Chapter 29
The wood didn't yield with a groan; it screamed.
The sound of the bedroom door being kicked in was a dry, violent explosion that reverberated inside my skull. The brass lock—which Cassian swore was reinforced—flew across the room like a grenade fragment, hitting the dresser mirror and cracking the glass.
I wasn't under the bed. I wasn't in the closet.
I was standing behind the gray velvet reading chair, in the corner farthest from the entrance.
My legs were shoulder-width apart. My knees, slightly bent.
The silver Sig Sauer was in my hands. The metal was warm, heated by the sweat of my skin and the friction of my fear.
The door swung open completely. Franco entered first. He didn't rush in.
He walked in with the arrogance of a man who holds the keys to the castle and knows the queen is defenseless.
He held a pistol at his side, relaxed. Behind him, two larger figures—faceless in balaclava masks—wearing tactical vests.
“Solaia…” Franco's voice was a sigh of feigned patience. He kicked a piece of the broken door aside. “I told you not to make this difficult. You have nowhere to go. The building is ours. The elevator is blocked. Cassian is chasing ghosts on the other side of the city.”
He took another step into the room. The hallway light caught his smile. It was the smile of a benevolent uncle about to discipline a rebellious niece. He didn't see the gun. The chair covered me from the waist down, and I kept the Sig low, close to my chest, hidden in the folds of my cardigan.
“It's over, sweetheart. Drop whatever you're holding,” he said, extending his free hand. “Come with me. Mr. Kovacs is eager to… renegotiate the terms of your marriage.”
Kovacs. The name was the final trigger. Confirmation that my father was rolling in his grave and that Franco's loyalty was worth less than the cheap suit he wore.
Cassian's voice echoed in my head, cutting through the buzz of my panic. Don't hesitate. Don't negotiate. Shoot until the firing pin clicks on empty.
I took a deep breath. The air smelled of splintered wood and betrayal. I raised the gun.
Franco's smile faltered when he saw the silver gleam. “What do you think you're going to—”
I didn't let him finish. I didn't aim for the head. The head is small. The head moves. I aimed for center mass. At the chest covered by the cheap Kevlar vest. Or, better yet, a little lower.
Stance. Breath. Squeeze.
I pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The sound in the enclosed room was deafening. Much louder than at the range. Thunder that burst my eardrums. The gun kicked in my hand, alive and furious, but I held tight.
The bullet didn't hit his chest. The recoil pulled it down and to the left. It struck Franco in the thigh, just above the knee, where the femoral artery pulses thick and vital.
Blood exploded. A red mist sprayed Cassian's immaculate gray carpet. Franco howled. The sound was animal, high-pitched. His leg buckled as if the bone had liquefied. He fell sideways, hitting his shoulder on the dresser, his gun firing accidentally into the ceiling. Plaster rained down on us.
“You bitch!” he screamed, clutching his gushing leg. The shock on his face was absolute. He'd expected a doll. He found an armed D'Angelo.
The two men behind him didn't hesitate. Their professionalism took over. They advanced over Franco's fallen body, coming at me like armored rhinos.
I fired again. BANG. Missed. The bullet hit the shoulder of the first man's tactical vest, only making him stumble from the impact. BANG. The second shot hit the wall behind them.
My hands were shaking. Adrenaline was turning my blood to crushed ice. I tried to line up the fourth shot, but the first man was already on top of me. He didn't shoot. The order must have been “alive.” He crashed into me with the weight of a truck.
I was thrown backward. My back slammed into the tempered glass window with a crash that rattled my teeth. The Sig Sauer flew from my hand, sliding across the hardwood floor until it stopped under the bed.
Disarmed. Cornered.
The man grabbed my arm. His grip was steel. “Quiet!” he growled, his voice muffled by the mask.
But I wasn't going to be quiet. I was no longer the girl who cried in the nightclub bathroom. I was Cassian Varro's wife. And if I was going down, I was taking pieces of them with me.
I screamed. A war cry, not fear. I twisted my body, using his weight against him, and dug my nails—manicured, sharp, expensive—into the exposed gap between the mask and his neck. I felt skin tear. I felt warm blood under my nails.
The man screamed and released me on reflex. I kicked. A low kick, aiming for the groin. I hit the inner thigh, but it was enough to make him stumble back.
I looked at the gun under the bed. Too far. I looked at the nightstand. The lamp with its heavy marble base. I grabbed it. Ripped the cord from the outlet. When the second man tried to grab me by the waist, I swung the lamp with everything I had.
The stone base hit his tactical helmet with a sickening crack. He staggered, falling to his knees. “Get her!” Franco shouted from the floor, his voice gurgling in pain. “Sedate that bitch now!”
I tried to run for the door. Tried to jump over Franco’s body to reach the hallway. But a hand grabbed my ankle. The first man. The one I’d scratched. I fell. Hit my chin on the floor. The taste of blood filled my mouth, metallic and hot.
I tried to kick his hand away. Tried to crawl. “No! Let go of me! Cassian!” I screamed his name, as if saying it could somehow make him appear to save me.
But Cassian wasn’t there.
Two pairs of hands pinned me down. I was flipped onto my back.
A heavy knee pressed my shoulder blades against the floor, driving all the air from my lungs.
I was trapped, thrashing like a fish out of water.
I saw the second man—the one I’d hit with the lamp—approach.
He was furious. There was a syringe in his hand.
“Hold her head,” he ordered.
“No! No!” I shook my head frantically, trying to bite the gloved hand that grabbed my jaw. I tasted leather and sweat.
The needle gleamed under the ceiling light. I felt the sharp prick in my neck. Cold. Invasive. The liquid burned as it entered. Liquid ice running through my veins, shooting straight to my brain.
The fight drained from me in seconds. My arms grew heavy, like they were made of lead. My legs stopped kicking. The bedroom ceiling began to spin, a gray and white vortex. Franco’s screams grew distant, as if he were underwater.
“...stanch the bleeding... get her to the van... quick...” Distorted voices.
I felt myself being lifted. Not carefully. I was thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of cement. My head hung down. Blood from my cut lip dripped onto the floor. Drip, drip, drip. Leaving a trail.
My eyes, heavy and glazed, focused on the floor as I was carried out of the room. Under the bed. There it was. The silver Sig Sauer. Cassian’s gun. It gleamed in the shadows, solitary, untouched.
A tear rolled down my face, defying gravity, falling onto the carpet. I had failed. I couldn’t keep myself safe. But I’d left a message. Franco’s blood. His gun. The destroyed room.
He’ll know, I thought, as darkness began to devour the edges of my vision. He’ll see this. And he’ll understand. He’ll turn Chicago inside out.
“Cassian...” The word came out as an inaudible whisper, my lips brushing the rough fabric of the kidnapper’s uniform.
The hallway lights went out in my mind. The last thing I felt was the swaying of the elevator descending, taking me to hell, away from the only place where I had been—for a brief moment—truly loved.
Total darkness.