This ends now.
He ducks through the cave opening and into the bright light of day outside, but we’re right on his heels.
Lifting the gun, I aim the barrel at his back. “Dimitri, you bastard!”
He continues to flee as I emerge in the sun, squinting. After a few seconds, my vision clears and I spot the cliff fifty feet ahead.
Time warps as we gain on him.
“Hey!” Just as Dimitri reaches the cliff, Nika raises her own weapon. “Face us like a man, you coward!”
With nowhere to go, he spins around. “Don’t do this. We can make a deal?—”
I exhale and fire, my heart pounding in my ears.
The bullet finds its mark, and Dimitri jerks and lurches into the air. Shock widens his eyes. With the snap of vines and branches, he falls, blood trailing behind him along with his scream.
I slow down and hold up a hand so Nika doesn’t go racing to her death.
“You got him.” Nika releases the weapon and cradles her swollen hand.
Her eyebrows arch as she notes the six corpses crowding the level stone area in front of the cave vault. Picking my way over bodies, I step to the edge of the cliff and peer down at the drop off the mountain to the jagged rocks of the shore.
The higher tree branches sway, showing the trajectory Dimitri took over the edge. Straight to the rock-littered shore over three hundred feet below us. The surf goes out in a rush of foam, then slams back in.
Nika stops beside me, and for several seconds, we observe in silence.
Red blooms over stone as the surf crashes against the rocks, fading to pink as the waves surge back into the ocean.
“Looks like you’re an only child again.” I tuck the gun into my waistband and pick up the one she dropped.
She smiles, then starts to sway. I grab her, pulling us both back from the brink.
She wraps her arm around my neck, tucking her broken hand along her hip. “You have such a way with words, Max. It’s no wonder I fell for you.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I grin. “Maybe, but Dimitri fell for me too. And harder.”
Nika’s silvery laughter rings out as she launches herself into my arms.
Chapter 39
Nika
The strength of Max’s embrace means the world to me. He’s alive. Somehow, we’re both alive and together again, on a tropical island with our enemies dead at our feet.
If not for the throbbing pain in my hand, I’d say it’s all a dream.
His hitching chest rises and falls. With his injuries, each breath costs him. I pull back just far enough to inspect his wounds, and my throat constricts. He’s a bloated, discolored disaster. Blood cakes in his beard. One eye is swollen, the other bloodshot. But both are fixated on me like I’m the only person on this planet.
Even battered, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“You came.” The obvious assessment spills out of me. He sacrificed so much—almost his life—to fly out here, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
“Yeah, well, I was sick of the cold. Much nicer here.” He gestures toward Pavel’s lifeless body. “Minus the company.”
My throat closes as I shove down the typhoon of emotions threatening to overwhelm me, because now is not the time. “Weneed to get them away from the door. I’ll start dragging them to the edge.”
Max raises an eyebrow, staring at my broken hand. “You go inside and decide what you want to do with what you found. I’ll kick them over the cliff.”
