LOGINKain doesn’t wait for me to answer. He hooks his fingers into the collar of my sweater and drags me backward into the master bedroom just as another volley of automatic fire punches a neat line of holes through the drywall we were leaning against. White plaster dust blasts into the air, thick as winter fog, clogging my throat and making my eyes sting.The back window of the bedroom is already smashed. One of Kain’s scouts must have kicked it out from the outside before the shooting started. Cold, wet mountain air drags through the room, lifting the curtains like ghosts.“Go,” Kain grunts, slamming his back against the bedroom doorframe to give me cover. He fires three blind shots down the hallway. Boom. Boom. Boom. The percussion hits my teeth. “Don’t look down, Tatiana. Just drop.”I scramble over the sill, the broken glass biting into the palms of my hands, but I don't feel the pain. Adrenaline is a chemical engine screaming in my ears. I slide over the wet siding of the roof, hit t
The electronic click of the house lock dropping code hits my brain before my eyes even snap open.The room is pitch-black. The low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen has vanished, the digital clock on the nightstand is dead, and the house has gone totally, chillingly cold.Kain is already up. He didn't just wake; he materialized out of the sheets like a ghost. His massive hand is clamped flat over my mouth, the skin smelling of sweat and iron, his weight pinning me down to the mattress so I don't make a single sound. His heart is hitting his chest like a sledgehammer, but his body is completely frozen.“They’re inside the wire,” he whispers right into my ear canal, his breath freezing my skin. “Elias sold us out. Dmitri just pinged me before the jammer hit. The house is surrounded.”I don't scream. I don't even blink. I just nod against his palm until he releases my face. My jaw is shaking so hard my teeth click together, the sound amplified by the dead, suffocating silence in the
The three SUVs move through the twisting mountain roads like a pack of ghosts cutting through the early morning fog.Kain’s got his most cold-blooded, trusted guys spread across the convoy, enough heavy artillery and medical crates in the trunks to take down a small police station. I’m shoved into the passenger seat of the lead truck, my boots kicking an empty shell casing on the floorboards, while Kain’s massive, scarred hand just stays flat and heavy on my thigh as he maneuvers the wheel. The silence vibrating between us isn't that awkward, twitchy kind—it’s just pure, lethal focus. We both know exactly what kind of blood is going to get spilled before this week is over.I watch the blurred grey pine trees whip past the glass, my head just looping back to those four days in the cabin. The raw, messy whispering in the dark. The way his face looked when he told me he loved me. The smell of the plastic melting into the embers when we burned that damn ledger. It all feels like a movie I
The next few days are just this bizarre, suspended joke of a peace.We actually fall into a routine in this rotting wooden box. Mornings start with thick coffee and quiet, raspy talking before the sun even clears the trees. Afternoons are spent staring at maps on the kitchen table—tracing escape routes, picking apart whatever we can remember about my mother’s bank accounts, and checking the loyalty of the few runners Kain still trusts. Evenings end with us just tangled in the sheets, whispering these ugly, raw confessions that slowly try to glue the broken pieces of our heads back together.But the peace is made of glass.On the fourth night, Kain’s phone lets out that sharp, violent chirp right as I’m clearing the dinner plates. He yanks it off the counter, his shoulder instantly locking up as he listens to the static on the other end.“Dmitri,” he says, dropping the phone back onto the wood with a heavy thud. “Your mother’s rats are moving faster than we thought. They’ve slapped a b
The next morning, the sunlight just bleeds through the cracks in the heavy drapes, throwing these long, sticky gold bars across the floorboards.I wake up slow, totally tangled in the rough flannel sheets and a pair of arms that feel like iron bands. Kain is still out beside me, his chest rising and falling in this deep, heavy rhythm. For the first time since I met him, his face isn’t squeezed into that tight, homicidal frown. The muscles around his jaw are loose. He looks almost... human.I just lie there in the quiet, tracing the topography of him with my eyes. The jagged white lines running across his ribs. The tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyelids. The heavy weight of his palm flat against my hip, pinning me to the mattress even in his sleep. This is the exact same man who ripped my childhood away with a smoking gun. Now he’s handing me a blank check and a way out, and my brain is just spinning trying to figure out the catch.Freedom. A choice. Him.I carefully slide out fro
The fire is just snapping and spitting in the stone hearth, throwing these long, jittery shadows across the log walls. Outside, the mountain wind is absolutely screaming through the pine needles like a threat. Inside, the silence between Kain and me feels twice as heavy as the freezing air outside the glass.I’m sitting here turning that tiny plastic data chip over and over in my sweat-slicked fingers, watching the red orange light bounce off the circuits. Such a pathetic little piece of junk. Such a massive, crushing weight.Kain is shoved right up against me on the sagging leather cushions, his thigh heavy and warm against mine. He hasn’t said more than three words since he cracked the silver pendant open. He’s just watching me with that intense, drilling look that used to make me want to bolt out of the room.“I remember the exact afternoon my father handed this to me,” I mutter, my voice sounding thin in the big room. “I was thirteen. He pinched my jaw and made me swear to never,
— Tatiana —Julian held Kain’s gaze for one taut second longer, waiting perhaps for a response that never came.Kain simply sat there, fingers resting loosely beside his untouched wineglass, expression carved from something colder than indifference. The candles flickered between them, soft gold ligh
— Tatiana —Julian rushed toward me the moment the guards gave us space on the terrace. His arms opened like he meant to pull me into him and never let go.“Tatiana, I’m not leaving you here with him. Not one more day.”I stepped back before he could reach me, heart pounding. The wind off the cliffs
— Tatiana —I did not leave his room.The moment the door clicked shut behind him I should have run. Instead I stood there in the middle of Kain’s bedroom, heart hammering, body still buzzing from the almost that had nearly happened on his bed. My legs refused to move toward the exit. Something stub
— Tatiana —Across the table, Julian let out a soft laugh, the sound easy and polished, but I felt the subtle tightening of his hand where it rested beside his wineglass.Kain’s expression did not change. Candlelight moved across the hard planes of his face, catching briefly on the scar through hi






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