Chapter 11 – Raelyn #2
The glass splinters with a sharp crack, spiderwebbing outward—and something punches through.
I flinch back as it hits the floor with a dull, ugly clatter and spins once before going still.
I stare at it.
A bullet.
Flattened at the tip. Deformed. Stopped.
My gaze jerks to the window. The reinforced glass holds, fractured but intact. Head height. Exactly where I’d been sitting seconds ago.
My knees weaken.
I stumble backward, the chair scraping loudly as panic floods my veins, hot and suffocating. My chest constricts. Each breath feels too shallow, too fast.
“Help,” I whisper, then louder, my voice shaking. “Help—”
No answer.
Just rain. Shattered glass. And the echo of a warning I can’t unhear. I press my back against the bookshelf, hands trembling, eyes fixed on the broken window.
They found me.
Not to scare me.
To show me they can.
Footsteps thunder down the hall.
I suck in a breath so sharp it hurts. My knees nearly give when the door flies open.
“Raelyn.”
Konstantin.
He’s in the room in seconds, breath heavy, eyes wild. His shirt is half-buttoned, hair undone like he didn’t bother with appearances—like he ran. His gaze sweeps the window, the spiderwebbed glass, the bullet on the floor—
—and then it lands on me.
Something dark and feral crosses his face.
“Bozhe…” he mutters, and then he’s moving.
I barely have time to register it before his arms are around me, lifting me clean off the floor. I gasp, fingers clutching his shirt as the room tilts.
“I’ve got you,” he says, rough, urgent, like a vow torn out of his chest. “I’ve got you.”
He turns sharply, carrying me out of the library as if the ground itself is unsafe. Over his shoulder, he barks rapid Russian into the hall.
“Seal the wing. Now.”
“Find the shooter.”
“No one leaves the perimeter.”
Guards flood the corridor, boots pounding, voices overlapping. Alarms begin to wail—low and furious—while rain and wind howl through the shattered window behind us.
I bury my face against his shoulder, heart slamming, breath coming apart in my chest.
His grip tightens, firm and unyielding, like I might slip away if he loosens even an inch.
I cling to him despite myself, feeling the raw power of his heartbeat against my shoulder, the sharp edge of his panic vibrating through him.
He moves with terrifying precision, carrying me down the hall, through the chaos, until we reach his room—our room now. The door shuts behind us with a click, and he bars it.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is tight, controlled, but it trembles at the edges.
I shake my head, too overwhelmed to speak. The moment his hand brushes my cheek, it’s all I can do to keep standing. I crumble, burying my face against his chest. He wraps me tighter, colder, more shaken than I’ve ever seen him.
His lips brush my hair, low and deadly:
“They tried to take you from me.”
And in that instant, I understand: Markov isn’t the only danger in this house. Konstantin Rusnak is beginning to unravel.
Because of me.
His hands tighten around me, possessive, unrelenting.
“And when I finally lay hands on Markov,” he growls, “I’ll make him regret the day he ever thought he could touch you. I’ll tear him apart piece by piece, and no one will stop me.”
I swallow, trembling against him. “I…I’m tired, Konstantin. I just want to find my father.”
His grip doesn’t loosen. If anything, he crushes me closer, his voice softening just enough to betray the obsession underneath. “I will find him, Raelyn. Even if it’s the last thing I do. Even if the world burns around us, I’ll get him back.”
“I…I believe you,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
At that, he presses me into him tighter, and I feel the weight of his promise, his fury, his unshakable devotion. I let myself rest there, knowing—danger or not—I am held by the one person who refuses to let go.
His hand slides up and down my back in slow, steady passes, grounding, careful—like he’s afraid I’ll splinter if he grips too hard. His thumb presses into the space between my shoulders, warm, deliberate. Not claiming. Comforting.
His other hand comes up to my hair, smoothing it back from my face. He tilts his head, studying me like he needs to see that I’m real. Breathing. Here.
Then, impossibly, he exhales a short laugh.
“I’m very disappointed in that window,” he says.
I blink, pulling back just enough to look at him. “What?”
“The reinforcement failed,” he continues, tone dry, almost offended. “Cracked far too easily. Cheap.”
I stare at him for half a second—and then a laugh bursts out of me, shaky but real. “That ‘cheap’ window is the only reason the bullet didn’t sail through and lodge itself in my head.”
His mouth twitches despite himself.
“The projection was powerful,” I add. “Enough velocity to fracture the outer layer. But the internal laminate absorbed the rest. By the time it dropped, it had lost all killing force.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You sound hot, but still unacceptable.”
I snort. “You’re impossible.”
“The point of the window,” he says firmly, “is that bullets don’t come in at all. Not that they knock politely and fall to the floor.” His jaw tightens. “I’ll replace it. With something stronger.”
I step forward and wrap my arms around him before he can spiral any further, pressing my cheek to his chest. His heartbeat is still fast. Still angry.
“Konstantin,” I murmur. “Stop worrying.”
His arms come around me instantly, holding me close. Too close. Like he needs the pressure.
“I can never stop,” he says quietly. “Not until the people who tried to kill you are a hundred feet under.”
I pull back just enough to look up at him, smiling despite everything. “Isn’t it six feet?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Details,” he mutters, tightening his hold again.
Then he stills.
His gaze sharpens, searching my face like he’s trying to read something dangerous between the lines. “You shouldn’t be laughing,” he says quietly. Not angry. Uneasy. “After what just happened.”
I open my mouth to deflect. To joke. To say something light.
Instead, the truth slips out.
“Because you’re here.”
His breath catches—barely, but I feel it.
“I was terrified,” I continue, my voice softer now, stripped of bravado. “When it happened. I thought I was alone. I thought—” My throat tightens. “But the moment you walked in, it all disappeared. I knew I’d be safe.”
Silence crashes between us.
His pupils dilate, darkening until there’s almost no gray left, like something primal just woke up behind his eyes. His grip shifts—not tighter, but more certain, like he’s anchoring himself.
“You will be the end of me,” he says hoarsely. “If you keep saying things like that.”
There’s no humor in it. No threat.
Just truth—raw and dangerous.
His forehead drops to mine, his breath warm against my mouth. “Do you understand what you’re doing to me?”
I don’t answer.
I don’t need to.
Because the way he holds me now—like the world has narrowed down to this one fragile, terrible thing—tells me everything.