His jaw worked.His eyes darted.The façade cracked.
I could smell fear.
Finally, he ground out, “I… will need to make a call.”
I tilted my head.“Make it.But make it fast.”
Gianni stepped forward, blocking the doorway behind us, arms crossed.
The guards continued to hover, unsure, wide-eyed.
Viktor turned away, shoulders rigid with tension, barking orders in Russian into his phone.
And I stood there, every muscle thrumming with fury, one thought looping like a knife inside my skull: Neve had been hurt.Someone had dared lay hands on her.And someone was going to fucking pay for it.
Tonight, this club survived or died depending on one man’s answer.
And either way, I was walking out with her.
A sudden, vicious bang split the room in half.
Viktor was still mid-sentence when the first gunshot cracked through the backstage hall.
The second shot followed a heartbeat later—closer and angrier.
Screams exploded everywhere.Men scattered like rats.Chairs overturned.Tables crashed.Guards shouted in Russian and Italian as they scrambled for cover.
Gianni’s voice roared over the chaos: “ATLAS — DOWN!”
Bullets ripped through the air.
Glass detonated as panels exploded, shards raining down like knives.
Viktor vanished into the stampede—there one moment, gone the next, swallowed by bodies sprinting for exits.
I dropped behind a heavy table, shoulders braced.A fallen guard lay half-crushed beside me, blood pooling beneath his head.I snatched the gun from his holster, checked the magazine, and rose hard and fast.
My pulse was a drum.My vision tunneled.My jaw was steel.
There was only one thought thrashing inside my skull, violent and absolute:where the fuck was Neve?
27
Neve
The men grabbed me the second I was shoved offstage.
Hands clamped down on me.There were too many of them, and they were too strong for me to overcome.One gripped my arm so hard my vision flashed white.Another shoved my head forward, and my mask flew off my face.I stumbled as they pushed me forward, violent hands embracing me.
I twisted, shoved, wrenched my body in every direction—anything to slow them down, anything to make it harder for them.But they didn’t budge.They moved me as though I were dead weight, fast and efficient, and instinctively I knew they’d done this a hundred times before.
One of them hissed when I kicked back and caught him in the shin.
“Bitch,” he snarled, tightening his grip until my shoulder screamed.
I spat at his feet and kept fighting anyway.I refused to make this easy on them.
But my body was a knot of pain, and my energy was draining quickly.The bruises were burning, ribs aching, and my head pounding from days without proper food or sleep.Every inch of me hurt.Every breath was a reminder that they were winning, dragging me deeper into whatever hell was waiting for me next.