Chapter 2 #2
“There’s one heat signature behind it. Could be a generator, could be a human,” Alfie warns, the reception getting worse as I carry on into the depths of this underground.
It better be a bloody generator. “Door unlocked,” Alfie says quietly as I ignore my brain telling me to back away from immediate danger.
The door opens onto the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing dark green combat gear.
His radio halfway to his mouth, I land a fist right in his face, taking him by surprise, then cross the space between us before he can make a sound, catch his wrist, and drive him back against the concrete.
The blade finds him before his voice does.
For half a second, he fights like a man convinced he still has a chance.
Then his weight drops against me, hot blood spilling over my hand, eyes wide, and I hold him there until life leaves his legs.
“First one down,” I announce, my heart pumping into every cell of my body.
I drag the guard to stop the door and keep it open.
His pulse is gone under my fingers. I stare at him for a second longer than I should, waiting for guilt, for horror, for my father’s reflection to rise from the dark and grin at me.
Nothing comes—no shame, not even a slight hint of regret.
Only Ella’s name, beating harder than my pulse.
Perhaps this is who I have always been. The difference is that my father hurt people because they were weaker than him.
Because he liked the sound of fear, cruelty made him feel taller.
I am doing this because every second wasted is another second she spends in hell.
That distinction will have to be enough for my brain and my therapist will have to deal with the aftermath of it.
All I want is to shout her name and hear her scream in response, telling me her location.
For the first time since I met her, I hate the silence that was forced into her.
Outside, it’s our own dialect, but here…
here it’s a blade sharp and unforgiving, tearing us apart.
She could be ten feet from me and I wouldn’t know it.
The air grows colder as I descend. I carry on, running into this maze with the eagerness of a starved man knowing he will find food after climbing a mountain.
Footsteps come closer, confident, echoing down the corridor I am walking toward.
Shit. I look behind me. Nowhere good to hide.
The guard rounds the corner with his radio already in hand.
But his eyes hit mine, and all I can do is curse.
Lunging at him, we begin a deadly hand fight.
I catch his wrist and drive him backward into the corridor he came from.
His back strikes a pipe with a hollow clang loud enough to make my stomach drop.
He sucks in air to shout, and I hit him under the jaw with the heel of my palm, snapping the sound into a grunt.
Thank God I learned all of Matt’s techniques over the years, otherwise, I would never have made it here.
This one is strong as hell and not giving up as easily as the others.
His hand slides beneath my vest, shoving hard enough to create the space he needs to reach the knife strapped to his belt.
Too late. Pain explodes in my ribs. The blade scrapes along them, mostly stopped by the vest but sharp enough to cut through fabric and skin beneath.
It burns bright down my side. I step into him and drive my knee to his thigh, take his balance, and slam him hard against the concrete.
He comes back at me, furious, snarling, alive for one second too long.
My gun lifts between us and my silencer coughs against his chest. His breath leaves him in a wet, broken sound, and he sags against me.
I lower him while blood warms my side under the vest.
“Everything okay?” Alfie asks.
“No. Not exactly.”
“If you go back to Matt right now, he can drive you to a hospital, and-”
“I’m not going back without her,” I groan, adrenaline hardening into pure tenacity and drowning out the worst of the pain.
“Right. Sorry, sir.” For the first time tonight, I hear how young he is.
“You’re…you’re doing fine,” I tell him.
“Yeah?...Yeah. Thanks.” When he speaks again, his voice is calmer.
“Stairwell thirty meters ahead. Camera above the door, fixed angle. Stay left, close to the wall. If you drift center, it will catch your shoulders and maybe your face.” I carry on, playing this delicate dance of rushing toward the fifth floor down while trying not to set off any alarms, while trying not to get killed.
Out of breath, holding my bleeding rib, I make it.
A big old five written in white paint on the wall, opening to a series of doors, the last one at the end facing me.
And everything in me tells me she is there.
Behind that door that seems to open with a keypad.
The code Natalia, Cole’s niece, gave us months ago better work, because if it does not, I am fucked.
I step up to the keypad, my ribs pulsing beneath the vest, and my fingers leave a faint smear of blood on the first button as I enter it.
11 40 64.
Numbers I kept because paranoia has saved me more often than trust. For a moment, nothing happens. Twenty excruciating seconds later, the lock clicks open to a vision of pure horror.
Cole stands on the other side with Ella’s back crushed against his chest, one arm locked around her throat and a gun pressed so tightly to her temple that the skin dents around the barrel.
Her hair is tangled over skin that hasn’t seen daylight for too long.
There is a bruise along her jaw, another at her throat where his forearm holds her, and her eyes find mine with such force that the room seems to tilt around us.
My gaze locks on her branded V on her shoulder.
“See, little birdy,” Cole licks the shell of her ear.
“I told you your Prince Charming would come. He must be really in love because, you know what? He just handed me his entire fortune today.” My girl shakes her head in disbelief, as if she is not worth the exchange.
She is. Worth hundreds of millions and decades of work.
I did it for her, and I would do it all over again. My eyes remain on her.
Hold on, Ella.
No game is finished until the last move has been made. Cole’s fingers tighten at her throat, and her breath hitches. Her hands come up to his arm, not strong enough to pry him away, only enough to show me how little air he is giving her. I lift both hands slowly.
“I’m here.” The cell behind him is smaller than I expected. Somehow that makes it worse. I see the shape of her captivity in pieces, and each one enters me like shrapnel.
“How good of you,” Cole says. His eyes flick over my shoulder to the corridor behind me, expecting more men.
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Without your chivalry? How vulnerable you must feel.”
I let him see my empty hands. “You asked for me.”
“I did.” His smile twitches. “I didn’t think you’d actually listen.”
“Let her go.” Cole laughs, and Ella flinches at the sound before she can stop herself.
That small movement makes something in me shift badly.
I think of the men cooling in the hallway behind me.
I think of the blood on my sleeve. I think of the man I was before entering this place, and the line I crossed without looking back.
Cole’s gaze slides past me again, toward the corridor. His grin grows.
“How many?” I do not answer. “How many of my men did you leave behind you, Ashford?”
“Enough.” Cole blinks, then grins wider, pleased in that sick, theatrical way of his.
“There he is,” he murmurs. “I knew you were hiding the real you under all those tailored suits.”
“Why hurt her when I gave you everything you asked for?”
“Because I can finally have something you can’t, and that… That, Tristan, is real power.”
“Just tell me what you want to let her go.”
“You on your knees, Ashford.” I have never been on my knees in my life.
This is not the way I was brought up. Ashfords were raised to rule and command.
Grinding my back teeth, hands turning into fists, I swallow my pride and slowly, slowly go down on my knees for the woman I love.
Her eyes turn glossy, watching me debase myself for this man, only she should not cry those pretty tears.
Because I would do anything to free her.
“I’ll cover this as a suicide,” Cole reveals. “Write a letter saying you could not keep going with this workaholic lifestyle, that eventually, you gave up.” I shake my head, trying to find a way out.
“I’ll give you a yacht, a plane, a fucking dinner date with the president, just… just release her.”
“Who's trying to be helpful now?” he smirks. My hand twitches. His gun changes angle and points at me in reflex.
Bingo, it’s now or never.
In one motion, I catch my gun from my holster in my back, pointing it at him, my girl now free from the threat of his barrel. Tension fills the room as Ella is still held by the throat in his hand.