Page 155 of Reign
“Already working.”
“Get me a medical team at the east side, not the main entrance. If he’s in the service hall, they’ll try to funnel him wrong.”
Kai nods, already typing. “Done.”
“And if anyone from Byrne or Reyes tries to leave the city tonight—”
“They’re detained,” Kai says.
“No.” I turn my head slowly. “If they try to leave, they’re dead.”
Kai looks at me for half a second and then nods once. “Understood.”
The car barrels through another intersection. Someone screams from the sidewalk. The driver doesn’t slow down. Sirens grow louder now, lights flashing ahead, painting the windshield blue and red.
I lean back hard against the seat and stare at the ceiling of the car, breathing through my nose, because if I look at anyone, I’m going to tear the vehicle apart with my bare hands.
No matter what happens, we’ll always have Isle Lucia.
I look down at my phone again. The call log still shows his name, the dead call, the last connection between us severed by fire and concrete, and whatever bastard thought tonight was the night to make me relive every loss at once.
For a second, hysteria rises again, ugly and wet and impossible to contain. My throat locks around it. My eyes burn. I press the heel of my hand hard against my mouth because if the sound comes out, I don’t know what shape it’ll have.
Kai sees. Of course he does.
His voice lowers. “He is not dead until you see him dead.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“He is not dead until you see him dead,” Kai repeats, slower, harder, forcing the words into my skull like an order. “And if he’s alive, every second you keep your head buys him another chance. If he’s trapped, you get him out. If he’s bleeding, you hold pressure. If someone took him, you track. But you do not bury him in your mind before we arrive.”
My breath shudders in, then out. The panic doesn’t vanish; it becomes something else. Something I can hold. Hysteria turned into purpose is still ugly, but it moves better.
I open my eyes. “Get me armor,” I say.
Maksim reaches back without looking, tossing the vest from the front passenger footwell into Kai’s lap. Kai shoves it at me. I pull it on with jerky, furious movements, hands still not as steady as they should be, but functional enough.
Gun checked. Spare magazine. Knife. Phone. Another gun from the side compartment, because one gun feels insulting right now.
Kai watches me arm myself and says, very carefully, “When we get there, you do not run into fire without eyes.”
I look at him, but he doesn’t back down. Brave man. Irritating man.
“If Vincenzo is in that building,” I say, voice very quiet now, “I’m going through whatever stands between us.”
“I know,” Kai says. “I’m saying let us make sure you go through the right door.”
The car screeches around the final corner.
Smoke is already visible ahead, black and gray pushing into the sky behind the lights of emergency vehicles and security convoys.
The summit venue rises beyond them, elegant and burning at one end, windows blown dark where the lower east wing took the brunt of the blast. Men are running. Shouting. Sirens tearthrough the night. Red light moves over stone like blood under water.
My heart stops trying to be a heart and becomes a weapon instead. The car hasn’t fully stopped when I open the door.
Kai grabs my arm hard enough to hurt. “Nikolaj.”
I turn back, furious. He holds my gaze for half a breath, and for once, there is no calm mask, no dry patience, only the same fear reflected in a different shape.
