Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Four Minutes

The needle touched my skin.

I jerked back hard enough that the zip ties cut deeper into my wrists, but the two men held me steady against the wall. Serena’s eyes were calm, almost tender, as she pressed the syringe just hard enough for the tip to break the surface.

“This one isn’t to knock you out,” she said softly. “This one is to make sure that if Damien somehow reaches you, you won’t be the same woman he remembers. A little chemical insurance. You’ll still be breathing. You’ll just be… quieter.”

The live camera light blinked green in the corner. Somewhere, Damien might already be watching.

I turned my face toward the lens, voice raw. “Don’t you dare stop looking for me.”

Serena sighed and pushed the plunger a fraction.

A sharp, burning sting spread under my skin.

Then the entire building shook.

An explosion—distant but powerful—rattled the bare bulb and sent dust drifting down from the ceiling. The two men froze. Serena’s head snapped toward the door.

A second blast followed, closer. The lights flickered.

Marcus’s voice, distorted by static, suddenly crackled through a radio one of the men carried.

“—breach on the east loading bay—multiple hostiles down—Voss is inside—”

Serena’s face drained of color.

“Move her. Now!” she snapped.

The men hauled me up. My legs felt wrong—heavy, distant—as whatever she had injected began to crawl through my veins. The room tilted. I tried to dig my heels into the concrete, but my body no longer fully obeyed.

They dragged me into a narrow service corridor lit by red emergency strips. Serena strode ahead, already on her phone.

“Extract through the water tunnel. I don’t care about the schedule. He’s here.”

Behind us, gunfire erupted—controlled, professional bursts that grew louder with every second. Damien’s team was cutting through the facility like a blade.

My vision swam. The edges of the world softened. I forced my mouth to work.

“He’s going to find me,” I mumbled. “And when he does… you’re finished.”

Serena glanced back, eyes hard. “Not if you’re already gone.”

We reached a heavy steel door marked FLOOD CONTROL ACCESS. One of the men punched a code. The door groaned open onto a dark, sloping concrete tunnel that smelled of river water and rust. A small inflatable boat waited at the bottom of the incline, black water lapping at its sides.

They were going to take me out by the water.

My knees buckled. The drug was moving faster now—warmth spreading through my limbs, making everything slow and thick. I slumped between the two men, barely able to keep my head upright.

A roar of rage echoed down the corridor behind us.

Damien.

Even through the growing fog I knew that sound. I had heard it the night he first claimed me, the night he promised he would burn the world. It was the sound of a man who had finally stopped holding back.

Serena cursed and shoved me forward. “Get her in the boat!”

They half-carried, half-dragged me down the incline. My bare feet scraped over wet concrete. The moment they lifted me toward the boat, a new voice cut through the tunnel—close, furious, and unmistakable.

“Touch her again and I will kill every last one of you.”

Damien stood at the top of the incline, framed by the red emergency lights, gun raised, eyes locked on me like I was the only fixed point left in the universe. Blood streaked one side of his face. His shirt was torn. He looked like war given human form.

The two men froze.

Serena raised the empty syringe like a pathetic shield. “She’s already dosed. Whatever happens now, you won’t get the same woman back.”

Damien’s gaze never left mine. In that single look I saw everything—rage, terror, love so fierce it bordered on madness.

“Lila,” he said, voice low and steady for me alone. “Stay with me.”

I tried to answer. The word came out broken. “Damien…”

He moved.

What happened next was a blur of violence and precision. One of Serena’s men went down before he could raise his weapon. The second managed a single shot that sparked off the concrete near Damien’s shoulder. Damien didn’t slow. He closed the distance, disarming the man with brutal efficiency and slamming him into the wall hard enough that the body crumpled.

Serena turned to run toward the boat.

She never made it.

Damien caught her by the arm, spun her around, and pinned her against the tunnel wall with a forearm across her throat. His gun pressed under her chin.

“The antidote,” he snarled. “Now.”

Serena laughed, breathless and wild. “There isn’t one. Not here. Not in time.”

My legs finally gave out completely. I collapsed onto the cold, wet concrete at the edge of the water, the zip ties still binding my wrists, the drug pulling me under wave by wave.

The last clear thing I saw was Damien’s face as he dropped Serena and lunged for me, gathering me against his chest like something priceless that had almost slipped through his fingers forever.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, over and over, rocking me slightly. “I’ve got you. Stay with me, Lila. Please.”

His hand pressed against the side of my neck where the needle had gone in, as if he could stop the chemical by sheer will.

My eyes fluttered.

In the distance I heard Marcus shouting about extraction, about a medical team, about Serena trying to reach for something in her pocket.

But all I could feel was Damien’s arms around me and the terrifying, beautiful certainty that he had come.

Even when my own blood had abandoned me.

Even when the dark was rising fast.

He had come.

My fingers weakly curled into his torn shirt as the fog finally took me.

And the last word I managed was his name.