Chapter 5 BLOODIED BLADES

Elara

The world narrows to three things-The coppery taste of fear on my tongue.

Nikolai's grip, crushing my wrist.The switchblade trembling in my hand.

Bullets rip through the training room walls. Plaster snow falls, choking the air.

"Move!" Nikolai shoves me toward the weapons rack. Warm blood spatters my shoulder-his, not mine.

A man barrels through the doorway-black ski mask, machine gun raised.

Nikolai doesn't hesitate. He snatches a throwing star from the wall and whips it.

It sinks into the man's throat with a wet thud.The gun clatters to the floor. The man gurgles, dying.

"Pick it up," Nikolai barks.I stare. At the twitching fingers. At the blood pooling like spilled ink.

Sister Maria once said murderers burn in hell.

But she also let Anna lock me in the cellar for three days with no food.

I grab the gun. It's heavier than I thought. Like holding judgment in my hands.

Nikolai peeks into the hallway. "Six more. Maybe eight." He glances at my bare feet. "Can you run in those pajamas?"

The absurdity almost makes me laugh. "I ran from the matrons in worse."

Gunfire erupts upstairs. A woman screams-Mira. Something inside me fractures.

I move before I think, sprinting into the hallway like some half-made wraith.

The first masked man turns-too slow. I pull the trigger. The gun bucks in my grip.

I miss.

He doesn't.

White-hot pain slices through my side. I stumble. Then Nikolai's knife blooms from the man's eye socket.

"Idiot!" He yanks me behind a marble column. "Center mass! Not his damn hairline!" My wound scorches like fire. "I was aiming for his knees." "You-"

Footsteps. Loud. Close. Nikolai curses. "Christ. Uncle's going to kill me for this."

Two more attackers round the corner. Bullets hammer the marble above us.

My hands shake. The gun's magazine slips out, clattering across the floor.

"Perfect," Nikolai growls. He shoves his pistol into my hands. "Last mag. Make it count."

A gunman steps over a broken chair. I fire. Once.

Miss. Again.

The second shot punches into his gut. He crumples. The last one hesitates. One breath too long.

Nikolai pounces. They crash through a lamp. I grab the fallen knife, heartbeat drowning everything.

The masked man pins Nikolai, blade raised- I bury my switchblade in his back.

He stiffens. Hot blood runs down my hand. He collapses.

Nikolai stares at me, stunned. "You... actually stabbed him."

I wipe the blade on my pajama pants. "You're welcome." A crash from the foyer. Shouts. Italian.

Then-

Silence.

Nikolai hauls me down just as the front door explodes inward.

Asher steps through the wreckage, coat flaring like black wings.

Blood drips from the machete in one hand.

A pistol in the other, aimed at a man on his knees.

"Elara." His voice could shatter glass.

I stand. My side howls in pain.

Then Asher sees me-sees the blood.

His face darkens. The man on the floor whimpers.

"Who sent you?"

"I-I don't-"

Asher shoots him in the knee.

The man screams.

"Try again."

"V-Venzo! Said to grab the girl-"

My blood goes cold.

Asher's eyes lock onto mine. Something flickers there.

Then he shoots the man dead.

The silence that follows feels heavier than the gunshots.

Then Asher moves. The machete falls, forgotten.

He reaches me. Hands-still warm from killing-frame my face.

"Where are you hurt?"

Blood smears my cheeks under his thumbs. I don't know whose it is.

"Side," I whisper.

He rips my pajama top open without pause.

The wound's shallow. A graze.

But his jaw clenches like he's watching me die.

Mira appears with a medkit. Asher grabs it, presses gauze to my ribs with surprising tenderness.

"You fought well," he murmurs, just for me.

Nikolai scoffs behind us. "She almost got us both killed."

Asher doesn't look up. "Go count the bodies."

"But-"

"Now."

Nikolai vanishes. Asher's fingers linger.

"Venzo wants you dead," he says softly. "Because he knows what you are to me."

I meet his gaze. "What am I?"

His smile is a blade. "Mine."

The word should terrify me.

Instead, warmth blooms beneath the gauze.

Sirens wail in the distance.

Asher doesn't flinch.

"Time for your next lesson," he says, helping me to my feet.

I don't ask what it is.

I already know.

Tonight, I learn how to clean blood from hardwood floors.

The house still reeks of blood.

It's in the floorboards, soaked deep into the grain. No amount of bleach can chase it out. I scrub anyway, knuckles raw, the steel wool biting into my fingers until the water runs pink.

Asher stands by the window, watching the driveway like it might bite him. He hasn't said a word in an hour. Just smokes his third cigarette, the smoke curling around him like fog.

Nikolai returns with a garbage bag slung over his shoulder. It thuds when he drops it in the hall. "That's the last of them."

"Good," Asher murmurs. "Torch the van."

Nikolai doesn't argue. He never does when Asher speaks like that-quiet, like a man holding back a hurricane.

I dip the sponge again. My side throbs beneath the bandage, but I don't stop. If I stop, I'll remember. The way the man's body jerked. The heat of his blood. The weight of the knife still in my hand.

"You're scrubbing like guilt comes out in suds," Asher says.

I don't look up. "Doesn't it?"

He crosses the room. Sits beside me, close enough that I can smell the gunpowder still clinging to his coat. "You killed to protect someone. That's survival. Not guilt."

"I didn't protect him," I whisper. "I almost got him killed."

His hand covers mine, stilling it. "But you didn't."

I glance at him. His face is unreadable-always is. But there's a softness in his grip. A warmth that unsettles me more than the gunfire ever did.

"You're not angry?"

"I'm furious," he says. "But not at you."

He stands. "Get dressed. You're leaving in ten."

"Where?"

"Russia."

Asher's words hit harder than any bullet.

"Russia?" I echo, blood turning colder than the marble under my knees.

He doesn't answer right away. Just opens the closet, pulling out a weathered duffel and a black coat I've seen him wear only once before-on the night he broke a man's spine in front of me for information.

"You'll leave by midnight," he says, not meeting my eyes. "Nikolai will arrange transport."

I push to my feet, pain stabbing my ribs. "You're sending me away?"

"I'm keeping you alive." His voice is flat. Final.

"You said I fought well. You said-"

"I also said Venzo wants you dead." He turns then, eyes dark and bottomless. "You think this was the end? That was a scouting party. The real wolves are still circling."

I cross my arms, hating the tremble in my hands. "So send me to a safe house like I'm a parcel. Hide me while you and Nikolai play butcher."

His jaw tightens. "Yes."

"No."

He steps closer, looming. "This isn't a debate."

"I'm not afraid of them," I snap.

"You should be." His voice drops low. "You think I've survived this long by being brave? No. I've survived by being smart. Right now, the smartest thing you can do is disappear."

"And what if I don't want to?"

He exhales sharply, runs a hand through his hair. For a moment, the storm slips-and I see the man beneath. Exhausted. Frightened in a way he'll never admit.

"If they take you," he says slowly, "I won't be able to think. I'll burn the world trying to get you back. And that's exactly what they want."

I don't have an answer to that.

Instead, I whisper, "So this is a cage after all."

He touches my chin. Lifts it gently. "No. This is a vault. And I'm locking away the only thing in this world I can't replace."