Page 114 of Dangerous Promises

"You can't be serious," Alexei says, panic lacing his voice as he watches the expression on my face. "We need to get you the fuck out of here before heactuallycatches you."

"Ye of little faith."

"I swear to God-"

"He's right there like a sitting duck."

"You aren't supposed to actually get captured, for fuck's sake."

I purse my lips, but am quickly distracted by a sharp stinging pain in my side. My hand instinctively jerks up to hold it as I hiss, stumbling away from the knife that's just cut across my gut. It's a small slice though it hurts like a bitch.

Alexei's jaw hardens as he pulls the guy up by his hair and violently slashes a knife across his throat in a way that is practiced and precise.

"See? This is crazy and reckless," Alexei says, dropping the guy by his head and leaving him to land with a loud thud. "Come with me now."

He holds out his tattooed hand to me.

"No." Stupid perhaps. But I've got an agenda on my mind and I'm not leaving here until I get what I want. Opportunities like this cannot be wasted flippantly. We won't get a second one.

Alexei drops his hand and stares me down earnestly. "He said captureher. Not them. Her. It is only you he wants. Do not give him the chance to take you. We can find another time."

There is no other time. Only now. And running away to leave the others to be killed here was never something I was willing to do.

Never again.

Maybe it is only me that Chet wants. Only me he cares about. If so, we gambled correctly that he would let the others go in order to have me.

"I can't leave when-"

Alexei grabs at both sides of my face and pulls me in close to him so all I can focus on once again is his gray eyes and the perfect storm behind them. "None of this works if there is no you," he says. "Right now we're at a disadvantage. We can't let him take you."

His hands drop slowly from my face, our eyes still connected and the rest of the world seeming to slow as he steps back from me. "Let's go."

He reaches for my arm but is forced to retreat. "Fuck," Alexei curses, dodging an attack and leaning over backwards to avoid getting his throat cut. Isla appears out of nowhere, her knifegoing right through the back of the attackers skull and coming out his eye on the other side.

Isla pulls the knife back and the sound of squishy flesh sends vomit crawling up my throat. She steps over the body towards us. "What is his obsession with you? This is insane."

"I don't know," I admit, flustered. "He wanted to punish Dad."

Alexei shakes his head. "No," he says. "It's more than that. If he wanted Dimitri he'd take him too. But he doesn't want him. It's still you."

I do my best to not show my fear on my face. Even though my skin pales as the blood drains away from my heart. There are certainly fates worse than death and Chet wants them all for me.

He doesn't want me dead. He wants me captured.

He was never finished with me. The only reason I escaped his cellar was because he was ambushed. He hid me somewhere that we could be found. That's not a mistake that he's ever made again.

How much longer would I have been left alive? What else was he planning for me? I'm sure that I'll get the answer to all of these questions if he manages to capture me again now.

"Agree with me yet?" Alexei hisses with an air of annoyance as he reads the expression on my face.

"I might be willing to concede just this once," I say, lifting my chin.

Another body goes sailing past us while Isla tries her best to keep the fighting at bay as Alexei tries to talk sense into me. He nods at me once just as Uncle Anton comes diving through the fray of people to run into us. His face drops in relief when he sees us.

"I've called for backup, but we need to get Sage out of here," Anton says, addressing Alexei directly as if I'm not even here. I want to be insulted at them attempting to manage me but partof me wants them to stop me from doing something stupid and going after Chet.

Either way, there's no going back. I have one chance. A single shot to run after Chet or away from him. He's smarter now than he was back then. I'm not sure how we'd ever find him again unless he chose to show himself.