Chapter 23 23

Chapter 23 23

Celine's POV

Flashback – Earlier That Morning

I woke up cold and alone.

Beside him on the spot where Caelum had been lying was vacant, his bed sheets cool. He'd been gone for a while.

I rose cautiously to a sitting posture, and my bones creaked. The cabin was quiet. Too quiet.

"Caelum?" I called out softly.

No answer.

I stood and tugged on one of his shirts, padding barefoot to the front room. That's when I saw them.

Two of Caelum's guards were on the ground, out like burnt matches. Not dead — I could see their chests rising and falling — but out.

Terror flooded through me.

"Caelum!" I screamed this time.

The front door crashed open.

Black-clad men filed in, clear-eyed and on military time. I ran for the bedroom, for Caelum's gun that I knew was in the nightstand, but they were too quick.

Hands grabbed me from behind. I screamed, fought, kicked, bit. Landed one and only one good shot — my elbow connecting with somebody’s nose. D. Heard the gratifying crunch of cartilage.

“You the feisty one,” said another, in accented English.

“I kept fighting, but there were too many of them. Five, maybe six. All pros who knew exactly what they were doing.”

One of them brandished a syringe.

"No! No, please—"
The needle pierced my neck. Whatever they shot me up with was fast-acting. The world went sideways; my legs dropped under me. The last thing I recalled was being lifted, borne outside into gray morning light.

Then nothing but darkness.

\---
‘Present’

I awoke with my head throbbing and my mouth full of copper. Tried to move and couldn't. My wrists were bound to a chair, and the rope cut through skin that was already raw and bleeding.
The warehouse. I was in a warehouse. Rusty, abandoned, the smell of rot everywhere.

Where people died.

"Ah, she's awake."

I snapped my head up, a stab of agony ringing through me. Squinted to try and look through the fog.

An older man, who looked relaxed in a chair the way you do when we were having tea, sat down opposite me. Ruthless, silver tint, cold blue eyed looks. I knew him from the parking garage.

Nikolai Volkov.

"Where's Caelum?" I shouted, my voice rough and breaking.

"Coming. I invited him very, very forcefully.” He smiled without warmth. "You know, you look like her. Not exactly, but enough. I can see why he's obsessed."

"Like who?"

"Isabelle. His first great love. The Woman I Murdered To Make Him. He said it as breezily as if he were talking about the weather. Ten years ago, I had her car driven off a bridge. Staged it to look accidental. She drowned while he was in a meeting, oblivious to the fact that life as he knew it was over.”

Hatred boiled out the fear which raced up through me. "You're a monster."

"I'm a businessman. Caelum was going soft, thinking about walking away from the life. I couldn't have that. He was too valuable, too much of a threat to let get away. So I took away his excuse to leave.” He leaned forward. "And it backfired spectacularly. For 10 years, he worked to systematically dismantle everything I had built.”
"Good."

Nikolai's smile faded. "Yes. He did quite a thorough job. Which brings us to today. To you. The perfect act of a melodrama like ours.”

"I'm not her. I'm not Isabelle."

“No, but he adores you just the same. That makes you his biggest weakness.” He got up and walked towards me until I could smell his cologne. “I have been planning this war for months. Every move calculated. Amaya planted in his class. Your ex boyfriend would used to come very close to you. The attacks intended to force you together. All of it was bringing aim toward here, now.”

My stomach turned. “Amaya is basically working for you all along?”

"She had no choice. I can put her parents behind bars. Do as I say or they die. Simple motivation, really."

"You're sick."

"I'm effective." He glanced at his watch, in a motion so nonchalant that my skin crawled. "And right on schedule. Your hero must turn up any minute! Then we'll find out how much he really loves you. We’ll find out what he’s willing to give up.”

My heart was beating against my ribs. "He won't come. He's too smart for that."

"He'll come. Love can cause the brightest of men to act like duffers.
\---

I listened to the footsteps before I saw him.
Slow, steady, deliberate. The sound that precedes a person walking to his own execution.

Caelum came through the door, his hands in the air and carrying nothing. His gaze met mine at once, and the swoop of relief that filled his expression was almost painful to see.

"Celine."

Run!" I screamed, bracing my legs and pulling on the cords until they bit into my body even more. "Caelum, run! It's a trap!"

But he just kept walking toward me, his gaze still locked on my face. Every step measured and calm: cautious, deadly.

“I know it’s a trap,” he said softly, his voice low. "I don't care."

Nikolai laughed, and the sound rang against the metal walls. "Touching. Truly touching. Now, Caelum, let's discuss terms. I can give you a choice, and I recommend you decide well. Her life, or your empire. You sign over everything — your territories, your men, your power, you offshore accounts — and I let her go. She walks out of here alive."

"Where do I sign?" There passed not so much as a second before Caelum did it again.

I just stared at him, mouth agape, tears rolling down my cheeks. "No! Caelum, don't—"

“Nikolai, take your exchange somewhere else,” he snapped at me. He glanced at Caelum, surprise registering on his face. "You really have gone soft. The old you would have done the math, found an angle, played for time. This version just... surrenders everything?"

"This version knows what matters." Caelum's gaze never left mine, and I read it in them. Love. Acceptance. Peace with his choice.

Nikolai took papers from his jacket's inside pocket. Legal documents, assets transfer, power of attorney. Everything that would leverage away Caelum's empire. He placed them on a wooden crate with pen.

Caelum walked over and signed. Didn't read them. Didn't hesitate. Signed his life’s work away in a blink.

Nikolai grabbed up the sheets of paper, examining the signatures with undisguised satisfaction. Then he smiled, and it was the meanest smile I’d ever seen.

“You know I’m going to have to kill you both, don’t you? Did you truly believe I would honor any sort of agreement with you?”

"I know." Caelum’s voice seemed tranquil to the point of serene. "But I bought time."

Nikolai frowned. "Time for what?"

Explosions rocked the warehouse.

The walls shook violently. Smoke gushed in on all sides, dense and suffocating. There were gunshots outside — that sound you know because there was a full military-style assault.
Kent and Ryker hadn't listened. They’d come after him against his orders.

The cavalry had arrived.

Chaos erupted instantly. Nikolai's men grabbed weapons, shouting orders in Russian. Smoke grenades enveloped the warehouse, transforming it all into gray disorientation where shapes shifted as though ghosts.

Caelum lunged for Nikolai.

They met with a powerful collision, smashed the concrete floor. Fists flew, brutal and raw. These weren’t calculated blows from trained fighters — this was simply violence. Decades of hatred and anger went into each punch.

I pulled and thrashed so hard at my restraints, I didn't even feel the now-knife-like rope cutting me with blood all over my wrists. Fear fueled me with more energy than I even knew I had. I twisted, pulled and felt skin tear and something warm and wet run down my hands.

Blood. My blood making the rope slick.

One hand came free.

I worked feverishly at the other rope, fingers fumbling and trembling, sliding in my own blood. Got it unstuck after what seemed like an eternity. Swaying on legs that could barely support me, the world spinning.

Searched frantically for a weapon. Anything.

Once had her hands on another kind of pipe, on the floor this time and heavy and solid -- perfect.

A shot came from the smoke, and one of Nikolai's men launched himself from it, weapon up and looking around. His eyes grew wide when he saw me, then he began to point his weapon.
I let loose with the pipe.

Met his skull with a sickening crack. He took a big fall and never got up.

Maddie would be so proud.

Caelum and Nikolai were still brawling, a writhing heap now on the sodden, bloody floor. Both bleeding heavily, both spent but driven by something going well beyond physical capacity. But Caelum was younger, stronger and fuelled by a hot flame of fury that had blazed for a decade.

He straddled him, knees on his arms and made another entire motion. His fingers closed around Nikolai's throat and clenched.

“This is for Isabelle,” he growled between clenched teeth. "For Celine. For all the people you’ve killed over the years.”

Nikolai was purple, his fingers scrabbling feebly at Caelum's iron grip but unable to avail himself.

A shot rang out, impossibly loud.

Caelum's body jerked violently. He swayed, slackening his hold from Nikolai's throat as his hands involuntarily reached behind him to touch the spreading blood staining his shirt.
I said spinning around on the source of the noise my heart in my throat.

Standing frozen in the entrance was Amaya, her gun still smoking in her shaking hands. Tears fell on her bruised face as she shook all over.

“I’m sorry,” she wept, the words breaking. "He still has my family. My parents. He said he’d kill them slowly if I didn’t… I can’t… I’m so sorry. Please forgive me."

She had shot Caelum in the back.

He fell forward, he hit the concrete, hard.

I screamed, but it wasn’t a sound I recognized as coming from my own throat.

I ran to him, fell down on my knees in his slick warms blood and gathered him into me.
"No, no, no, please no—"

His eyes met mine, yet glazed with shock and pain.

“Love you,” he murmured, blood staining his lips.

Then his eyes closed.