CHAPTER 6
1207 Words
SERA
Darkness.
Complete, total darkness.
My breath caught in my throat and every muscle in my body locked up. I couldn't see. I couldn't move. The darkness wrapped around me like a fist and squeezed.
Not again. Please, not again.
The last time I stood in darkness like this, my house was burning. I was twelve, standing on the street in my pajamas, watching orange flames eat the sky while my family screamed inside. The neighbors held me back. I fought them. I clawed and kicked and bit, but they wouldn't let me go.
I could smell the smoke. Right now, standing in my apartment, I could smell the smoke like it was real. Like it was happening again.
It wasn't real. I knew it wasn't real. But my body didn't care about what was real.
"Sera." Dimitri's voice cut through the dark. Low. Steady. Close. "Stay behind me. Don't move."
I wanted to tell him I couldn't move even if I tried. My legs were made of stone. My hands were shaking so bad I pressed them against my stomach just to keep them still.
I heard him pull out his gun. The click of the safety was loud in the silence.
Then the door exploded.
Not opened. Exploded. Wood splintered inward and hit the floor in pieces. Cold air rushed in and with it came the smell of cologne and leather and something metallic. Blood. Old blood. The kind that stained hands and never fully washed out.
I knew that smell. My wolf knew it too. She pressed flat against my ribs and went silent. Not the lazy silence she had carried for six years. This was different. This was prey silence. The kind of quiet that meant danger was close enough to touch.
Two figures stepped through the broken door. I couldn't see their faces but I could see the outline of their bodies in the faint light from the hallway. Big. Armed. Moving with the kind of smooth coordination that meant they had done this before.
"Volkov," one of them said, and his voice was almost friendly. Almost. "We figured you'd be here."
Dimitri didn't answer. He shifted his weight, keeping his body between me and the door. I could feel the tension radiating off him like heat from a fire. His wolf was right at the surface. I could sense it. The air around him was vibrating with it.
"The girl," the second man said. "Hand her over and you walk out of here breathing."
Girl. He called me girl. Like I was a package. Like I was something to be handed over and unwrapped.
The rage came out of nowhere. It punched through the fear and the panic and the memories, burning everything in its path. My wolf stirred. Not much. Just a flicker. But it was more than she had given me in years.
"Touch me," I said from behind Dimitri, my voice low and shaking with anger, "and I'll cut your hands off."
Silence.
Then the first man laughed. It was a cold sound. Empty. "She's got a mouth on her. Enzo said she would."
Enzo. The silver haired man. The one who gave me his card and smiled like he already owned me.
Dimitri moved so fast I almost missed it. One second he was standing in front of me. The next, the first man was on the ground and Dimitri's gun was pressed against the second man's forehead.
"Tell Enzo," Dimitri said, and his voice was something I had never heard before. Not angry. Not loud. Quiet. The kind of quiet that came before someone died. "If he comes near her again, I won't send a message. I'll send his head."
The man on the ground groaned, trying to get up. Dimitri's foot came down on his chest without even looking, pinning him flat.
"Do you understand?" Dimitri asked the man with the gun against his head.
The man swallowed hard. "Volkov, you're making a mistake. She's not worth starting a war over."
Wrong thing to say.
Dimitri's fist connected with the man's jaw and he dropped like a stone. Both men were on the ground now, groaning, bleeding. Dimitri stood over them, breathing hard, his knuckles red.
He turned to me. "We need to go. Now."
This time, I didn't argue.
We ran. Down the hallway, down the stairs, out the back exit of my building. My bare feet hit cold pavement and I hissed but didn't stop. Dimitri's hand was on my lower back, guiding me, and I hated that it felt familiar. I hated that some broken part of me leaned into his touch.
A black car was waiting at the curb, engine running. Viktor was in the driver's seat, his face hard as iron. He didn't say a word when I climbed into the backseat. Dimitri slid in beside me and slammed the door.
"Drive," Dimitri ordered.
Viktor pulled away from the curb so fast my body jerked sideways. I grabbed the seat to steady myself, my heart still hammering, my hands still shaking.
I looked down at my feet. They were bleeding from the pavement. Small cuts, nothing serious. But the sight of blood on my skin made my vision blur.
Blood on my hands. Blood on the floor. Blood everywhere and the sound of screaming and
"Sera."
I blinked. Dimitri was watching me, those grey eyes softer than they had any right to be.
"You're safe," he said quietly.
I wanted to laugh. Safe. In a car with my ex-husband, running from the Italian mafia, heading to the compound I swore I would never set foot in again.
I had never been less safe in my entire life.
Viktor's phone rang. He answered it on speaker without taking his eyes off the road.
A voice filled the car. Smooth. Familiar. The silver haired man.
"Mr. Volkov," Enzo Zanetti said pleasantly. "I see you've collected my doctor. That's unfortunate."
Dimitri's entire body went still.
"But I'm a patient man," Enzo continued. "So I'll make this simple. Give me the girl and the documents her father hid. You have seventy-two hours."
The line went dead.
Viktor's eyes found Dimitri's in the rearview mirror.
Dimitri's jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. He didn't look at Viktor. He looked at me.
"Sera," he said carefully. "What documents is he talking about?"
I opened my mouth to say I didn't know. That I had no idea what my father hid or where he hid it. That I was twelve when he died and he never told me anything.
But then something surfaced. A memory I had buried so deep I forgot it existed. My father's voice, rough and low, whispering to me the night before he died.
"If anything ever happens to me, moya luna, go to the old house. The walls remember what people forget."
I hadn't thought about those words in fourteen years.
My face must have changed because Dimitri leaned forward, his eyes sharp.
"Sera," he said slowly. "What is it?"
I looked at him, and for the first time since he walked back into my life, I was truly terrified.
"I think I know where they are."
- Writer
