Chapter 12: The Devil Shielded Me

HENDRIX

I had learned that the Veyra estate moved in rhythms.

Not peaceful ones.

Controlled ones.

That morning, I was told to accompany Erdem across the courtyard.

No explanation, just the command.

My mind was elsewhere.

On the Red Ledger, in the Vault.

On the fact that Erdem now knew I wanted something buried beneath his house, and that he had not yet decided whether to stop me or use me.

I did not like not knowing which.

By the time I stepped out into the hall, the estate had already shifted into that dangerous, formal quiet that came before movement. Guards lined in the corridor.

Konstantin stood near the far archway with a tablet in his hand, speaking to one of the men in a low voice I could not hear.

Erdem was waiting at the end of the hall.

He stood with one hand in his pocket and the other resting loosely at his side, dressed in black as if he had been born from shadow instead of blood.

Erdem looked up, his eyes landed on me and stayed there for a second too long.

"Come," he said.

I followed.

Four guards went ahead of us, Konstantin remained behind, speaking quickly into his earpiece.

I walked beside Erdem at a measured distance, not close enough and also not far.

The kind of distance that said I knew where I was allowed to be.

We moved down the steps into the courtyard, and the air changed at once.

Erdem stopped near the center path and spoke to one of the guards, but I only caught fragments.

"Transfer."

"Lower wing."

"Move now."

I lifted my eyes just enough to see that there were two servants waiting near the side entrance with a covered cart between them.

Something about that irritated me immediately.

The estate never did ordinary unless it was hiding something.

Konstantin emerged from the hallway a few seconds later and said something to Erdem in a low voice. Erdem didn't turn his head.

He listened without looking away from the courtyard wall, which told me more than the words did.

He was alert. More alert than before.

Then I saw it.

A flash.

So small I could have mistaken it for light hitting metal.

But I knew better.

My body reacted before my mind finished naming it.

"Erd-"

The shot cracked through the courtyard.

The sound hit first, sharp and violent, and then everything else unfolded at once.

Guards shouted.

One of the service men hit the ground.

A second followed immediately after, and someone screamed from the far side of the path.

Erdem moved before I did.

He grabbed me hard at the shoulder and shoved me down with a force that knocked the breath from my chest. I stumbled against him.

Then we fell down as the world exploded into noise.

The guards were suddenly everywhere and nowhere, moving in fractured shapes across my vision, drawing weapons, shouting coordinates, dragging the servants toward cover.

I saw the sky once, gray and open above the courtyard wall.

Then Erdem's body was in front of mine.

I heard the bullet strike near us, then I felt it.

Not in me, but on him.

His shoulder jerked, and his breath caught sharply against my ear.

Blood hit my hand. Warm, my fingers twitched.

A strange, unwanted heat went through me when I realized the blood on my hand was his.

For a split second I forgot the gunfire and I could not move.

I could only register the fact that he had taken the hit because he had put himself between me and the line of fire.

A guard shouted, "West wall! West wall!"

I finally looked toward the edge of the courtyard where the stone pillars met the upper windows.

I saw movements, fast. Then gone.

Erdem swore under his breath and tightened his grip on me as another shot struck the stone near our left side.

Erdem's voice came low. "Stay down."

A bullet struck the stone beside us again.

Dust jumped.

I kept myself low, my face partly turned toward the ground, because Erdem was too close.

Who was shooting?

Silas?

No. Silas was too close to home for this kind of open move unless he wanted something more than death.

It had to be someone testing the security of the estate.

Or someone was trying to see what Erdem would protect.

And if they had chosen this moment, it meant they knew exactly where I was.

That thought chilled me more than the gunfire.

Erdem rose just enough to fire back, one-handed, with the kind of precision that made everything around him seem clumsy.

He did not waste bullets.

I noticed that even now.

Even bleeding, even while half shielding me with his body, he fired with control.

The shooter on the roofline disappeared behind cover.

My pulse jumped, and I hated the flare of fear that went through me because it was not the fear of death.

It was the fear of being seen almost reaching for a pistol.

The fear of missing my chance. And the fear of how close I had been, close to ending Erdem.

And the fact that he had just saved me.

Erdem shifted, dragging me a little more behind the fountain wall. His shoulder brushed mine.

I felt the stiffness there immediately, the injury tightening with each movement.

"Move!" one of the guards yelled.

Another voice barked back, "Cover the east exit!"

Erdem pulled me hard again, this time toward the stone edge of the fountain and into the partial cover of the lower hedge line. His hand was warm and bloody at my upper arm.

He glanced at me once, quick and sharp.

"Are you hit?"

"No."

My answer came immediately.

My body had begun to respond before my hatred could keep up.

After the shooting, a guard appeared on the left, crouched low and speaking fast to Erdem.

"The west shooter is gone, others are down."

Erdem's eyes stayed on the far wall. "Find him."

The guard moved.

Erdem looked at me again.

This time his stare was deep and sharper.

He had no idea how close he had come to being dead with my hand on a pistol and my mind half a heartbeat from choosing.

And that fact sat in my chest like a live wire.

"You stay where I can always see you," he said.

I couldn't say a thing.

Because now I knew something I had not been prepared to know.

Erdem Veyra would put himself in front of a bullet if the bullet was meant for me.

And I did not know if that made him weaker, crueler, or far more complicated than I wanted him to be.