Chapter six

Ethan

The blood is still warm on my knuckles when I carry my Lila upstairs.

Lila’s legs are locked around my waist, her mouth is fused to my neck, sucking my bruises like she’s trying to brand me back. The gun is on the kitchen counter, Viktor’s blood drying in a dark comma on the marble. I don’t look back. I don’t need to. The house is wired with cameras; I’ll watch the footage later, frame by frame, until I memorize every second of how close I came to losing her.

She bites my earlobe. Hard.

“Bed,” she growls. “Now.”

I kick the bedroom door shut behind us. The fire is dead again; the room is cold enough to see our breath. Doesn’t matter. We’re burning.

I throw her onto the mattress. She bounces once, and the shirt rides up to her ribs, her thighs are spread. The sight of her,wild hair, split lip, my marks on her skin,hits me like a fist to my tummy. I strip fast, shirt tearing at the seams.

I crawl over her. Pin her wrists above her head with one hand. The other slides between her legs. She’s soaked.

“Jesus, Lila.”

“Don’t pray,” she pants. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

I do.

I thrust into her in one brutal stroke. She arches off the bed, a broken sound ripping from her throat. I don’t give her time to adjust,just pull out and slam back in, setting a punishing rhythm. The headboard cracks against the wall. Her nails rake my back, drawing blood. I welcome the pain.

“Look at me,” I snarl.

She does. Her eyes are glassy

“You think you can scare me away?” she gasps between thrusts. “You think a gun and some Russian thug changes this?”

I angle my hips, hit that spot that makes her see stars. She screams my name.

“I think you’re insane,” I growl. “And I think I love it.”

She comes hard, clenching around me like a fist. I follow her over, spilling deep with a groan that feels ripped from my soul.

We collapse, panting. Sweat cools on our skin. I roll off her, pull her into my side. She’s trembling. So am I.

After a minute, she whispers, “Day six.”

I kiss her temple. “Twenty-four left.”

She traces the fresh scratches on my chest. “We need a plan.”

I nod. “Already in motion.”

She props herself on an elbow. “Tell me.”

I sit up, reach for the tablet on the nightstand. Pull up the security feed. The camera at the gate shows Viktor limping down the drive, phone to his ear. Another angle catches a black SUV idling half a mile out. Two more men inside.

“They’re not done,” I say.

Lila’s jaw tightens. “Then neither are we.”

I swipe to another file,blueprints of the estate. I’ve had them memorized since the day we closed.

“Safe room’s behind the wine cellar. Reinforced steel. Biometric lock. Enough supplies for a month. We hole up if they breach.”

She snorts. “I’m not hiding.”

“You’re not dying either.”

She straddles me, grabs my face. “Listen to me, Ethan Grant. I didn’t come back to play damsel. I came back to burn the world down with you. So we fight. Together.”

I search her eyes. See the girl who ran from cops on the Brooklyn Bridge at sixteen, the woman who kissed me in front of cameras and dared the world to blink.

“Together,” I agree.

She kisses me softly

We shower tigether and The water runs pink at first, then clear. I wash her hair, fingers gentle where they were brutal before. She lets me. Doesn’t speak. When we’re done, I wrap her in a towel, carry her back to bed. She falls asleep against my chest, breath warm on my skin.

I don’t sleep.

At 3:12 a.m., my burner buzzes.

Text from unknown:Package at the gate. Open it alone.

I slip out of bed. Dress in black jeans, hoodie, boots. Grab the gun from the kitchen, check the mag, its still full, good.I tuck it in my waistband.

The gate camera shows a cardboard box, no bigger than a shoebox. No vehicle. No footprints but Viktor’s. Whoever left it was a ghost.

I disarm the exterior sensors, step into the snow. The cold bites through my clothes. I scan the area but find nothing.

I open the box.

Inside the box is a Polaroid.

Lila asleep in our bed, taken from the doorway. Timestamp: 2:47 a.m.

Underneath, a flash drive and a note in block letters:

PLAY ME. OR SHE DIES.

My blood turns to ice.

I carry the box inside and Lock the gate. Re-arm the system.

Upstairs, Lila is still asleep. I sit on the edge of the bed, plug the drive into my tablet.

The video starts.

Grainy night-vision. A man in a ski mask stands in our bedroom— our bedroom—phone in one hand, knife in the other. He leans over Lila, blade hovering an inch from her throat. She doesn’t stir. He traces the air above her skin, then pans the camera to me,sleeping, oblivious. The timestamp matches the Polaroid.

The man speaks, voice distorted:

“You have until sunset tomorrow. Bring the drive to the old pier. Come alone. Or next time the knife doesn’t stop at air.”

The video ends.

I stare at the frozen frame, Lila’s face is eaceful, and unaware. My hands shake with a rage I haven’t felt since the night my father put a gun to his temple.

Lila stirs. “Ethan?”

I shut the tablet. “Go back to sleep.”

She sits up, instantly alert. “What is it?”

I hand her the Polaroid.

Her face goes white. “When?”

“Tonight. While we slept.”

She looks at the bed, then at me. “How?”

“Inside job. Someone disabled the interior sensors. I’ll find them.”

She grabs my wrist. “We’ll find them.”

I nod. “But the meet—”

“I’m coming.”

“No.”

She’s off the bed, pulling on clothes,my sweatpants, her boots, one of my hoodies. “Try and stop me.”

I want to. God, I want to lock her in the safe room and handle this alone. But I see the fire in her eyes, the same fire that made me fall in love with her in a graffiti-covered loft ten years ago.

“Fine,” I say. “But you follow my lead.”

She smirks. “We’ll see.”

We gear up.

I load two more guns, a knife, brass knuckles. She finds her spray paint in the art studio,matte black, blood red. Paints a raven on the inside of her wrist, wings dripping like fresh ink.

“For luck,” she says.

We stand in the foyer, armed to the teeth, snow swirling beyond the glass.

“Day six,” she says.

I check my watch. 4:58 a.m.

“Twenty-four hours till sunset.”

She laces her fingers with mine. “Then let’s make them count.”