That reminder made my spine straighten. I swallowed the knot of panic in my throat and inhaled a steadying breath.

  Artur’s nostrils flared. Boots hit the steps from downstairs, quickly ascending. “Give me the gun, Vasilisa.”

  The cold in my veins spread further when two muscular men in tactical black uniforms stepped into the doorway.

  “What the fuck?” one demanded—a tanned man in his thirties with cropped hair. “Where did she get the gun?”

  Artur threw him a snarl, his upper lip curled back. “She must have had it on her.”

  “You got sloppy,” the other man said, this one older with the bearing of a veteran. “Finch won’t be happy with that.”

  I swung the gun towards him at that name, dread crawling through me, twisting my stomach into a coil of sickness. I squeezed the trigger the way Damien taught me, stumbling at the force of the recoil. My breathing devolved into ragged gasps again when the man’s expression changed from derision at Artur to rage at the hole I’d blown through his stomach. Warning made me shiver, made flight instincts beat at me like angry fists.

  “Put the gun down, Vasya,” Artur ordered, flicking a hard stare at the younger soldier when the older one slid to the floor with a grunt, blood pouring fast from his stomach.

  “Back. Off,” I warned, my voice hard and strong unlike my messy inner composure.

  I realised the look Artur gave the man had been a silent command when he drew a blocky black gun, far bigger than mine. He trained it on me without hesitation.

  I froze. Panic made my eyes burn, my lungs screaming for air. I didn’t lower my gun. Couldn’t. I was a statue. Terror made my knees knock together, drew a small, breathless sound from my throat.

  He was going to kill me, and I was frozen so badly I couldn’t shoot him before he fired his gun.

  “Finch wants her undamaged,” he told Artur like a reminder he’d repeated often. “He said—”

  His chiding words cut off, both his and Artur’s heads whipping towards the open door when a guttural male scream came from downstairs. They stared at the hallway like they could see through walls and floorboards to the source of the screams.

  “That’s Osborne,” the tanned soldier said, his mouth pressing thin. “You deal with your sister—without damaging her—and I’ll see what—”

  A second shout joined the scream, and my head spun as I struggled for air. Finch was already here, he’d come for me, he—he was hurting his own people?

  The tanned man hesitated between one step and the next.

  The older man had passed out from the pain, spilling blood on the floor.

  “I don’t hear gunshots,” Artur said tightly, his nostrils flared with pain. He edged closer to me, but I nudged my gun to point at his bleeding chest, and realised all at once that I could move again, breathe again.

  A delirious laugh trickled up my throat and escaped into the room, drowned out by another cry of pain from downstairs.

  “That’s almost my whole team,” the man said to Artur, who never once took his eyes off me. “We should have brought more.”

  My mouth twitched into a smile, blood roaring in my ears. “You could bring a whole army,” I said, my heart missing a beat when Artur’s expression darkened, so alike Dad’s face right before he corrected my behaviour. “It wouldn’t be enough.”

  Artur jerked towards me. I pulled the trigger on reflex, the recoil knocking me into the wall beside the window hard enough that every muscle—tender from being cramped in the boot and shoved around by my brother—flared into bright, temporary pain.

  Artur dropped to his knees with a snarl, finally dragging his threatening stare from me to look at the clumsy bullet I’d shot into his thigh. I knew it wouldn’t kill him, and neither would the mess in his chest, but he couldn’t hurt me if he was in pain.

  And it felt so fucking good to finally cause him pain. All those years he let Dad hurt me and instead of coming to my rescue, instead of guarding me from that abuse, he became jealous of the attention I was given. Like that attention hadn’t covered me in bruises and scars.

  I jerked my gun up when the younger soldier—the only one I hadn’t shot—lunged toward me, his eyes wide and… vacant.

  There was—there was a hole in his head. It poured blood down his tanned face as he tumbled to the floorboards. He wasn’t reaching for me. He was dead.

  My stare snapped up to the doorway. Hot tears overflowed my eyes as my face crumpled.

  “Stay still for me, Vasya,” Damien said calmly, his voice deeper and raspier than usual.

  I sucked down air, leaning back against the wall and trying futilely to stem the flow of my tears when Damien strode across the room. His body was as taut as a wire, his hands unshaking and black eyes so violent and murderous, my heart sped. It wasn’t fear in my chest as he shot the older guard slumped on the floor—making sure he was dead—and did the same to Artur, ignoring my brother’s frantic attempt to crawl away. Both bullets buried between their eyes, and love erupted through my heart so fiercely that its beats skipped.

  “Damien,” I breathed, gasping for air, or maybe it was sobs stealing what little I already had.

  “I’m here,” he promised, lowering his gun but keeping it in his hand as he stalked across the bloodied floorboards to me.

  I pointed my own gun away from us, shaking too hard to put the safety on. “I could—I c-could hurt you.”

  “Shh,” he soothed, guiding my fingers until the safety clicked back on, his hands chilled against mine. “You know being shot by you has never once deterred me, my queen.”

  The ocean of tears I’d been fighting back flooded my eyes. Emotion crushed my chest when Damien pulled me close, his arms like the bars of a cage around me, keeping me safe inside where no one would ever hurt me.

  He didn’t speak for long minutes, just held me so tightly that I ached where he gripped me, his breathing fast and sharp and tremors running through him. I squeezed him every bit as tightly, welcoming the promise that I was safe at the same time I reassured him I was okay.

  “I shot two people,” I said finally, a knot in my chest but my tears dried up.

  “I know,” Damien rasped, his fingers buried in my hair, head bowed so his forehead pressed to mine. “I’m so fucking proud of you. Proud to call you my wife.”

  I exhaled a long sigh then sucked down deep breaths of his scent—blood and sandalwood and home. It started to sink in that I was okay, that Artur didn’t kill me, that Finch didn’t take me.

  I jerked back, meeting my husband’s hard eyes. “Damien, Finch is coming—”

  He shook his head, kissing the wrinkle between my eyes. “We heard Artur and these bastards talking; Finch was on his way, but he turned around and told them to bring you to him instead. Probably because he realised I was coming for you.”

  “I knew you’d find me,” I said, my throat thick with another wave of tears, waiting for a moment of weakness to rush free. I didn’t care that my brother’s body was growing cold across the room; I grasped the collar of Damien’s shirt—the same one he wore to our reception—and pulled him to me for a rough, desperate kiss.

  It was reassurance and promise, violence and safety. I promised Damien I was here, unhurt, at the same time he swore he’d rip apart anyone who tried to take me again, with his bare hands if necessary.

  He drew a full breath, the first he’d taken since he entered the room, but I didn’t like the shadow that flickered in his eyes.

  “You are … incredible,” he breathed, gravelly and raw in a way that told me tears threatened him as viciously as they did me. “What you did here, the strength it must have taken… I’m in awe, Vasya. But I’m so—” He had to swallow, his voice hoarse. “So sorry they were able to take you in the first place. They never should have laid a damn finger on you—”

  “Damien,” I interrupted, my voice soft and quiet. He closed his mouth, as if I’d shouted, that shadow still in his eyes. He wouldn’t quite look at me, his stare on my cheek, not my eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t,” I snapped when he began to argue. “You were rightly distracted by the people shooting at us. You were keeping us safe. It’s not your fault one of your friends betrayed your trust, or that Artur paid him to drag me out of our reception and drive me to him. None of that is your fault. I don’t blame you, and I won’t let you blame yourself, either.”

  His eyes warmed by degrees the more I spoke.

  “I’m sorry our reception was ruined,” I murmured, tracing the unforgiving lines of his face. “And that—oh god! Artur said they blew up Marshall House and he had another bomb set. It’s got to be in our flat, Damien, we can’t go home.”

  “I know,” he replied calmly, pulling my head to his chest and pressing a long kiss to my crown. “But the men he sent never made it past security. A bomb threat was called in and it was diffused hours ago. We have a home to go back to, Vasya.”

  Relief made my knees weak. I hugged Damien tightly, those tears finally escaping but in a slow trickle instead of a fierce rush. “Can we go home?” I asked, my voice coming out small. “I just want to go home.”

  He kissed the top of my head again, the tremble in his body easing the longer he held me. “If you’re hoping for peace and quiet and a calm house, I’m sorry to have to tell you my entire family is there waiting for you. They’ve been worried sick.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I asked, dread making my heart sink.

  “Vincent got shot in his thigh, but it’ll only add more character, and we lost six guests. The rest of us got away with scrapes and grazes, and we’ve had far worse before.”

  “You didn’t get hurt,” I said, pulling back to meet his eyes, my stomach clenching with the emotion breaking through my haze of violence—panic, not rage. “Right, Damien?”

  “I’m fine,” he replied, pulling me back against him, like he hated the single inch I’d put between us. He obviously wasn’t fine, definitely not mentally and maybe not physically.

  “Let’s go home,” I said gently taking his hand in mine and squeezing tight. “I’m okay, Damien. No one hurt me.” He didn’t need to know about the tenderness in my knee, ankle, and arms. Those would heal, but I was more worried about my husband with every minute. “And no one will ever hurt me. Either you’ll shoot them or I will. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, his arms flexing around me before he took a pace back, that single step seeming to require immense effort. “You’re okay, I’ve got you now.”

  I squeezed his hand so hard it must have hurt. “And I’ve got you, Damien.”

  He smiled, strained and small. “I know, my queen.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off him as he guided me through the room, winding around pools of blood and unmoving corpses. Jonathan rushed ahead of us to get the car started while Damien crushed me against his body in the back seat, and it was so good to see them both together that I cried again.

  The tears made it easier to miss the cracks forming in my husband.

  CHAPTER 15

  DAMIEN

  Icurled my hand into a fist, carelessly crushing the blood-red rose petals in my palm before they could fall into the bath. I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking. Even in a fist, they trembled uncontrollably.

  “I don’t need rose petals, Damien,” Vasilisa said softly.

  I jumped when her hand settled on my back, comforting me, and hated myself for that reaction when she dropped the touch instantly.

  “No,” I said, too loud, too harsh. “You can touch me, Vasya. I’m just—wound tightly.”

  I saw empty eyes behind my eyelids with every blink—one set of hollow amber, one of Marshall-black. I was used to seeing those eyes, but now Vasilisa’s had joined them, rich chocolate dullened by death, the gold flecks in her irises no longer glittering.

  “And you deserve rose petals,” I added, ignoring the croaking quality of my voice. “So you’ll have them.”

  Instead of replacing her hand on my back, Vasilisa wrapped her arms tightly around my waist from behind, resting her head against the space between my shoulder blades. I had to clench my jaw to fight back a devastating surge of emotion. My head dropped forward, a ragged breath punching from my lungs.

  I nearly lost her. I nearly lost my wife, too.

  “Talk to me,” she whispered. “I hate seeing you like this.”

  “I’ll be fine when it settles in that you’re okay,” I replied, swallowing the guilt. I didn’t mean to worry her. That was the last fucking thing she needed after being held captive for twelve hours. “I just need to process everything that happened.”

  “Will you get in that bath with me?” she asked after a moment, rubbing her cheek against my back in a way that unspooled some of the knots in my body. The fear didn’t loosen its grip, though. I wasn’t sure it ever would.

  “Only if you let me hold you,” I replied a beat too late, finally releasing the petals into the water and wincing at how bruised they were.

  “Damien,” she murmured, turning me to face her. “My shield.”

  Fuck. My nostrils flared, emotion hitting so severely that I couldn’t begin to parse out its name. My throat hurt, swollen and raw.

  “I know you’re shaken—I am, too—but I—” She sighed, her chest heaving, then snared my gaze. “Tonight doesn’t have to be perfect, just because everything went wrong with the reception. That’s not your fault, and there’s nothing to apologise for, nothing to make up to me. I don’t care if there are rose petals or fancy bath bombs—”

  “There are fancy bath bombs,” I confirmed in a rasp.

  “You taught me that I don’t have to be perfect,” she said, silencing me. “And it—it gave me freedom to be me, to really be myself. So now I’m telling you. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, Damien. This, you and me, is everything I need.”

  “So fuck the rose petals is what you’re saying?” I asked dryly. I loved her so much it was a physical pain.

  She kissed me, a single brush of comfort to my bottom lip. “I’m saying get in the bath, Damien.”

  “Yes, my queen,” I demurred. A weight dropped from my shoulders when I undressed, settled in the hot water, and Vasilisa fit herself to my front.

  She still wore my mum’s necklace. My breathing tangled.

  “Here,” she said, pressing a sponge into my hand and squeezing a liberal amount of almond-scented soap onto it. “Wash every trace of that shithole off my body.”

  The curse coaxed a soft laugh from me, and I did as she commanded, feeling better with every part of her I soaped and washed clean.

  But those eyes haunted me—dead and accusatory.

  I’d nearly lost Vasilisa, too. I couldn’t let that happen again.

  CHAPTER 16

  VASILISA

  “Damien?” I murmured, staring at the marble kitchen island covered in platters of food, bowls of fruit, and fresh bread. It smelled incredible, but the sheer scale of it was worrying. Damien loved to cook, and always insisted on making food for me, but there was a difference between making dinner and… this. “You weren’t there when I woke up.”

  “I woke early,” he replied, whisking batter in a mixing bowl and offering a smile that in no way touched his eyes. “You had the twins with you, and I—I put more cameras throughout the flat,” he added quietly, glancing up to gauge my reaction. “Only I can watch them,” he said hurriedly. “And you, if you want. No one else has access to these feeds, I made sure of it.”

  I didn’t like how jumpy he was, or how quickly he spoke. I buried my irritation at him setting up cameras without telling me, but if he’d done it this morning and I’d only just woken up, I could forgive that. Beside me, Serenity stuck her nose in the air, sniffing at the food, but I gave her a warning tap with my finger.

  “It’s fine,” I told him, nudging Sparrow away from where she’d joined her sister. Not entirely trusting the twins, I rounded the kitchen island. Damien’s shoulders sagged when I wound my arms around his waist, squeezing tight. “At least we’ll know we’re safe.”

  Damien set the mixing bowl on the counter and turned, pulling me against his chest, laying kisses in my hair. “What do you want to do today?”

  I drew back a fraction, frowning up at him. “It’s Sunday. Aren’t we having dinner with everyone else?”

  He glanced away, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. “Not this week,” he replied, and his reaction made sense when he added, “The explosion took out the kitchen, so everyone’s in a hotel for now. Family dinner is cancelled.”

  I wilted, resting my head over his chest again and inhaling his woody scent. “I’d been looking forward to seeing everyone. I know that’s probably stupid after getting kidnapped and threatened but—it’s nice to be around people who act like family should. Unlike mine.”

  Damien threaded his fingers through my hair, his whole body tensing until he was strung as tightly as a bow. No doubt at the reminder of what my family had done. “I can phone Wyn, see if she and Rae would come over—”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said with a head shake. “They’ve just had their home blown up, I don’t want to trouble them.”

  “They’ll take any excuse to escape the hotel. Being cooped up with Stefan is anyone’s worst nightmare.”

  I laughed, but my chest ached. There was no humour in Damien’s voice, only worry. I squeezed him tighter, tipping my head up to kiss his jaw.

  “We’re gonna be okay, Damien. Artur can never hurt me again, Dad’s dead, and Finch will be gone soon.” I caught his lips in a kiss, featherlight and reassuring. “It’s almost over. Okay?”

  “I should be the one comforting you,” he muttered, something dark in his eyes.

  “You were terrified to lose me. It’s okay to need comfort, Damien. I always knew you’d find me. But you didn’t know if I’d still be alive when you found me. Of course that’d mess with your head.”

  I wasn’t saying I was fine. It took me hours to fall asleep because all I saw when I closed my eyes was Artur staring down at me as I trembled on the ground beside the car, that lethal shine to his eyes the same I’d seen in Dad’s so many times. That had left its mark, but shooting him balanced the scales. I was affected but not traumatised. Shaky, but still strong. Artur having me captured should have broken me, and would have two months ago, but it didn’t.

 

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