CHAPTER ONE #2
Zina’s eyes widened. She looked at Farzin, who was calmly reloading a fresh magazine, and Rostam, who was pulling a combat knife from his boot, his face spattered with someone else's blood.
"No," Zina said, her voice hard. "I am staying. I fight with you. We can hold the foyer—"
"You cannot hold this!" Emir shook her, his eyes blazing.
"Look around you, Sherezine! They are inside the walls!
Half our men are with them. My brothers are dying in the halls.
You are the finest weapon I ever forged, and because of that, you are the only one I trust to guard my heart.
" He pointed a bloody finger at Reza. "He is your mission now.
Your mother and grandmother are your mission. You have to go."
"Baba, please," Zina begged, the lethal assassin suddenly feeling like a child again. "I will not abandon you. I will not leave my brothers."
Rostam stepped forward, placing a bloody hand on her cheek. "Little sister," he said, his wild eyes softening for a fraction of a second. "Let me kill them. It’s what I do. You do what you do. Disappear. Keep the baby safe."
Farzin didn't look at her, his eyes locked on the rattling grand doors. "Go, Zina. If the estate falls, the bloodline survives with you."
"We will find another way out," Emir lied, pulling her into a brief, crushing embrace, leaving a smear of his blood against her emerald dress. "We will come for you. Now, take them and go!"
The grand doors groaned beneath a concussive blast. Wood splintered.
Zina grabbed Reza’s hand, her chest tightening with an agony so sharp she felt she might suffocate. "I love you," she whispered to the three men.
***
She turned and pulled Reza into the hidden passageway, slamming her hand against the interior release. The stone wall slid shut, sealing with a final thud, plunging them into darkness just as the main doors of the foyer were blown off their hinges.
The hidden passage was suffocatingly narrow, smelling of ancient dust and damp earth.
Zina activated the small flashlight on her phone, casting a dim beam over the terrified faces of her family.
Meryam was clutching her chest, weeping silently into Roxana’s shoulder.
Reza was shaking so violently his teeth were chattering.
"Move," Zina whispered, her voice devoid of the panic tearing her apart inside. "Keep a hand on the wall. Do not speak."
She led them deep into the estate's architecture, descending a steep, winding set of stone stairs that placed them between the outer and inner walls of the grand hall. When they reached the landing near the old wine cellars, Zina stopped. The air here was cool and smelled of cork and old stone.
"Mother," Zina whispered, pressing the iron key into Roxana's hand. "Take them inside the vault. Lock it. Do not open it for anyone but me, Father, Farzin, or Rostam. Do you understand?"
Roxana gripped Zina’s hand, her elegant eyes wide with realization. "Where are you going? Zina, your father gave you an order."
"I am securing our exit," Zina lied smoothly, though her heart pounded against her ribs. "I will be right back. Do not let Reza make a sound."
Without waiting for her mother's protest, Zina turned and vanished back up the dark stairs, her footfalls making absolutely no sound on the stone. She could not hide in the dark while the men she loved fought for their lives. She wouldn't.
She climbed rapidly until she reached the mezzanine level of the grand hall.
Here, the hidden corridors featured small, intricately carved wooden grates—ventilation shafts designed to look like decorative molding from the outside.
Zina slipped into a tight alcove behind one of these grates, pressing her face against the cold, perfumed wood to peer down into the foyer.
What she saw stopped the breath in her lungs.
The battle was over. It had been a massacre.
The grand hall of the Kazan estate was a slaughterhouse. Smoke hung in the air, thick and acrid, burning Zina's eyes. The beautiful Persian rugs were soaked in dark, spreading pools of blood.
Her family—the untouchable Kazan dynasty—had been decimated.
Below her, armed men in black gear stood in a loose circle, their weapons raised. Mingled among them were faces Zina recognized: lieutenants her father had trusted, guards who had eaten at their tables. Betrayers.
In the center of the room, forced to their knees, were the surviving members of her bloodline. She saw her Uncle Tariq bleeding from the head. She saw her Aunt Laila, sobbing quietly. She saw her older cousin, Kasra, lying dead a few feet away.
And then she saw them.
Farzin was on his knees, his tailored suit ruined, his hands bound behind his back.
His face was a mask of cold, unyielding defiance.
Beside him, Rostam was being held down by four men, fighting like a chained wolf, roaring curses into the faces of his captors, blood pouring from a dozen shallow wounds.
And Emir.
Her father knelt in the center, his posture straight despite the bullet in his shoulder. He did not look like a defeated man. He looked like a king observing a rebellion of peasants.
Zina’s hand drifted to her pistol, her finger trembling on the trigger guard.
If she fired through the grate, she might take out one or two.
But it would expose the hidden walls. It would condemn her mother.
It would condemn Reza. She bit down on the meat of her own hand, tasting copper, forcing herself to remain silent.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed across the marble floor. The sea of armed men parted, allowing their commander to step forward.