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There’s only one guard as I approach. He’s clutching his stomach with one hand and waving a gun with the other. I honk and flash my lights, trying to tell him to move.
At the last second, he steps aside. Our eyes lock in a hazy, slow-motion moment of confusion.
I see the black box with a trigger and an antenna in his hands.
They’ll blow the bridge.
Oh God…
I slam the gas down, screaming as the Land Rover roars across the bridge.
I feel the rumble. I hear the thunder. I shriek as a wall of heat erupts behind me, slamming into the back of the car and blowing out the windows.
I’m so close.
I’m almost there.
…The bridge gives out beneath me, and I plummet into the black watery abyss.
I choke, sucking in ragged breaths of oxygen as hands pull me from the waves onto the rocky shore. I cough and sputter, vomiting seawater onto the rocks before I drag my haggard gaze up.
“Come, Annika. We need to hurry.”
It’s Ruslan, my father’s most trusted man, and one of the two people outside my blood family who knows our secrets.
“What…how—?” I whimper as he pulls me to my feet and hugs me close.
“I have to get you to safety,” he hisses.
My brows furrow. “Are we going home?”
He says nothing, pulling me after him as he staggers up the embankment to the road.
“Ruslan,” I ask again. “Are we?—”
I flinch when we get to the road and I see the five bodies lying on the ground in pools of blood. Three of them are in black tactical gear. Two of them are in regular clothes; I recognize those two as my father’s men.
“What…”
I go still when I see the markings on the tactical gear of the dead men.
It’s my family crest, stitched onto the arms.
In horror, I pull my gaze to Ruslan. “They’re?—”
He shakes his head. “No, Annika. They’re Vadik Belov’s men.”
“But these are the same men who just attacked?—”
My eyes go wide. My hand flies to my mouth.
“Vadik wants to make this look like proof that the marriage truce isn’t working,” he hisses, grimacing. “They’re pretending to be your father’s men. And they’re…” He shakes his head, pulling me toward a car with a bullet hole in the door. “We have to go, now.”
“Are we going home?”
He doesn’t answer, just opens the passenger door and bundles me into the seat.
“Ruslan!” I cry. “Are we going?—”
