Panic. Sheer panic. It doesn’t gently roll over me, it pounds into me, a force to be reckoned with as I gaze out the small window at the car approaching. Logic is telling me to calm down because one man can’t be enough to be Levi’s undoing, but this one man is paid to do just that.
I want to be with Levi. I want to protect him, but when I move to the door to claw at the doorknob and slam my foot against the wood, it doesn’t budge. My frustration heightens until tears are in my eyes and blood has dotted my raw knuckles.
I call his name.
What good will it do me? Possibly none, and yet I’m comforted every time my lips form the word.
“Levi! Levi! Levi!” I howl anxiously when I hear the car shut off. There has to be something I can do. Something! I tried to wager a deal before, maybe I can do it again? I don’t care if Levi is hurt by it. I don’t care what my fate is – none of it matters to me if he’s dead. None of it.
I sit on the ground, fingers uselessly folding into fists as I try and catch my breath. I wipe my tears and scan the room. There has to be a way out of this imprisonment.
Scouring the room, I toss furniture around, glide my fingers around the floor and the wall searching for some way to get out, but I come up empty.
This is what my life has been reduced to. Another prisoner, unable to dictate the way her life has gone. My father controlled us for so long, and even after I left, after he died, his emotional and physical abuse continued to control me.
I am so sick and tired of being controlled.
I am tired of not being able to save the ones I love.
It stops now.
I force my legs up despite the part of me that says it’s hopeless to fight. I move to the door, standing back before I inhale a deep breath and prepare to throw myself at the damn thing. I know it’s going to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch but I’m quickly running out of options.
The sound of a gun going off makes my eyes widen, and I run full force at the door, slamming into the wood before I’m thrown backward where I make an impact with the floor. The wind is knocked out of me, my lungs tighten as I gasp, but it doesn’t stop me from climbing back up and trying again.
Levi needs me.
When I’ve needed him, he’s come, and I will do this same. Even if I break my shoulder in the process.
Another attempt lands me on my ass.
Fuck.
How the hell am I going to do this?
Shriver – whoever he is – is here, and a gun has gone off. Someone’s hurt. Please, God, don’t let it be Levi. Anyone but him.
I frown when I look at the door, afraid to have another failed attempt at breaking it open and a shattered elbow to showcase my failure. I move through the room again, shuffling through the contents of it in the hopes I find something even remotely helpful.
“Why the hell is there nothing in here?” I rush angrily before I resort to kicking the door. Blast after blast I think I’m making progress, but it’s not until I hear footsteps that I stop and stumble backward.
Levi?
Oh god, Shriver? Please be anyone but.
The lock turns, my hands bead with sweat as the door opens and Silas arches a brow. I frown, stepping forward.
“Where’s Levi?” I question. He nods behind himself.
“He wouldn’t want me doing this…” Silas trails and my nostrils flare with each heavy breath.
“So why did you open it?” I respond, hands shaking as I clench them into fists and peer past him. Silas blinks, his lips forming a thin line before he finally replies.
“Because keeping you hidden won’t do him any good. Not in the end. You have a better chance if you can fight it head-on.”
“I heard a gunshot,” I rush as I move past him.
“A warning,” He admits. “Go.”
He instructs and I waste no time jogging past him. It takes me a moment to realize I don’t know how the hell to get downstairs. Silas catches up to me and points to a door.
“Stairway,” He says, and I nod. He’s right about Levi. He wouldn’t want me free. He’d want me subdued as if it would truly ever save me, but if something happens to him then I am not safe. Even if he manages to beat Shriver today, what about Jesse? Will his obsession with making an example out of me ever go away?
Maybe not.
I don’t know.
But one thing I do know is that I won’t let Levi lose his life over me.
My legs carry me as fast as they can down the steps. I take deep breaths, hoping to steady myself because the closer I become the more I shake. When I get back toward the front door, I hear them.
“You know why I’m here.” Shriver – I assume – replies to Levi. When Levi speaks my heart jumps. I feel like I’m suffocating as the fear of losing that man amplifies in me.
“You don’t need to listen to Jesse. He’s been running things into the ground for a while. Is that really who we want in charge?” Levi counters. I peek around the corner watching as Shriver’s towering frame shakes with sardonic laughter.
He’s even larger than Levi. Inhumanely large.
“I don’t answer to you, Levi. You made your bed. Now lay in it,” Shriver’s gritty tone replies.
“Fine,” Levi replies. His eyes shift until they find me peering around the corner. I gasp, covering my mouth quickly. Anger flashed in his eyes and I can see the silent message urging me to run.
But I can’t. I absolutely won’t. Besides, Shriver acknowledges my presence before I can run out of the room.
“Don’t go scurrying off, Sasha,” Shriver calls. I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows my name but I am. I step forward and Levi barks out an order I know I won’t follow.
“Run, Sasha!”
I wince at the pain in his tone. Shriver guffaws at it. He steps sideways so he can have a good view of Levi and me. I slowly move to Levi while shaking my head.
“I can’t. I can’t just leave you,” I reply breathlessly as I continue toward him. Shriver claps his hands, that’s when I notice the gun in his hand. He clicks his tongue mockingly.
“How cute. How fucking heartwarming.”
“Enough,” Levi hisses. Although Shriver seems to be sarcastic and intimidating. I note the flash of fear that enters his expression when Levi steps toward him with his fists clenched. “We were once partners. Out of respect for me, I am asking you to stand down, Shriver.”
Shriver scratches his chin with his free hand while waving the gun around.
“You know this isn’t how it works, Levi. I have orders to follow.”
Levi wraps an arm around me when I get to him and shields me with his body.
“Don’t,” I reply as I go to step around him but although Silas has freed me, Levi will not budge on keeping me protected behind him. He snarls at me when I try to move around him, so I stay put.
“I will not let you hurt her.”
Shriver shrugs.
“She is the example in which Jesse is setting for the members.” Shriver steps forward, gun aimed at Levi. “But we won’t kill her. Not yet. He wants me to take her in front of you, and then kill you for your disobedience.”
Levi lunges. I’m startled by the aggression that pours from him. It’s even more amplified as compared to how he was in the club when that man handcuffed me and attempted to drag me away.
His fury knows no bounds. Shriver must not be prepared for it, because Levi has a chance to knock into him hard enough to cause the gun to fly across the room and skid against the floor. I eye it as they begin to fight.
Shriver composes himself enough to form fists and deliver a blow to Levi’s side. Frantically, I whip around and jog for the gun, the grunts of the two men brawling heightening. Panic surges inside of me as I scoop down to grab it and when I spin around, a strangled gasp leaves my lips.
“No!” I scream. Shriver has Levi in a hold with a blade to his throat. Shriver’s face has begun to bruise, Levi must’ve got in a good couple of hits but wasn’t prepared for the knife.
Seeing Levi like this is humbling. Because the men in real stories aren’t invincible. And this is no fairytale. His arm swings at an inhuman angle, clearly out of its socket. His cheeks puff with labored breaths, eyes gleaming with pain as he calls out to me.
“Do it! Shoot him!” Levi growls, and Shriver chuckles.
“Shoot me, and I’ll use my last moments to slit his throat.”
“No,” I cry out, the gun shaking as I try to keep it pointed at Shriver. Shriver laughs, drawing a bit of blood from a small cut the movement makes while the knife is pressed against Levi’s throat. “Please!”
“Sasha, shoot him!”
“I can’t,” I reply breathlessly. “I can’t watch you… die.”
I glance around, hoping Silas will come to our aid, but he is nowhere to be found. Not in this moment. Maybe it’s some type of mafia code or something, but if he was friends at all with Levi, he should be here!
“She loves you,” Shriver replies. “Pathetic. Just like the last.”
“Please don’t kill him! I-I’ll do anything!”
“Don’t worry about me, Sasha! Just shoot this prick!” Levi yells but I shake my head. I won’t do anything that could end up in him dying.
“Fine. I won’t kill him yet… but only if you shoot yourself.”
My eyes bulge.
“What?” I question incredulously. He has to be joking? I can’t shoot myself.
“Shoot yourself in the leg. For my own amusement.”
Shriver nods before he draws a little more blood from Levi’s throat and I nod, angling the gun to my thigh.
“Don’t-“Levi chokes out, but I’m no longer listening to him. I can’t dwell on his words or the anxiety in my heart. I can only act.
I pull the trigger.