Chapter 25 I'M COMING FOR YOU

Chapter 25 I'M COMING FOR YOU
NIKOLAI
I heard the guns cock, but I couldn’t be sure, so I kept talking. The first shot got my attention, my ears perked up in alert, and I reached for my own gun, but when the gunshots started unloading, my feet moved swiftly out into the yard, with everyone else in the room behind me.
By the time we got out into the yard, the gunshots had stopped, and on the floor in the middle of the building was Mia, still in the nightdress she wore to bed.
Everything else fades around me, and the world is narrowed to a single, unbearable fact.
She’s laying on her side, white hair spilled over her face. There are blood stains on the floor near her shoulder.
She’s not moving.
Something in me snaps. Not anger – no. This feeling is beyond anger.
“Who did this?” My voice tears out of me like a foreign sound. I can barely even recognize it.
No one answers, and it angers me even more.
Men stand frozen. Some pale, some wide-eyed. Some are still gripping their guns.
I raise my gun and point it at the person in front of me. “I asked a bloody question!”
He still says nothing, and without thinking, I place my hand on the trigger and fire the gun. His body hits the ground with a loud thud, and I move my gun to the next person.
“I want answers!” I yell.
I open fire, hitting everyone and everything in front of me. Some went down injured, others dead.
Hands grab me from behind, but I fight them, blinded with rage that I have never felt before, snarling like an animal pulled from its cage.
“Nikolai – stop!” Finn says, holding onto me desperately.
I try to break free and raise the gun again.
“Let me go!”
“Stop. They were following orders!”
I stop struggling and turn to him in a heartbeat. “Who’s orders?”
“Yours,” he says, and I furrow my brows. “You said if she tried to escape or had a gun, she should be shot.”
In that moment, I realized the part I had played in this. I was instructed to shoot her if she ever tried to escape.
My eyes move to her motionless body, with Delilah crouched over her. The gun is lying there inches away from her hand, and I drag in a deep breath.
“She’s alive,” Delilah says, and I feel the instant relief from the tightening in my chest.
“Boss!” one of the guards comes running.
I turn my attention to the man running towards me immediately.
“There’s something you need to see.”
I furrow my brows and turn to D. “Get her all the help she needs, use whatever resource is necessary.”
I follow the guard, and he leads me to Mia’s room.
The door is ajar, and\[LO1\]  as soon as I step in, I see the body on the floor. There are signs of struggle all around the room. Even without being here, I have a pretty good picture of what might have happened.
“Who is he?” I ask, referring to the dead man on the floor.
“He was one of the recruits. But we now have reason to believe that he must have been a plant. We’ve gotten to work on trying to find out who he might be working for.”
I have a pretty good idea who that is.
“Get back to me on every single thing you discover.”
“Yes, boss,” he says and leaves.
I stay behind, looking around the room. There’s blood all over the floor which I assume is from her since the body on the floor has no trace of a flesh wound. The scarf that she used to take him out is recklessly tossed across the floor.
I squat over the body and dig into the dead guy’s pockets. I find a burner phone with only one number on it.
I still don’t understand why people do this nonsense. I think giving an assassin a burner phone is just setting yourself up; it’s not smart at all.
When you send a soldier to war, he either comes back victorious or he doesn’t come back at all. In a case where he doesn’t return, your existence should never be known. Those are the rules.
The phone rings immediately, as if to further prove my point.
I answer and wait.
“What is taking you so long?”
It’s been years, but I can still remember his voice like it was yesterday.
“I’m coming for you, Dante, and whoever the fuck is pulling your strings.”
The line goes dead immediately, and I smirk. I just need to know that Mia is okay first and foremost, then I will find him and give him what he’s had coming for all these years.