I raised my gun and put a bullet through his skull.
His head snapped back.Blood misted the smoke-choked air.His body collapsed, finally still.
The ceiling cracked again.Fire licked down the walls.
I heard Marcello’s voice calling for me from the exit, just as I stepped over Viktor Sokolov’s lifeless body.
29
Neve
Ihad always known the past would come back for me.
I just hadn’t expected it to walk through a burning doorway with those storm-grey eyes.
Atlas Cavalho.
Of course I knew who he was.
No amount of prayer or training or years spent trying to become someone colder had erased him from my memory.There was no forgetting the weight of his body pinning me in that pantry fifteen years ago.No forgetting the gun in his hand.No forgetting the moment he decided I lived and my family didn’t.
He had spared me once.And now he’d walked straight into a warzone and pulled me out of Russian hands—but I had no idea how far his mercy really went.
The Russian—the man who had dragged me through hell these past few days—stood between us like I was some prize they were fighting over.Neither of them saw a person.Just leverage.A transaction.A ghost from their pasts they needed to tie up.
The doorway behind them glowed orange with flames.Smoke pulled in like a living thing.My head swam.My ribs ached.My legs barely held me upright.
I was cornered.Starving.Bruised.Done.
If I’d wanted to slip out and let them kill each other, I couldn’t have.My body refused.The beatings, the panic, the hunger—they’d hollowed me out.I was running on fumes and instinct.No matter who won this fight, I lost.
The Russian was enormous—thick neck, heavy jaw, shoulders like stone.He lunged at Atlas with a fist that could crack bone clean in half.
Atlas ducked at the last second.
The punch smashed into the wall beside me, sending plaster flying.I flinched, the shock rattling through my teeth.
Atlas was fast.Too fast.No man that size should have moved like that.
He drove his elbow into Viktor’s ribs.Viktor grunted, staggered, recovered, and rammed into Atlas’s gut like a bull.They slammed into a metal table so violently it skittered across the floor.
The clang hit every nerve in my body.
I shrank into the corner, gripping the wall with trembling fingers.My vision flickered.My stomach rolled.Every instinct screamed run, but my legs were useless—wet rope attached to a dying battery.
Viktor threw another punch, slamming Atlas against the opposite wall.The ceiling groaned.Smoke seethed from the vents, thicker and hotter.
Atlas wiped the blood from his mouth.Calm.Cold.Then he smiled.The way his lips curled wasn’t human.
Viktor charged again.Atlas caught him by the throat mid-charge, slamming him backward.Then came a brutal knee to the ribs.And another.And another.Each one making Viktor choke, spit, gasp.
I felt the impact deep in my own bones.My pulse was a trapped animal.The room tilted.My breath stuttered.And that sickening truth coiled through me—that I didn’t know which one of these monsters terrified me more.Viktor, who had tortured me.Or Atlas, who was fighting like he was reclaiming something that belonged to him.
I was trapped between devils.
My mind spun in circles, frantic, exhausted.If Viktor won, he’d sell me.If Atlas won, he’d kill me.Either way, I disappeared.
Survival wasn’t an option.Not for someone like me.Not anymore.