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Through the yelling and screaming, there are booms of gunfire. Covering my head with my arms, I stay down, not sure what the fuck is going on. Someone grabs my arm, and when I look up, it’s Nicolas. He’s down on the floor, eyebrow and left cheek cut, yelling at me, “Get the fuck out of here!”
I don’t hear him, it’s too loud and chaotic, but I know what he’s saying. I jerk away from him, not wanting to go just becausehetold me to. Acting like he gives a fuck about me when he’s only looking out for himself. If I die, so does his freedom.
Crawling away from him, ignoring the bodies and blood on the ground, I go under a nearby table. Only then do I lift my head and take a quick look around. Blake’s men are dropping like flies, being hit from different directions. I spot Maxim with two large knives, slicing someone’s jugular in half, leaving a spray of red in his wake. He’s not alone. Next to him is—
I freeze with shock. Unblinking, heart-failure shock. Because once again, Milton Hood has rattled me to the bone. He’s here with Maxim, very much alive and killing anyone who gets in his way.
Have I been shot? Am I dead? I never asked him what Xavier meant in his name. I never got to know what his favorite color was. I don’t know enough about him, and this might not be real. Because things like this don’t happen. Milton can’t really come back from the dead a second time, can he?
The moment our eyes meet from across the room of dead bodies, I know I’m not hallucinating. He’s here, with Maxim, shooting anyone who gets in his way while dodging bullets and attacks from Blake’s men like it’s the easiest thing in the world. I’ve seen him kill, but I’ve never seen this. How fluidly he moves, teamed with Maxim, like they’ve been trained how to murder together.
An emotion I’ve never felt slices my chest. He’salive.He’s come for me.
He stops looking at me as a man charges at him. Maxim intercepts, slicing the man’s stomach open before he gets near Milton. The man’s guts fall out before he drops to the ground, dead.
“Fall back!” I hear someone yell. Nicolas, I think. There are just a few of Blake’s men left. Hope blooms inside my chest as I get out from under the table, but the moment I do, an arm goes around me, and something blistering hot presses against the side of my temple making me wince.
It’s a gun.
“STOP!” Milton yells after noticing, and everything stops. The gunfire, the bloodshed. He’s breathing heavily, he and Maxim side by side, both covered in blood. “Let her go!”
“No,” Blake growls behind me. “Put down your weapons, or she dies.”
Milton’s expression darkens. “Attack.”
I’m thrown sideways as a dart of something black tackles Blake to the floor. He yells out. Bea’s got his arm in her mouth, teeth ripping his flesh. She goes for his neck, and this time, he lets out a blood-curdling scream as she rips open his throat.
With a gasp, I scuffle back, attempting to get up. Someone grabs me. When I look back, it’s Nick. He’s glaring at me with the intent to kill.
Milton’s gun goes off again with a sudden flick of his wrist, hitting Nick in the chest. He lets go, falling back. Getting to my feet, I run to the other side of the room. Milton holds his arm out, and I run into him while he shoots someone else who tries to grab me. “Maxim—I got her! Cover me!”
At that moment, Deuce barrels at Maxim with a Viking roar. They match in height, but Maxim’s too lithe and quick for the fatter man and cuts into his body several times. That’s all I get to see before I’m pulled outside and pushed into another pair of arms. “Get the fuck out of here. Stop for no one.”
“Yes, sir.”
When I notice Milton’s about to turn away, I grab his arm. “Wa—Wait! Milton?”
“Go with him!” he shouts at me, snatching his arm away. I shrink back in fear from the blackness in his eyes with obsidian shadows beneath them. He’s no longer in control of himself. The beast inside is at the forefront.
I only just got him back—I don’t want him to leave me again. But I’m being carried away, past a black van and toward a black SUV parked nearby.
“Mr. Hood will be traveling behind us with Mr. Koslov,” says a voice I recognize. When I glance up, it’s Lucius who has me.
My head shakes—my whole body does. Something could still happen to Milton. Or Maxim. Things could still go wrong. “Lucius, please. Let me go back.”
While I know it’s not the right time, I need to talk to him. Ask him why he reacted like that. It’s not exactly the reunion I expected. Not that Ithoughtthere would even be one. It was like he was pissed atme.Have I inconvenienced him? He had to bring Maxim. Maybe I’d bothered them both.
Like I knew he wouldn’t, Lucius doesn’t listen to me. I’m just cargo, after all, dragged from one place to another. Shoving me into the back seat, Lucius closes the door. I try the handle, but it’s locked. I thump my hand against the window in despair before slumping back in the seat. Before I know it, we’re peeling out of there, but not before I see half of Blake’s new clubhouse blown to bits.
I swallow down the ache in my throat. “Where was I?”
“Dawlin,” he answers after skidding onto a dark road and speeding down it. His words sink in. Dawlin. Blake’s been hiding out in Dawlin all this time, and I could hit myself for the obviousness. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
Sighing, I lean my head back against the headrest. I’m exhausted, but I don’t close my eyes. For if I do, I know all I’ll see is Milton and how he looked at me when he walked away.
