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He groans and drapes a heavy arm around my back. We grapple with each other, jockeying for control. Twice, I could shoot him, but knowing Cora is right behind keeps my trigger finger steady. I won’t risk hurting her.
Not when we’re this fucking close to the end.
Finally, I get the man back on the couch, but he still has my body pinned in with his arm. I have the upper hand, but only barely. And if I don’t get Cora out of here soon, there’s no telling what could happen to the battle outside. More guards could be in this room any second and that would be it. Game over.
I roar and drive an elbow down into the man’s throat. He gasps and starts to choke, but his grip doesn’t loosen. If anything, it tightens. He holds me harder, struggling for air.
Just as he starts to breathe normally again, an angel rises over his right shoulder. I don’t even have time to look up before there’s a flash of white… and then a wooden handle is protruding from the guard’s neck.
His eyes go wide. Then they go blank. Then, pulse by pulse, they close.
Blood pours from the wound, staining the beige sofa beneath him. When he finally lets me go, I’m not willing to take any chances. I press the gun to his forehead and pull the trigger to put this dog down forever.
Only when his eyes roll back in his head and his limbs go limp do I finally look up.
Cora is standing next to the couch, her hair falling around her face and blood splattered on her dress.
“Beautiful,” I breathe. “You’re fucking beautiful.”
She blinks and then looks down at herself. Her mouth tips into a half-smile that wobbles and disappears again. She’s proud, terrified, stunned—too many things at once. I cross the distance between us in one step and haul her into my arms.
I need her weight against my chest. Her breath against my neck. I need to hold her and convince myself that this is real. She is with me.
“Time to get you home.”
She can’t even speak. She just nestles her head into the side of my neck and nods.
So, with her bloodstained veil dragging on the floor behind us, I carry Cora out of Alexander McAllister’s house and into the night.
37
IVAN
The front of the house is cleared out. Aside from two cars burning in the driveway, there is no one to stop Cora and me from climbing in my car and peeling out.
I call Yasha the minute we’re through the gates. “Get out of there as fast as you can,” I tell him. “I have Cora. We’re gone.”
“We’re working on it.” I hear faint yelling and commotion behind him, but it’s quieter than I would have expected. “Mikhail must have called off his guards. Either that or they abandoned him.”
Cora can hear Yasha on the speaker phone and she leans forward. “Mikhail and Alexander both disappeared the second the doors exploded,” she explains. “They left me with a guard, but I think they went into a panic room or took another exit or something. I don’t think they wanted me to see where they were going.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I say to both her and Yasha. “On either account. They’re all fucking cowards.”
“Yeah, but if those cowards did escape, they’ll be coming straight for the mansion,” Yasha warns.
“I’ll take Cora somewhere else until things settle.”
“Copy that. See you on the other side, brother.”
The line goes dead and the car is oddly silent. Especially after the chaos of the last… shit, how long has it even been? Thirty minutes? An hour? My sense of time is warped. I have no idea how much time has passed since I first heard Cora’s scream through the necklace.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She looks down in her lap. Her hands are folded together and there’s blood all over her knuckles. “In the last couple hours, I was woken up in the middle of the night, forced to get married, survived an explosion, and killed a man. Safe to say I’ve had better days.”
Cora takes a deep breath and turns to the window.
For a few quiet minutes, we just drive. Streetlights illuminate the car in red, yellow, and green. People living very different lives walk down sidewalks with their friends.
