling of my tiny cage, blood roaring in my ears as I listened to the sound of their footsteps fading away.
I wasn’t afraid of dying. I never had been. I was afraid of disappearing. Of being erased. Of not getting to say what needed to be said—to Roman, to Dmitri, to Lev.
To the three men I had come to adore.
Roman with his easy smile and impossible arrogance.
The man who walked into every room like he owned it, but kissed like he wasn’t sure he deserved it.
I’d met men like him before—charming, dangerous, too self-aware for their own good—but Roman was different.
He used his charisma like a weapon, a shield, a mask, and at first, I’d hated him for it.
Until I’d realized that he didn’t just charm to manipulate, he did it to survive and there was something heartbreakingly human in that.
Roman had slipped beneath my skin without trying, and now I felt like I carried a little piece of him inside me.
The smell of smoke and scotch. The echo of his laugh when he thought I wasn’t listening.
The way his eyes softened when he said my name—Kara-with-a-K—like he was tasting it, testing its edges.
If I ever got out of here, I’d tell him that. That I saw through the performance. That the man beneath the smirk was the one I’d fallen for.
And then there was Lev.
My heartbeat stumbled at the thought of him.
Lev had never pretended to be anything other than what he was.
He’d learned to control the world by controlling himself, and I’d been the only one reckless enough to break that pattern.
Every time he’d looked at me, it had felt like standing too close to lightning—dangerous, destructive, and utterly beautiful.
He was precision and violence wrapped in black silk.
And somehow, beneath all of that, he’d learned tenderness.
The way his hand had trembled—just slightly—the first time he’d touched my face.
The way his voice had broken when he’d said my name after years of silence.
The way he’d fought to keep his fury in check when I was taken.
I’d seen the fracture then, the man beneath the control, and I’d wanted to hold him together.
He’d always said I didn’t know who I was playing with. Maybe he was right. Maybe neither of us did.
But I cared about him. Did I love him?
God help me, I did. I suspect he’d been hiding in my heart since boarding school.
And Dmitri…
Dmitri was the one I hadn’t seen coming. The quiet center of the storm. The man who didn’t need to raise his voice to make the world obey, to make me obey.
He’d terrified me at first. He’d been too calm, too calculating, too utterly sure of himself. He could read a room or a person in seconds, and I’d hated how easily he’d read me. Beneath that control, though, was something even more rare.
Dmitri didn’t care for me in the ways men like Roman or Lev did. His was silent. Subtle. Inescapable. The kind of gravitational force that pulled you in without permission and didn’t let go.
He saw me—the parts I hid from everyone, even myself—and instead of using them against me, he’d understood them. He’d made me feel like I wasn’t a tool, or an assignment, or a lie in a pretty dress. He’d made me feel real.
Three men.
Three storms.
And me, caught in the eye among them.
It should have felt impossible, falling for them all. But it wasn’t. Each of them had claimed a piece of me.
And now I was trapped in a crate, listening to men debate whether I would live or die.
No.
I wouldn’t die like this.
I shifted my hips again, curling one foot under me. I tested the seams of the crate, feeling for give. I didn’t have any tools. I didn’t have a weapon, but I had time and fury. And I had trained for worse situations than this.
My fingers pressed against the floor of the crate, sweeping across the metal beneath the thin padding. Every inch was cold and gritty. I was expecting rivets. Seams. Just a way to gauge the structure.
Then, there!
A shallow divot.
And in it, something that was about two inches long. Sharp-edged. Metal.
My breath caught.
I slid my hand over it again, slower and more carefully this time. Whatever it was, it was wedged between the floor plates.
I gripped it carefully, pulling back. It shifted under my fingers with a soft, scraping sound. It didn’t come loose easily, but the angle was bad. My arms were cramped. I had to twist my wrist, jam my shoulder against the crate wall, and pull.
With a short, metallic pop, it came free.
I turned it in my hand.
It was a bolt. Rusted on one end, sheared off on the other. Maybe it had snapped loose during transport, or maybe it had been caught between the slats when someone rushed to secure the crate. Either way, it was jagged, and just long enough to fit in my palm.
The universe hadn’t given me a weapon.
It had given me a chance.
I used my other hand to brace my body as I reached up to the crate’s top panel, feeling along the seam where the ceiling met the side wall. The crate had been sealed from the outside, that much was obvious, but if I could jam the bolt into the seam at the right point and torque the edge…
Maybe. Just maybe.
I pushed the jagged bolt into the seam where the top and side panel met. It slipped once, skittering off the smooth interior wall. I gritted my teeth and tried again, pressing harder. I found the weak point in the weld, the place where the panel flexed.
Good.
I braced my feet against the opposite wall, knees bent a bit awkwardly and shoved upward with everything I had.
The bolt bit in.
Not much.
Just enough.
A faint clink echoed from above me. The metal groaned.
I worked the bolt like a chisel, scraping and wedging along the seam. Sweat rolled down my spine, the inside of the crate getting warmer by the second. My fingers kept cramping, but I didn’t stop.
Then, suddenly, the edge gave.
I gasped as the top panel shifted half an inch. Light spilled in through the gap. I froze, my trusty bolt clenched in my palm.
Waited.
One breath.
Two.
Nothing.
I exhaled slowly, then pushed the panel again. This time it shifted more easily. Another inch. Then two. Then a few more.
It didn’t open all the way, but I could feel the gap now, maybe wide enough to squeeze through if I could twist my body the right way. The angle would be hell. My legs were already numb.
Didn’t matter.
I was getting out.
I tucked the bolt into the waistband of my pants, pressed my shoulder against the widened gap, and began to push. Every inch fought me. The panel was still partially sealed, and the flex of metal made a soft groaning sound I couldn’t muffle, but I got my fingers under the edge and shoved.
Pain lanced through my shoulder.
I grunted.
A pair of boots scraped nearby. Voices again.
Time was up.
I gave one last, desperate push, and the panel snapped upward with a harsh, metallic pop.
I winced.
The crate creaked. The panel hung partially open now, a rough diagonal slice of light pouring in. I could hear footsteps approaching fast.
Too late.
I grabbed the edge, hauled myself up, and slithered halfway out, my arms dragging over the lip as I tried to orient myself. The cargo hold around me was enormous, a labyrinth of stacked shipping containers, steel beams, and chains swaying gently with the movement of the ship.
I landed hard on my elbows outside the crate, rolling to the side just as one of the guards turned the corner.
His eyes widened. “What the—?”
I didn’t give him time to finish.
I lunged for him.
He grabbed for his comm, but he was too slow.
I slammed the bolt into his thigh. He howled, buckling instantly. I kicked him hard in the side, grabbing his wrist and slamming it into the crate’s edge until the radio clattered to the ground. His head hit metal a second later.
Then there was silence.
My chest heaved.
I looked down at the bolt, now slick with blood.
One man down.
An unknown number more to go.
I snatched the radio from the floor, pulled the earpiece free from his ear, and ducked behind a stack of containers. I pressed the comm to my ear, heart thudding.
Voices crackled through.
“Unit six, status check.”
Then nothing. Oops. I guess I took down unit six.
I swallowed hard.
No time to wait for rescue.
I had to move now.