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Ivan.
Angel.
Angel is alive.Elation soars through me. Both of them are here for me…they came!
Opening my mouth, I start to yell out to them, but Nikolai’s hand clasps over my mouth, and he presses me tighter against the glass so I can’t buck against it. The harder I struggle to get their attention, the more painfully Nikolai restrains me.
Don't go. Please don't go. See me…find me…save me—
In agony, I watch their forms vanish down the hallway. Bitter tears slowly trail down my face, and my breath hitches beneath Nikolai's hand. Both of them are so close, yet so far away.
Behind me, Nikolai releases me and jerks his pants into place. He watches tensely until we see them depart altogether, and I go limp against the window, closing my eyes. There’s no one now—nothing to stop this from happening.
Nikolai swears, moving away from me. “Fuck. Just…fuck!”
I look up to see smoke beginning to trail out of the office across the hallway. Simultaneously, an alarm sounds, and the sprinkler system engages, bathing us immediately in a drenching spray of freezing water.
I’ve never been so grateful for an alarm in my life.
“Goddamnit! Get dressed, you fucking slut. We need to go.”
He kicks his foot loose of my jeans, and I tug them up hastily, moments before he takes my upper arm in his punishing grip and drags me behind him out of the suite.
We flee, pressing ourselves against the wall beside the door and hiding in the dark as several uniformed security guards flood the hall to investigate the alarm. When they unlock and enter the office across the hall, we slip past them. Nikolai’s gun is the only incentive I need to remain mute. Avoiding the elevators, he pulls me into an echoing stairwell and down the stairs, a long, stumbling walk to the bottom floor.
I cry the span of the entire fifteen floors. When we reach the bottom and explode outside via a metal door onto the sidewalk, I look for Angel. I search for Ivan in the shadows as Nikolai tows me toward a side street where several cars are parked.
They are long gone.
Chapter 14
Ivan
I howl, the soundbouncing off the walls and seeming louder than it actually is in the small, empty room.Anotherempty room. Just like all the others.
This one is hidden behind the old manager’s office at the 18th Street Station in Manhattan, a station that’s been closed since 1948. This safe house was a last resort, a place to go when all others failed.
And it’s empty.
Just a few cots, the emergency generator, canisters of gasoline, an old fridge, and boxes of blankets and MREs populate the barren space. Only my father and I have ever known about this one. Coming here was a desperate move, but I needed to make sure this place’s location never slipped to Nikolai.
I had to be sure.
I lift a cot and hurl it against the far wall. The clang of metal against concrete feels satisfying but does nothing to quell the anger bubbling inside me.
“Now, are you going to listen to me?” Angel’s voice cuts through the silence. He’s leaning against the doorframe, holding the flashlight that provides the only source of light in the room.
“Your decisions are the reason we’re in this mess,” I snap, striding over to him. My hand shoots out to grab him by the collar. His eyes meet mine with that same arrogant, defiant gaze he levied on me daily from his cage. I want to extinguish the light from his eyes. My hands curl into fists, the fabric of his shirt bunching up. Using every ounce of all that hate and anger coursing through me, I lift him and slam him against the wall.
Once, twice, three times.
He doesn’t fight back. When his feet touch the ground, he doesn’t look at me in pain or anger. No, it’s so much fucking worse. His gaze is lit with pity.
I am not a man to be pitied. I lock eyes with Angel, my hold tightening on his collar, and feel my anger coil tighter. “I could crush your skull right now. Leave you here to rot, and no one will ever find you. Vivi is gone because of you. You brought Azrael down upon us. You destroyed the Five Families.”
Angel's expression changes, anger replacing the pity in his eyes, a satisfying shift, and he pokes a finger at my chest. “Azrael doesn’t have Vivi. Nikolai does. He was your doing.”
The rage inside me erupts. My fist connects with Angel’s face, sending his head snapping back. I release him, and he bends over for a moment but straightens, wiping the blood from his mouth.
