Page 131 of Princess of Vengeance

“There you are,” she says, grabbing my arm. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Behind her, more figures start to take shape through the smoke—I immediately recognize the Voronin brothers, armed to the teeth and moving with military precision. But they’re not alone. My mouth falls open in silent disbelief as I recognize more faces—members of the old Carnage and Enigma crews, people I was sure we’d lost when everything went to hell.

“You brought—” I start, but Willow cuts me off.

“Thank your panic button. When it went off, we grabbed everyone we could find.” She presses a gun into my hand. “Now stop gawking and start shooting.”

Another wave of guards pours in from a side corridor, opening fire blindly through the smoke. Our men return fire, creating a wall of cover as we move toward what I hope is the exit.

“We need to move faster!” Willow shouts over the gunfire. “They have more coming!”

Killian appears at my side, still fighting even though his shoulder is a mangled mess. “Are you good?” he asks, quickly looking me up and down—no doubt scanning for injuries.

I shoot a sympathetic glance toward his shoulder. “Better than you, I think.”

He flashes me a grin that’s almost feral. “It’ll all be worth it once we’re out of here.”

Nico and Atlas stumble out of the smoke, both looking like they’ve gone ten rounds with a meat grinder, but they’re on their feet and moving. Cassandra and Owen are right behind them.

The smoke is helping to hide our movements and confuse the guards as we move through corridor after corridor, but it’s also making it hard to breathe and almost impossible to see where the fuck we’re going.

“Victor found the blueprints for this place,” Willow explains between bursts of gunfire. “The exit is two more corridors down, but they’ve got it heavily guarded.”

“Then we’ll make our own fucking exit,” Killian growls, holding up a semi-automatic gun he must have taken from one of the fallen guards.

The fighting as we move forward is brutal and chaotic. For every guard we take down, it seems like two more appear. But we’re making progress, inch by bloody inch.

A flash of movement catches my eye through a gap in the smoke. Just a glimpse of dark hair and an expensive suit, ducking down a side corridor.

Malcolm.

“Wait,” I grab Killian’s arm and squint through the smoky haze. “I just saw Malcolm.”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“I’ve been avoiding him in his own house for weeks. It was him.”

I catch another glimpse of him, and it’s clear he’s trying to slip away like the fucking coward he is, leaving his men to die while he saves his own worthless ass—just like he did with Elliot in the basement.

“That son of a bitch.” I point my gun in his direction and fire off a round, but I know I didn’t hit him.

This is just like Ambrose all over again. Another monster who ran when shit hit the fan, leaving his men to die while he tried to save himself.

The pattern is so fucking clear now. These men—these assholes who think they’re fucking gods—are nothing but cowards when someone comes along to call them on their bullshit.

A guard rushes toward us through the smoke, and I react on instinct, putting two bullets in his chest before he can raise his weapon. The sound of his body hitting the floor barely registers as my eyes lock on to another hazy shadow that might be my last glimpse of Malcolm.

He’s heading toward what must be some kind of emergency exit or hidden passage. Of course he’d have an escape route planned. Men like him always do.

“He’s getting away,” I hiss, my finger tightening on the trigger of my gun.

I look at my men, torn between going after Malcolm and staying with them. They’re bruised and bloody and battered, but they’re fighting like hell, working together with the kind of wordless communication that comes from years of absolute trust.

With Willow and the others backing them up, the tide is finally turning in our favor. The guards are being forced back as more and more of them get picked off by our side.

We’re going to make it out. My men and I are going to survive this hell.

But Malcolm is slipping through my fingers with every second that passes. The man who killed my mother. Who forced me to marry him. Who tortured the men I love. Who would have raped me in front of them just to break us all.

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