Page 174 of Hidden

Eventually, he stepped aside.

The door opened.

And I walked in.

No grand entrance. No weapon drawn. No snarling threats. Just me, my boots crunching over gravel, my heartbeat steady and wrong, and the eyes of every Rough Rider who turned to look. Some of them smirked when they recognised me. Some of them looked wary. Most looked confused, because even they knew this made no sense. A Vice President didn’t stroll into enemy territory alone unless he had a death wish or a plan.

I had no plan.

Just the death wish.

Nico was waiting at the table like he’d been expecting entertainment, one hand resting lazily at his belt, his other on the table, drumming his fingers, a smile on his face that made my skin crawl. He looked too comfortable. Too pleased with himself. There was still blood under his nails from the last timeI’d seen him, and for one fractured second I imagined it was hers. My stomach turned, but even that didn’t spark the rage I knew should have been there. Just that terrible emptiness. That numb, ugly hole where my future had been.

“Well,” he drawled, voice carrying across the yard. “Would you look at that. Vienna himself.”

I said nothing.

Nico tilted his head. “You look like shit.”

“It’s been a hard day.”

A few of his men laughed. Nico’s smile widened, shark-slick and cruel. “You come to beg, or did you finally realise she was never worth all this trouble?”

That should have done it. That should have had me lunging for him, consequences be damned. Instead, I just stood there and stared at him, wondering distantly how a man could keep talking when his tongue should already have been cut from his head.

Then I unholstered my gun, let the room tense around me, and dropped it to the ground.

The silence that followed was instant.

Nico’s brows rose.

“I’m here,” I said, and my voice sounded as dead as I felt. “You wanted to hurt me. You wanted to make a point. Fine. Here I am.”

A murmur moved through the crowd. Nico didn’t move, but his eyes sharpened.

“You’re surrendering?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Call it what you want. Surrender. Foolishness. The outcome is the same.”

He studied me for a long moment, as if trying to figure out where the trick was. There wasn’t one. That was the thing. There was no hidden blade, no ambush waiting in the wings,no brothers about to crash through the gates. I had come alone because none of that mattered now.

None of it. Not the club, not the war, not revenge, not tomorrow. There had only ever been one thing in this world that could make me want to survive it.

And she was gone.

“Search him,” Nico ordered. Hands hit me from both sides. Somebody slammed me to my knees hard enough to jar my teeth together, then yanked my arms behind my back. I didn’t fight it. Didn’t even tense.

They stripped the knife from my boot, the second blade from my jacket, the lighter in my pocket, and all the while the room watched with a kind of delighted disbelief, like they couldn’t quite believe the club clown had finally turned up to die.

One of them drove a fist into my ribs just because he could and pain flared bright beneath his fist. But then it dulled as quickly as it came, until there was nothing.

Because I had nothing left in me.

Nico crouched in front of me, close enough that I could smell stale smoke on him. “This is disappointing,” he said softly. “I thought there’d be more of a show.”

I looked at him through the hair hanging in my face. “Maybe I’m saving my energy.”

He smiled. “For what?”