I shoot at the tires.
One shot.
Two.
Rubber screeches—but not enough. The engine roars to life. Gravel sprays as the car fishtails, then straightens.
He’s gone.
The taillights vanish into the snow and dark.
I stand there, chest heaving, gun still raised, blood ringing in my ears. I lower the weapon slowly.
This isn’t over.
Adrian Markov just learned something tonight—
He can bleed.
And next time, I won’t miss.
I turn back into the warehouse. The air is thick with smoke and gunpowder, the concrete slick beneath my boots. Bodies everywhere. Twisted. Still. Silent. I nod once at the carnage.
No one is alive.
Good.
I stand there for a moment longer, chest rising and falling hard, blood drying on my knuckles, adrenaline still roaring through my veins. Victory sits uneasily in my gut—heavy, incomplete. One man escaped. One man always does.
I pull my phone from my pocket.
I call Nik, and as soon as he picks up, I don’t let him speak.
“I need to talk to my wife.”
“She’s right here. She hasn’t left the office since you left.”
I hear a shift and then Raelyn’s voice. “Konstantin?”
“It’s done,” I say. My voice is rough, torn raw by smoke and violence. “Not all of it. But enough.”
There’s a breath on the other end. Then a whisper, fragile and fierce all at once.
“Come home.”
Something in my chest finally gives. Not weakness. Release.
“I’m coming,” I tell her.
I end the call and step back out into the snowstorm. The cold bites into my skin, sharp and real, grounding me. The warisn’t finished. Markov is still breathing. And until he isn’t, this ends nowhere.
But Raelyn is waiting for me.
And that’s the only home I want now.
Chapter 21 – Raelyn
Konstantin returns to the mansion hours after the warehouse battle, bruised and blood-spattered, his shirt torn at the shoulder, knuckles cracked. The sight sends a jolt of fear through me, but pride surges just as sharply. He fought for me. He hunted for me. He killed for me.