Page 221 of Dance of Defiance
Stepan and the two Russians whirl on Gunner’s men, who drop what they’re doing, lurch to their feet and yank out guns. Gunner himself whirls from where he’s been waiting for the electric kettle to boil, a pistol gleaming in his hand.
“Stepan!!” my father roars.
Stepan’s jaw stays tight as he points his gun at one of the mercs.
“Pavel,” he mutters, glaring at Gunner. “These men are traitors.”
“Lower your weapon, Stepan,” my father growls.
“I don’t think you heard me,” my father's number two says. “These men?—”
“I heard you fine,” Pavel replies. “Lower your weapon. That’s a fucking order.”
“Pavel—”
“They arenot traitors, Stepan!”
It hits me at the exact same moment that it does Stepan. I watch my own emotions bloom across his face—shock, refusal to believe the obvious.
Betrayal.
Because if Pavel isn’t surprised to hear that Gunner’s men set up the bomb at the safe house…
Stepan’s face goes haggard as he stares at my father.
“Pakhan, Nikolai Antonov is a powerful ally. Afriend!”
My father says nothing.
“You didn’t?—”
“And if I did?!” Pavel snarls. “That ismydecision to make!Iam in charge, Stepan! “So lower your fucking?—”
He shuts up when Stepan’s gun swivel from Gunner tohim.
“A war with the Antonov family would destroy us, Pavel,” Stepan growls. “It would level this empire.”
“Stepan, I’m not going to tell you again?—”
“Myoathis to this brotherhood,pakhan. That comes before anything else.”
He glances at me, his face tight. Then he turns to the two Nikitin men.
“Untie Roman.”
One of them takes a step toward me. But the instant he lowers his gun, Gunner suddenly yanks a second pistol out of the holster at his hip, and the whole room goes from zero to two hundred miles an hour inmilliseconds.
The air is filled with the sound of cocking guns. Stepan is aiming at Gunner. Gunner is aiming at Stepan and one of my father’s men. The Nikitin guards and Gunner’s mercs are aiming at each other.
For a moment, the whole scene seems utterly frozen, like a still-life painting, or something caught on a Polaroid. The air itselfseems to stop moving. Not one single person moves, breathes, or makes a fucking sound as the tension wraps and slithers around everyone’s throats like a noose.
My pulse ticks. I slowly drag my eyes to the side, meeting Val’s. He swallows, staring right back at me, and even though I can’t hear him, and can’t read his lips, Iknowwhat he’s saying when his jaw works behind the duct tape.
I love you.
I love you too, I mouth silently back.
The tension keeps pressing down with unbearable pressure.
