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AS THE CAR PULLED TO a halt outside the remains of my old club, I shot a look at Nadia.
She was terrified. I could see it written all over her face, and I wondered if I had made the wrong choice bringing her here in the first place. I could have left her behind, told her to wait for me back at the safehouse, but I was sure she wouldn’t have taken that for an answer.
Besides, Nikita wanted her here, and he wouldn’t go through with whatever he had in mind unless I did. I was sure he was going to turn this on its head, try something to take me out, but I had to put what little trust I had in him on the line here.
I hated having to give him anything, to be honest. The thought of having to offer this guy a single shred of kindness was enough to make me feel ill. He had done nothing but hurt the people I cared about, and he wasn’t going to stop until I put a close on this chapter for good.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nadia asked. She hadn’t said much over the course of our journey together – there wasn’t much to say – but I could tell that her mind was working at a million miles per hour as she tried to figure everything out.
“I don’t want to,” I admitted. “But I have to. It’s the only way we can stop this war before it starts.”
She nodded, chewed her lip.
“Okay.”
“You sure?”
“Not really,” she confessed. “But if that’s what we have to do, I’ll do it.”
I climbed out of the car and opened the door for her. I had let Leo know what we were doing, and I was sure he was watching somewhere. I didn’t bother looking around for him, knowing that it would have given away my new allyship, but I was certain I could feel eyes on us right now.
We headed inside the club, Nadia hanging onto my arm as tight as she could. I didn’t want her to let go. I knew we were about to face down some serious danger, and I needed her to understand that I was going to do everything I was able to in order to keep her safe. I hated that she had to be here at all, but I would rather that she was with me. I wouldn’t have trusted Nikita not to try and steal her away the moment I turned my back on her, used this encounter as a distraction to go through with the wedding that she had humiliated him by not turning up for.
When we arrived inside what was left of the main hall, I couldn’t help but remember the first time Nadia and I had met. When she had danced with me, pressed her body to mine, the way she had looked into my eyes as though she wanted me, even then. All those months ago, I hadn’t been sure if she meant it or not, but now, I could see that it had been real – that we had been real. From day one. We had been real, and everything we’d shared since then had been building on that intense chemistry that we had felt from the first moment we had met one another.
Nikita, it seemed, hadn’t lived up to the agreement that we had made; a half-dozen of his men were flanking him as we emerged into his vicinity. Most of them were armed, and all of them had their eyes trained on me. I felt Nadia stiffen next to me, and I squeezed her hand. I didn’t want her to give away a single shred of fear in that moment. We had to be strong, both of us, present a united front. That was the only way we were going to get through this alive.
“I see you didn’t honor the rules of our arrangement,” I told Nikita, who was looking at me like he wanted to rip my head from my shoulders right where I stood. I didn’t blame him. I had the woman he wanted more than anything on my arm, and he knew he would never get her to look at him the way she looked at me. It must have made him sick. I hoped it did.
“Didn’t think you would be stupid enough to believe I’d stick by them,” he sneered. He had this dark coldness to him now, something even more dangerous than before, as though he had nothing left to lose. His plans were already spinning out of his control, and he had no idea how to get them back on track. If I could keep pushing him, I might get him off it for good.
“You at least willing to meet with me alone?” I asked. “Your men can wait here. I brought Nadia. You said you wanted her to see this, right?”
I was trying to keep my cool, but I could feel the anger rising inside of me, the anger at the thought that he had tried to make her his. He had no idea the kind of woman she was, the strength that she possessed, and he didn’t understand on any fucking level how hard I would fight to make sure that I didn’t lose her.
“If you’d like to do this in private, we can,” Nikita replied, and he nodded to one of his men, who pulled open a door next to us so we could step inside. It was my old office, the very same one Nadia and I had first kissed in. The memories were still fresh in my mind. If I didn’t make it out of here, then I knew, at least, I would have that to go out with – the sweetness of her lips on mine, the way she had kissed me like she knew we were meant to be something together.
I followed him into the office, and Nadia clung to my arm and stuck right behind me. I wished I could have told her that she had nothing to worry about, but it didn’t work like that. Neither of us knew how this was going to turn out. And yet, despite it all, there was a wash of calm in my chest. Whatever happened, I knew that I had won. I had Nadia by my side. She had chosen me, and nothing Nikita could do or say was going to change that, no matter how much he wanted it to.
“What do you need from me?” Nikita asked, spreading his hands wide as I closed the door behind us. I knew his men were just outside. It didn’t make much difference to shut them out like that, but there was no way that I was going to let them see what I was going to do. If he wanted a fight, then I was going to give him a fucking fight – but it was going to be between the two of us.
“I want you to prove that you can do anything without your men there to protect you,” I replied, cocking an eyebrow. I dropped Nadia’s hand, glanced over my shoulder to silently tell her to take a step back. I didn’t want her to get hurt, and given how monstrous Nikita was, I had no doubt that he would lash out at her if he thought he could get what he wanted.
“You really think I can’t handle myself?” Nikita growled, getting right up in my face.
“That’s how you’ve been acting,” I replied, as calmly as I could. I didn’t feel scared. I had something he would never have – I had Nadia. Willingly. Loving me. I had won.
“If you really believe I can’t wipe some little fucker like you off the map, you’re more delusional than I thought—” he started, but before he could get any further, I shoved him. Hard.
He stumbled back a few paces, looking furious. I almost had to laugh – he looked so ridiculous like that, affronted at me daring to lay a hand on him even though he knew as well as I did that this was what we were here for. Nadia drew back against the door. She had never liked the violence, and I didn’t blame her. I wished I could have spared her this. But Nikita needed to understand that this was what she had chosen - even if he won, she had still picked me, and nothing he could do would change that.
And with that, the fight began. He swung a fist at me - I managed to duck mostly out of the way, but it caught the side of my jaw and sent me spinning. Even though he was older than me, he was still strong, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to let this go.
But I had the fury of knowing everything that he had done to Nadia behind me, and I wasn’t about to let that drop. I spun around and shoved him again, this time aiming a knee into his stomach to send him crashing over to the floor. His head slammed back against the concrete wall, and he let out a groan that turned into a rising wail of anger as he climbed back to his feet and dove at me again.
I dodged him this time, catching myself on the edge of the desk as I nearly went careering on to the floor, but managing to stay upright. Nadia was pressed against the wall, trying to stay as far out of it as she could, and I didn’t blame her. She looked terrified. I was doing this for her – I was ending this for her, because she deserved to be able to go on with her life without having to fight for every breath she and her father took.
Nikita was strong, and he didn’t back down easily, even as blood clotted at the back of his shaven head where he had crashed against the wall. He flung himself at me, over and over, like he was trying to wipe me off the face of the Earth once and for all.
But his desperation got the better of him, and soon, I found myself with the upper hand, thrusting him down to the floor one last time and standing over him. His eyes were glazed, his face bloody, his lip swollen where I had landed a particularly bad hit. He was still burning with anger, but he knew, as he looked up at me, that I had won.
I turned back to Nadia. This was up to her now. If she wanted me to end him, then I would do it, I would do it in an instant, but I needed to know that she wanted it as much as I did. I wasn’t going to do this if it meant scaring her off for good.
She nodded. I could still see how scared she was, but she knew this was what we had to do. We had to end him, right here and now, if we had any hope of making it out of this mess in one piece.
I grabbed the desk, heaved it on to its edge so that it was dangling a mere inch or two from his face – his eyes were blurry now, his body starting to shut down, but he still closed his eyes before I brought it crashing down on his head.
The sound made my stomach turn, the sickness boiling in my veins. But, when I looked down at him, his skull crushed beneath the desk, I knew it was over. He was gone. Dead.
I turned back to Nadia and pulled her into my arms. She was trembling so hard she was nearly vibrating, but I kept her close, not letting her go. I had no idea what was going to happen now, if we were going to make it out of here, if his men were going to gun us down right then and there the moment they realized I had taken out their beloved leader – but as long as I had her, I knew I had made the right choice.
“Is he gone?” she asked, her voice so tiny it sounded like it had come from some place buried deep inside of her. I nodded.
“He’s gone,” I promised her, smoothing her hair. “He’s gone.”
“How do we get out of here?” she asked me, and I shook my head.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. I had thought Nikita would stick by his promise and come without back-up, but they were waiting just outside the door, and I had no doubt that they would be willing to do whatever needed to be done when they realized what had happened.
She leaned her head against mine and closed her eyes. I knew that she was coming to terms with it, with what I had just told her. That we might not get out of here in one piece. We had no idea how this was going to go. But he was gone. We were together, and he was gone, and for now, that was all that seemed to matter in the world.
She planted her lips to mine, and her kiss told me everything I needed to know. Whatever had happened to lead us to this point, it had been right, because we were together. When she pulled back, she gazed into my eyes and nodded.
“We have to get out,” she told me. “Or try, at least.”
“And if we don’t?” I asked her. I needed her to know that it was a possibility, at least, no matter how much I wished I could have promised her something different. She grimaced.
“My father’s safe, isn’t he?”
“Totally.”
“Then we can do whatever we want,” she replied. She planted a hand on the door and took a deep breath. And then, she pushed it open.
I waited for the gunfire to start – waited for something to happen, at least, as we dove out from the office. The men out there, as soon as they saw that Nikita wasn’t with us, it would be game fucking over, they would shut us down right then and there.
But instead, they had turned outwards. Something else had caught their attention. One of them lifted a gun and fired towards the top of the building, and the others followed suit. I didn’t need telling twice.
I grabbed her hand and sprinted towards the door.
I wasn’t going to wait for another chance to get out of there. We needed to run. We needed to get as far from here as possible, as fast as we could. I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t much willing to sit around and wait for it to unfold.
“What’s happening?” Nadia demanded, but I shook my head. I didn’t have time to explain anything to her, not that there was much I could have made sense of anyway.
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied as I tugged her towards the door. “We just have to get the fuck out of here.”
