The sound he makes is wet and broken as the air wooshes from his lungs. He folds forward, choking, and I wrench the rifle from his grip before he even hits the ground, turning it on him and letting off a clean shot straight between the eyes.
The room falls silent again, except for the sound of my racing heart, but only for half a second before gunfire erupts through the wall.
The sound slams into my chest like a punch. Raiden.
More shots crack through the plaster, followed by the violent crash of furniture and the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the floor. Someone screams—a woman—raw, guttural, cut off almost instantly, and I force myself to take a breath. He can more than handle himself. A slew of assassins breaking into his apartment—piece of cake.
Racing through my apartment, I madly search for every hidden weapon and shove them into the holsters on my favorite pants. Suddenly, I am very grateful that I’m actually wearing pants.
After grabbing one of my kitchen knives, I take off toward Raiden’s apartment, when the sound of shattering glass tears through my home, and another wave of trained killers is barricading me into my apartment.
“Fuck.”
There are heaps of them, pouring in from my bedroom and the front door, each one of them already locked and loaded on me, and instead of panicking about it like a little bitch, I simply get to work.
The first guy rushes at me, and when I grab him and yank him forward, it’s clear he doesn’t hold the same level of dedication to his training as I do. He stumbles, and I use the momentum of his fall to my advantage, angling his chin right down against the stone kitchen counter.
I crack his jaw without effort, and I don’t bother waiting to see the fallout as I simply move on to the next.
One after another, I dodge and weave their advances, some of them coming in pairs. I steal a gun off a woman and empty the magazine in seconds, taking out three with precision. Next door, the same chaos bleeds through the thin walls, but I can’t focus on that. I know Raiden can handle himself, so all that matters is getting out of here alive. Escaping an entire agency of assassins won’t be easy.
A blade whistles past my ear, close enough that I feel the air shift, and I spin and slam a saucepan into someone’s jaw so hard the metal handle bends. Teeth scatter across the kitchen floor as he collapses, and the pistol slips from his hand, skittering toward me.
I grab it before it stops moving, and for just a split second, things are easy again. Gunshots crack through the apartment as the fight spills from room to room. One man drops near the couch. Another crumples against the kitchen island. A third staggers backward into thewall, blood splattering across the white paint, before his body slides to the floor.
The air grows thick with the metallic smell of blood, and my living room turns into a war zone, furniture overturned and shredded by bullets, glass and wood littering every inch of the floor. Bodies pile up faster than I can process them. Every time one falls, another weapon appears—a knife, a pistol, another rifle—and I grab whatever hits the ground next.
I don’t count them. I don’t stop to think. I just keep moving because every time gunfire erupts through the wall next door, my chest cracks open a little more. I need him to be okay, because without him, what was the whole point?
One after another, I just keep going, until finally, there’s nothing but silence, and I fall to my knees, gasping for air.
One more shot comes from next door, but something about it makes my stomach sink like lead.
My ears ring from the chaos, but beneath that high-pitched hum there’s nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No crashing furniture. Just silence.
My heart hammers against my ribs for a whole new reason. If he were done, he’d already be racing in here, probably going straight through the wall just to save the few extra seconds, but there’s nothing. Just pure, dead silence.
“Raiden?” I call, my voice barely above a whisper as I scramble back to my feet, my knees suddenly shaking.
There’s no response, and as panic creeps up my spine, I step over the bodies scattered across my living room, desperate to get to him. If he’s been shot . . . fuck.
CRACK.
Pain detonates through my back, electricity exploding through my body like lightning tearing through my nerves. My muscles seize, locking so violently that a scream rips from my throat before I can stop it or even begin to figure out what the fuck is going on.
My legs buckle, and my knees slam into the hardwood floor. With shaking hands, I dig my fingers into the floor, trying uselessly to get back up. Every muscle in my body spasms at once, the electricity flooding through my spine and down into my limbs until I can’t feel anything except the violent, burning current ripping through me.
What is this?
Tears spring to my eyes, and I try to move, try to turn around, try to fight the pain, but my body won’t listen.
I’m paralyzed with electricity, and the only possible reason could be a high-powered taser, something created for either military or law enforcement.
My vision blurs as the world tilts sideways, the apartment spinning around me through a haze of pain and ringing noise.
And then comes a laugh so familiar that my whole world crumbles before I’ve even seen the woman standing at my seizing back. I know exactly who I’ll find.
Milan.
