And somewhere inside it, the man who had given her world back was running for his life.
****
Fire ate the housefrom the inside out.
Kol moved through it like a ghost wrapped in smoke, lungs burning, vision narrowing to heat and motion and the flicker of collapsing light.The alarms had devolved into a shrill, broken scream, wires snapping somewhere above him as the structure gave way inch by inch.Every breath tasted like ash.
“Nikolai.”
Eliza’s voice cut through the chaos, steady as a hand on his spine.
“I hear you,lvitsa,” he said, forcing the words past the rasp in his throat.“Keep talking.”
“I’m here,” she replied instantly.“You’re not alone.Where are you?”
He checked his position on instinct, muscle memory overriding pain.“Second stairwell’s gone.Heading up.Roof access.”
A beam crashed down behind him, sparks skittering across the floor as fire surged.Kol ran, boots slipping on debris, shoulder clipping a wall hard enough to make his vision blur.
Rafael burst through the smoke ahead of him, blood streaked across his face, shirt torn and blackened.He didn’t slow.
“Still breathing?”Rafael shouted.
Kol gave a sharp nod.“You?”
Rafael grinned, feral and defiant.“Barely, but it counts, right?”
They hit the final stairwell together just as the house shuddered violently.The floor dipped beneath their feet, the sound less like an explosion now and more like something massive and inevitable giving up.
“Move,” Kol snapped.
They took the stairs two at a time, smoke thickening until Kol could barely see his own hands.His radio crackled, voices overlapping—Elias calling distances, Cypher counting seconds, Nitro’s steady updates from above.
“Roof’s unstable,” Cypher said calmly.“I’m hovering.You jump, you grab, you don’t hesitate.”
The roof access door was half-melted.Kol hit it shoulder-first, pain screaming down his arm as it gave way.
Night air slammed into him.
The helicopter hovered just beyond the edge, rotors whipping the smoke into a violent spiral.Fire chased them out onto the rooftop, flames licking up through the seams of the structure.
Rafael ran first.
The roof buckled beneath his feet as he launched himself into open space.He missed the skid by inches—then caught it anyway, fingers locking on with sheer stubborn refusal.Hands reached down, hauling him inside as the bird dipped dangerously low.
Kol didn’t hesitate.
He sprinted, lungs screaming, leaped as the roof collapsed behind him in a roar of flame and falling stone.For a heartbeat, there was nothing—then metal slammed into his palm, pain blooming as he caught hold and was dragged hard into the cabin.
The helicopter surged upward.
The sudden lift threw Kol hard against the bulkhead.He welcomed the pain—it meant gravity still applied, meant he was alive enough to feel it.The cabin was a riot of motion and sound: rotors screaming overhead, the thud of return fire against reinforced plating, the sharp tang of fuel and blood mixing in the tight space.
Hands grabbed him, steadying, hauling him fully clear of the open door as Cypher angled the bird away from the inferno below.Kol caught a glimpse of Cypher’s face then—focused, unreadable, eyes already tracking the next threat vector as if the chaos behind them was nothing more than weather.
Nitro’s voice came over the intercom, clipped and precise.“Secondary explosions detected.No pursuit airborne.Ground response delayed.”
“Copy that,” Cypher replied.“Maintain altitude.Clear the blast radius.”
