Chapter 21 Chapter Twenty One
KANE
We found the Sanctuary on a hill. It was built with steel and glass and had strong security and advanced surveillance systems.
“She really went full Bond villain with this one,” Kendrick muttered beside me, crouched low in the tall grass just outside the perimeter fence.
I didn’t reply.
I was already scanning patterns—guard rotations, light sweeps, and camera angles. One mistake and we’d be spotted. And if we were spotted, Nina would pay the price.
So we wouldn’t be.
I flicked my wrist.
Jammer—on.
The cameras twitched, froze, blinked out. Fifteen minutes.
We moved.
Over the fence. Through the trees.
Immediately, my foot hit the ground; I moved swiftly to my first victim. I crept towards the unsuspecting man's back and then his body trembled, shoulders jerking up a bit as he fearfully turned towards me, noticing my presence behind him. His mouth opened, ready to alert the other guards lurking in the distance, but it was already too late. My fist was already wrapped tightly around his neck in a death grip. His eyeballs rolled behind his head and he went limp. I dropped him like dead weight. At this point, I didn't care if he was dead or not. Being away from Nina for a few hours was driving me insane.
The second guard got a baton to the temple. Quick, clean, no noise.
We dragged them behind a storage unit and stripped their gear—black tactical uniforms, earpieces, gloves. Kendrick slipped into it with a grimace.
“Hope it’s not a dry-clean-only situation.”
I didn’t smile.
I pulled the mask over my face and clicked the comm.
“Sector Four clear,” I said.
“Copy.”
We moved again, now on the inside.
Blending in.
Walking like we belonged.
There were other guards posted at every hallway intersection, checking badges and nodding stiffly. I counted the steps. Doors. Exits.
We weren’t heading straight to Nina. Not yet.
We had to go around. Through the lower west wing, past a hall lined with monitors and glass offices. Too risky otherwise.
Kendrick nudged me and tilted his head—two more guards by a locked door.
“Got the keycard?” he whispered.
I didn’t answer.
I walked straight up to the guards.
They frowned, seeing through our disguise. “You’re not on rotation—”
I cracked one across the face before he could finish. Kendrick elbowed the other in the throat, yanking him down into a sleeper hold.
Both dropped like puppets with their strings cut.
“Now I do,” I said, grabbing the keycard from the first guy’s vest.
We slipped through the door and descended into the belly of the compound. The walls here were thicker, colder. The lights buzzed overhead. The air reeked of bleach.
I checked my watch.
Eight minutes left.
“We’re getting close,” Kendrick said, eyes scanning the hallway ahead. “According to intel, she’s being kept in a lower chamber. It’s open-air but shielded by the cliff wall. Private access only.”
“Let’s go,” I growled.
We rounded a corner—and froze.
The red light above the next door blinked once.
Then again.
Cameras were back.
“Shit,” Kendrick hissed.
We backed up, looking for another way around—
Too late.
The lights above us blared white. A siren wailed once, long and low. Then stopped.
The door ahead slid open.
And standing there, dressed like a damn opera villain, was Miss Carie. Behind her was a wall of guards. She smiled.
“Well, well,” she said sweetly. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come.”
I kept my gun raised.
Miss Carie didn’t flinch.
Her guards stood at her back like a damn wall—armed and alert,. She didn’t need them to move. She already had what she wanted.
"You should’ve stayed gone," she said coldly, her heels echoing down the corridor. "Played house. Pretend you were free. But instead… you came crawling back to the woman who made you. And now, you’ll lose everything she gave you."
“Cut the crap. You took her,” I said, jaw tight. “You brought this on yourself.”
Miss Carie tilted her head. “And what a beautiful storm you’ve made.”
She turned and started walking without waiting, heels clicking against the marble floor like a metronome.
“Follow,” she called over her shoulder. “Or don’t. But you’ll never see her again if you hesitate.”
I didn’t move for a second.
Kendrick leaned close and murmured under his breath, “We don’t have a choice.”
I knew.
We followed.
Through winding corridors, down tight spiral stairs, past vaulted doors and armed checkpoints that opened like the mouth of a beast ready to swallow us whole.
At the end of the corridor, a final set of steel doors waited. Two guards pulled them open.
The wind howled through the opening like a warning.
Cliffside air. Cold. Raw.
My chest tightened.
I moved forward—and stopped dead.
There she was.
Nina.
Tied to a wooden chair, her hair whipped by the wind, her dress fluttering around her swollen stomach. Her feet dangled just inches from the edge. I couldn't see what was below her but I felt it. Below her—nothing but jagged rocks and black sea.
Miss Carie stepped aside like a magician unveiling the final trick of her act.
She held a rope in her hands.
It snaked down through a pulley embedded in the platform—attached to the back of Nina’s chair. One tug and she’d tip. Just like that.
Nina’s eyes met mine.
Terror. Relief. And something stronger than both.
Love.
“Kane,” she whispered.
I surged forward.
Miss Carie yanked the rope, and the chair tilted sharply.
“Ah-ah,” she said softly. “One step closer, and I let go.”
I froze.
Kendrick cursed under his breath beside me, drawing his weapon again—but I held out a hand.
“No shots. Not here.”
Miss Carie’s smile was serene. Her eyes were wild.
“Look at her,” she said, her voice breaking with something twisted and raw. “So soft. So weak. That’s what you chose over me?”
"Let her go," I said instead.
Her smile slipped.
She stepped closer to Nina, crouching beside her like a snake.
“She turned you into a man I don’t recognize. One who feels. Who loves.”
She spat the word like it tasted rotten.
“You think love is power?” she whispered. “You think it makes you stronger?”
I raised my gun, sights locked on her skull.
“Let. Her. Go.”
But Miss Carie only laughed.
“I’ll give you a chance,” she said, voice low and trembling with control. “Drop the gun. Come back to me. Choose me—like you should’ve from the start. Or I let go… and your little family dies screaming at the bottom of that cliff.”
Silence.
Wind.
Nina’s voice was soft. “Don’t give her what she wants.”
My throat burned.
Every part of me screamed to move. To kill. To save her.
But the wrong move would end it all.