Page 102 of Gilded Shackles
Natalia. Pale, trembling, hair a wreck. But standing. Breathing. Alive.
"How..." I choke.
"Jeffrey." She's gasping, gripping the gun like it might fly out of her hands. "He got me out when the shooting started. Gave me the gun. Told me to find you."
She looks terrified. But beneath the terror, something fierce and unflinching.
"She was going to shoot you," Natalia whispers. "I had to."
I don't have words. The woman who betrayed me just saved my life.
The door bursts open again. Jeffrey storms in, gun drawn, face a mask of fury until his eyes find me.
Relief floods his expression. "You're alive."
He crosses the room in three strides, checking corners, lowering his weapon when he sees Gayle's body. "Christ," he mutters.
"Jeffrey." My voice is barely there. "He's bleeding."
Jeffrey kneels beside me instantly, ripping his jacket off, pressing it against Nikolai's wound. "We have to move him. Now."
"He can't move. He'll bleed more..."
"He'll bleed out if we don't." His voice is firm. Not cruel. "Listen to me, Elle. We have Viktor's men securing the building. There's a car downstairs. But we have to go now."
Nikolai groans, eyes flickering open. "Elle." His hand finds mine. Weak but reaching.
"I'm here." Tears won't stop. "I'm right here."
"You... you have to go."
"Stop saying that." I sob it. "We're okay. We're getting out."
"She's not coming back," I say, glancing at Gayle's body on the floor. "She's gone. She can't hurt us anymore."
I can't feel relief. Just grief. For the man bleeding in my arms. For the mother I lost long before she died.
Jeffrey adjusts pressure on the wound. "He's lucky," he mutters. "Through and through. Missed the organs. But we need a hospital. Now."
Two of Viktor's men appear in the doorway. Jeffrey barks orders. They lift Nikolai between them, careful but urgent, and I stay at his side the entire way down, my hand locked around his, refusing to let go.
The elevator. The basement. A black SUV with the engine running.
I climb in beside him. His head falls against my shoulder. His breathing is shallow but steady, and I press my lips to his temple and whisper things I don't even hear myself say.Stay with me. Don't you dare leave. I love you. Stay.
The car peels out into the night.
I look back once at the building. At the tower where I grew up. Where I was locked away and lied to and told the world was too dangerous to enter.
It shrinks in the rearview mirror until it's just a shape against the sky.
I never look back again.
30
ELLE
Ihate hospitals. And of course my mother's parting gift was sending me straight to one.
