My voice didn’t shake. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
He chuckled softly and sat down in front of the encrypted feeds. “You didn’t call. But your brothers did. And when Niko calls, it’s never casual.”
I crossed my arms and stood behind him. “Can you break her signal?”
Nathaniel typed fast, eyes never leaving the screen. “I can do more than break it. I can make her wish she was never born.”
Niccolo was behind us the whole time. Silent. Watching. Burning. But I didn’t look at him. He gave up the right to be near my daughter the day he chose Margot over truth. Right now, Elle was all that mattered. And if I had to bring hell itself to her door, I would.
Nathaniel’s voice cut through the tension like steel. “I’ve got her.”
I stood behind him as the code lines flickered across the screen, and when the final pin locked into place, he turned to me slowly and said, “The burner bounced through layers of scrambled relays, but it triangated to an old forest near your family’s abandoned Eastern Europe shipping base. That place was shut down after your father executed the traitors.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And now?”
He leaned back. “Now someone’s breathing inside its ruins.”
Niko came in with the drone tablet in hand, face grave. “Multiple heat signatures. At least seven bodies. One’s smaller. Moving slow. That’s Elle. The rest are armed. No sign of vehicles yet, but there’s a perimeter.”
I stared at the screen. I let the silence press against my ribs. Then I turned and walked straight to the underground vault where my father used to keep his weapons.
I opened the doors and stood in front of the rows of war. My fingers hovered over blades, over guns, over silencers. I picked out what I needed–clean, exact, deadly. I wore all black, tactical and fitted. The custom corset my father once gifted me sat snug over my ribs, etched with the Montenegro insignia. I didn’t wear rings. I didn’t wear earrings. I wore the rage of a mother whose child had been stolen.
When I stepped out, Niccolo was already waiting in the hallway, dressed for combat but looking at me like he’d seen a ghost.
I stopped inches from him and met his eyes. “You said you’d bleed for her,” I said calmly. “Then don’t flinch when I start the fire.”
He didn’t speak, but I saw his jaw clench. I walked past him.
Michael stepped between us, blocking Niccolo’s path. “You break her focus out there,” he said coldly, “and I’ll shoot you myself.”
Niko tossed me a comm piece and checked the mag in his sidearm. “This isn’t a rescue,” he said. “It’s a hunt.”
I nodded. “Then let’s end it.”
The chopper blades hummed low as we dropped into the blackness of the trees. No sound but
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The chopper blades hummed low as we dropped into the blackness of the trees. No sound but
the wind and our breaths. The forest swallowed us like it knew what we came for. Niko crouchec to my right. Michael led the flank. Nathaniel worked the signal jammer strapped to his wrist eyes cold and locked on the path ahead. I felt it in my bones–this wasn’t a rescue. It was reckoning.
Niccolo arrived in a separate unit with Luca and his Salvacion elite. He didn’t speak to me. didn’t look at him. We both knew this wasn’t about us. This was about Elle. My daughter. The last piece of my soul that hadn’t bled out yet.
Niko went over comms. “Rules are clear. Elle breathes. Margot doesn’t.”
We fanned out as the trees grew dense. The air was damp and sharp. I held my blade steady pulse even. I didn’t feel fear. I only felt fire.
Two guards were posted at the east ridge–idiots. Niko and I took them out fast, soundless. One blade across the throat. One silencer to the skull. They dropped into the leaves without so much as a gasp. I pressed forward, hand signal tight. We moved like phantoms.
Gunfire cracked behind us. One of the Salvacion men screamed, and I spun, pistol raised.
It was an ambush.
Shots exploded from the west, then from behind. I cursed under my breath and dropped into a crouch. The mercenaries had us in a crossfire. They weren’t just trained, they were hungry. “Down!” Niko barked through comms.
But I didn’t get the chance to obey. The moment I turned, I saw the muzzle flash aimed straight at me
-and in one breath, two bodies moved.
Niccolo collided into me from behind, taking the shot through his upper arm. He grunted and twisted as blood sprayed across the leaves, and we hit the earth hard. But before I could blink, another force grabbed my wrist, Nathaniel.
He yanked me out from under the next volley of bullets and dragged me behind an overturned log. His hand was firm on my waist, breath hot against my cheek.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he hissed, voice low but razor–sharp. “I didn’t come back just to watch you die, Geneva,”
I looked up at him, our faces too close. I felt the heat of his grip and the way his eyes burned. Intense and unreadable. His palm slid up to my jaw like he might kiss me.
“Geneva,” he murmured.
I didn’t move. For a second, the war faded. My pulse betrayed me. My breath stopped. Then I saw Niccolo kneeling with his gun pressed against the ground, his arm dripping blood, but his eyes locked on us. On me. And him. That look in his face…like something inside him snapped.
Nathaniel didn’t look away. He knew what he was doing. He leaned in a little closer and said just loud enough, “He doesn’t deserve to be near you.”
Chapter 29
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1:03 pm P ppp.
I pulled back fast, heart thudding. “Not now,” I snapped. “Not when she’s still in danger.” Nathaniel nodded, jaw tight, and passed me a fresh magazine. “Then let’s burn them all.”
Behind us, Niccolo staggered upright. “She’s mine,” he spat toward Nathaniel. “Back the fuck
off.”
I spun on him. “She’s my daughter. And I decide who stands beside me.”
He didn’t speak. He just pressed his hand against the bullet wound and stared, jaw tight, eyes glassed with something between fury and pain.
The gunfire slowed. Niko’s voice buzzed in our ears. “North corridor cleared. Main entrance is ahead. Elle’s heat signal’s steady. We go now.”
I stood, cocked my weapon, and walked forward. Neither of them said a word, but I felt both their shadows at my back. One bleeding. One burning.
And me?
I was done being anyone’s weakness.
Chapter 29
