Chapter 22: 22

Caelum's POV

The compound burned.

I was standing in the courtyard, spattered with blood that wasn't my own, watching Nikolai’s empire burn. Bodies littered the ground. His men. His guards. Everyone who had interfered with my bringing down this.

Kent was close by my side, his breath coming heavily and a gash over his eyebrow running blood down to his chin. "East wing is clear. Ryker's finishing the west."

"And Nikolai?"

"No sign of him."

Anger was hotter than the hell that surrounded us. I'd come here to end this. To kill Nikolai and be free at last.

But he wasn't here.

I screamed in anger, snatching up a chair and hurling it through the clear window. Shards and glass shattered, the sound swallowed by the maelstrom.

"Boss—" Kent started.

"Where is he?" I spun to face him. "Where the hell is he?"

“I don’t know, but we have to go. Police will be here soon—"

Kent's phone rang.

The man replied, his face blanching. Then he gave it to me without a word.

I took it, already knowing.

"Looking for me, Morano?" Nikolai’s voice crackled, smooth and amused. “I have something of yours in front of me.

My blood turned to ice.

A photo came through. Celine, tied to a chair and unconscious.

"How?" The word strangled out.

"You left two guards. I sent ten men. Simple math." He laughed. "And you fucking thought, while not protecting her, that you could storm my compound?”

Rookie mistake. Stupid, amateur mistake.

I had been so concentrated on getting to him that I’d left Celine wide-open.

"If you hurt her—"

"You'll what? You got no cards to play with threats. But I'm reasonable. Let's make a deal." His voice turned theatrical. "Meet me where it all began. The warehouse where Isabelle died. One hour. Come alone, disarmed or I’ll put a bullet in this one as well.”

The line went dead.

I sat there, frozen, the world spinning.

The warehouse where Isabelle died. Where this nightmare began a decade ago.

He was planning to murder Celine at the same place.

Poetry. Justice. Full circle.

"Boss?" Kent's voice seemed distant. "What did he say?"

I told him. Saw my own horror reflected in his face.

“You can’t go by yourself,” he said right away. "It's suicide."

"I know."

"Then we bring everyone. Surround the place—"

“And as soon as he sees backup, what does he do? I shook my head. "I go alone."

"Caelum—"

"That's an order, Kent." I glanced at him, this man of 15 years. "If he does shoot me, get her out of here safely. Get her to the safe house. Pay her off, get her a new identity, whatever it will take. Keep her safe, till the whole of Nikolai's crew is broken. That's an order."’

"I can't let you do this."

"You don't have a choice."

I started stripping weapons. The gun at my back. The knife in my boot. The backup piece at my ankle. He said unarmed. That was the best way I could move in.

And then there was Ryker -- sooty, bloody Ryker. "West wing is clear. “What’s—” he said and then glanced at my face and held his tongue. "What happened?"

Kent filled him in quickly. Ryker's expression darkened.

"We can't let him go alone."

Hatton said, after a long pause.“We have no choice,” Kent responded softly.

I completed my disarmament in only my shirt and trousers. Felt naked without weapons. Vulnerable.

Good. Let Nikolai think he'd won. Let him think I was broken.

I'd find a way. I always found a way.

I got in my car. Kent and Ryker were stranded as I drove away.

On the way to the warehouse, I contemplated Isabelle. And about how she’d looked at me with so much trust until the very last moment.

I thought about Celine. About her smile, her laugh, how hard she’d made me fight. How she’d kissed my scars and said she would choose me again.

Every choice that had brought me to this point. Every choice, every act of bloodshed, every setback.

It had all led to this.

I whipped out my phone, launched the voice recorder. If it did go wrong, she deserved to know.

“Celine,” I said, my voice hoarse. “If you’re hearing this I was unable to make it. It means I couldn’t save you, couldn’t defeat Nikolai, couldn’t be the man I was meant to be.”

I almost had to stop, swallow around the lump in my throat.

“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. After 10 years of becoming a monster u had made me feel human again. You’ve seen all the darkness in me, and you loved me anyway.’”

The warehouse materialized in the night ahead, empty and abandoned.

“I wish I could have been better for you. Sorry I put so much danger in yer life. If there’s any justice, you’ll live through this. You will live the life that did not happen to you.”

I parked in front, looking up at the building where Isabelle had taken her final breath.

"I love you, Celine Moretti. More than anything I have ever loved. And I will press every button I can to get you out alive. I may not be around to make it.”

I pushed stop, emailed it to Kent and asked him to play it for her should I die.

Then I stepped out and strolled toward the warehouse.

The door was open, and light poured out into the darkness. I could see shadows inside.

.

This was it.

Ten years of planning, of fighting, of dreaming to get us here.

I stepped through the door.

Nikolai was at the point, as comfortable as anything, with a gun. And there was Celine, tied to a chair next to him, her head bent forward.

Blood stained her shirt. Her face was bruised, swollen. But her chest rose and fell. Still breathing.

Still alive.

The relief that swept over me was so great that I thought for a moment my knees were going to give way.

Nikolai was grinning when I spotted him. "Welcome home, Morano. Let’s put the look back on this."

I hoisted both my hands to make clear that I had no weapons. "Let her go. Your fight is with me."

“But she’s so much more effective.” He placed the gun against Celine's temple. She didn't stir. Unconscious or drugged. "You took everything from me. My clubs, my operations, my name. Now I’m stealing the expletive out of you.”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“She is a huge part of this. She's the weakness I've been searching for.” He cocked the gun. “The only question is, do I kill her first and make you watch? Or kill you before allowing her to wake alone with your cadaver?”

"Neither." The voice was behind me at the door.

I turned.

There was Amaya, bloody but alive, clutching a gun with two hands. It was aimed at her uncle.

"Amaya?" Nikolai's composure cracked. "What are you doing?"

“Something that I wish and I should have done years ago.” Her hands were trembling but her voice was composed. “Putting an end to this dynasty of terror.”

"You wouldn't dare—"

She fired.

The report was an explosion in the confined chamber. Nikolai staggered back, the gun sliding from his hand. His chest blossomed with blood, spreading quickly.

He glanced at the wound, and then at his niece with a facial expression that almost seemed to express confusion. "You... shot me."

"I did." Tears streamed down her face. “I apologize for taking so long.”

And he fell, with a clatter on the concrete.

I didn't wait. Stopped at Celine, slicing her cords loose and released Amaya’s knife. She fell forward and I caught her, trying to feel for a pulse. Strong. Steady.

"Celine." I patted her face gently. "Wake up. Come on, wake up."

Her eyes opened, wide and bewildered. "Caelum?"

"I'm here. I've got you."

I heard Nikolai laughing behind me. A wet, pained sound.

I turned. His back resting against a crate, he had his hand clapped firmly to the wound, blood oozing between his fingers.

"You think this ends it?" He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "I have men everywhere. Loyalists who’ll track you both until your lives, gruesome as they are now, grind to nothing. You'll never be safe. Never be free."

"Then I will kill them all," I answered flatly. “One at a time until there’s not one of you that any longer remembers your name.”

He laughed again. "You can't kill everyone, Morano. Hydras always grow new heads.”

"Maybe. But it will grow them without you.”

His eyes found Amaya. "You betrayed your own blood."

“You sold yourself out,” she said softly. “The second you chose power over family.

His breathing was getting shallow. The wound was fatal. Minutes, maybe less.

"Good," he wheezed. "Let it be you. Let it be my own blood that brings me down. Poetic."

Amaya approached, looming over him. "I don't want your forgiveness. I just want you gone."

“Then we both get what we want. His eyes closed. "See you in hell, niece."

His breathing stopped. His chest no longer heaved up and down.

Nikolai Volkov was dead.

Ten years. Ten years of planning and fighting and giving up pieces of my soul.

And it was over.

I looked at Amaya. "Why?"

“Because I was sick of being a puppet.” Her hands shaking, she lowered the gun. “Done hurting innocent people for a man who refers to me as property.” She looked at Celine, still dazed in my arms. "I'm sorry. For what I made you both endure. I don't expect forgiveness. I just wanted you to know."

Sirens wailed in the distance. Getting closer.

"You need to go," Amaya said. "Both of you. I'll handle the police. Tell them it was self defense, that my uncle attacked me. They'll believe it."

"Amaya—"

"Go!" Her voice broke. "Please. Let me just do this one thing right.”

I rose to my feet, the fair maiden in my arms. She was becoming heavier as she regained consciousness, her arms tightening around my neck.

"Thank you," I said to Amaya.

She smiled sadly. "Don't thank me. Just live. Both of you. Be happy. “Right, so can we take it off and get to work now?”

I walked out into the night, away from the warehouse, away from Nikolai's body, ten years of death and killing.

Kent was standing by my car with Ryker next to him. They'd come anyway, disobeying orders.

"Boss?" Kent asked.

"It's done." I buckled Celine into the backseat, got in next to her. "Nikolai's dead. Amaya killed him."

"And her?"

"She's taking the fall. Buying us time."

Kent nodded. "Where to?"

I glanced at Celine, her bruised face on my shoulder. "Somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. Somewhere we can finally breathe."

"The ocean house?" Ryker suggested.

"Perfect."

We squealed away, emergency vehicles with their sirens going racing by us toward the warehouse as I held Celine so tight.

"Is it really over?" she whispered.

"Yes." I kissed her forehead. "It's finally over."

She fell against me, and for the first time in a decade or more I felt something that I thought was gone forever.

Hope.