But as soon as Yelena gets close to me, my brain isn’t in charge. My body takes over. It turns toward her, without thought or choice, like a flower turning to the sun.

She looks filthy, frantic, scratched, and beaten up. Smoke-stained, in torn and bloody clothing. And yet she’s so beautiful I can hardly stand it.

Her lovely eyes are fixed on my face, filled with tears and pleading with me.

“Please Sebastian,” she begs. “Please don’t kill him . . . I’m begging you. Please don’t.”

The gun is still pointed at her brother.

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t stop. I swore I’d be a machine.

But my heart is throbbing, straining against my chest in automatic impulse the closer Yelena gets to me.

“Please,” she whispers.

I flex my fingers to see if I still have control of my hand.

I do. I could shoot Adrian if I wanted to.

But I don’t want to anymore. The sight of Yelena has washed away the last remnants of my pain. She came back. And not for Adrian—I can see that in her face. She’s here for me.

I drop the rifle on the ground.

With a sob, Yelena flings herself on me, almost knocking me over. I grunt with pain.

“Are you okay?” Yelena sobs.

“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

She hugs me hard, with that same ferocity I saw the very first day I met her. She hugs me like a Valkyrie. Like she’d kill anything that tried to come between us.

Then, when she releases me, she drops down by her brother and cries, “Adrian!”

Her brother looks up at her, his teeth gritted in pain.

“The ambulance is coming,” Yelena cries. “Hold on . . .”

“This . . . this . . .” Adrian grunts.

“What?” Yelena says. “What are you saying?”

“Your fault . . .” Adrian hisses. He’s not looking up at his sister with love, or even relief that she’s still alive. He’s looking at her with pure hatred.

I see that look and I want to snatch up the rifle and kill him here and now. I don’t want him in an ambulance, or a hospital bed. I don’t want him recovering in his body, while his mind still seethes with rage at Yelena.

Yelena casts a swift look up at me, like she knows what I’m thinking. Her lips press together and she gives one quick shake of her head.

She won’t do it. She doesn’t want me to do it either.

I don’t like that at all. It makes me worried, and afraid.

But my love for Yelena is stronger than my worry.

Someone grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me around.

“Seb!” Aida shouts. Her face is likewise smoke-streaked and she’s clutching a gun in her free hand. Callum is right beside her, covering her in case anyone tries to attack her from behind. The yard is littered with dead Russians, and at least two of Mikolaj’s men. I see a face-down figure that looks like Bosco Bianchi.

But the gunfire has died out. The sirens are wailing close by, and I don’t think there’s anyone left to fight.

“Let’s go!” Aida cries.

“Where’s Mikolaj?” I ask.

“He already left with his men.”

“We better do the same, right the fuck now,” Callum says. “Or no amount of bribes are going to get us out of this shitstorm.”

Leaning heavily on Yelena, I hobble as best I can back to Callum’s car. Yelena and I get in the back while Callum takes the driver’s seat, and Aida sits shotgun.

As Callum speeds away down the street, Aida casts one devastated look back at our burning house. The rear-view mirror is full of the flashing lights of squad cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.

I assume they’ll find Adrian in time—but I hope they don’t.

32

Yelena

I huddle up against Sebastian in the back of the car. His heavy, warm arm around my shoulders is the only thing keeping me sane right now.

I can’t get the sight of my brother out of my mind—his handsome face burned so badly all down the right side, and even worse than that, the hatred in his eyes when he looked up at me. I never, never, never would have thought that he and I would find ourselves on opposite sides of a battle. But that was my father’s last act—to wedge between us, as he always tried to do when he was alive.

I saw his dead body lying in the street.

Unlike with Adrian, seeing my father bloody and battered raised no sympathy at all. I didn’t feel the relief I expected, either. Instead, it felt like closing a book. The end of him, at last.

I press my face against Sebastian’s shoulder. He smells of smoke and blood. Beneath that, I find the scent of his skin.

He strokes my hair gently, not caring how dirty or tangled it’s become.

“Where are you going?” he says to Callum, as the car makes a turn.

“The hospital,” Cal says. “Nero should be out of surgery soon. And it looks like you two might need a doctor as well . . .”

“I’m fine,” Sebastian says, stubbornly. I really doubt that’s the case. He had to lean on me heavily just to get to the car. His knee is injured again, I think.

Callum drives us over to Midtown Medical. He pauses, confused, when he sees that the entire road is cordoned off.

“What’s going on here?” he says.

“Something on that side of the street . . .” Aida says, peering out the passenger side window. “I can’t see what it is . . .”

“Someone fell off the roof of that apartment complex,” I tell them.

They all turn to stare at me.

“Who fell off?” Callum demands.

“Rodion,” I say, mostly to Seb.

“Ro—how do you . . .” he looks at me in confusion, and then I see both understanding and horror sweep over his face. “Yelena,” he says. “Were you up there?”

I nod, suddenly finding myself unable to speak.

“But how . . . why did you . . .”

I see him look back and forth from the apartment complex to the hospital, right across from one another, and I see the color bleach out of his face.

“Oh my god,” he says.

My heart is racing, as those moments up on the roof rush back to me all too vividly. The feeling of Rodion’s hand around my throat, and my feet dangling in the air as he carried me over to the ledge . . .

Callum and Aida can’t put the pieces together quite as well.

“Who’s Rodion?” Aida asks.

“He’s Yenin’s top lieutenant,” Sebastian explains. “He was here to kill Nero, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” I say, quietly.

“And you stopped him?” Aida says.

“You saved Nero’s life,” Sebastian says, looking at me in amazement.

“I meant to follow Adrian,” I admit to Seb. “That’s why I left this morning. I hoped to find my brother before . . .” I have to swallow back a sob. “Before anything could happen to him. I hoped I could convince him to leave. To abandon our father.”

Sebastian’s mouth is open. I can see that he understands the decision I made, here on this street, between my brother and his. This time I chose Sebastian’s family instead of my own. I did what I could to make up for my mistakes. But it was Adrian who paid the price.