Viktor's arms were steady as he carried Elara toward the exit, but she fought against his grip with what little strength she had left.
"Wait—Kael—he's going after Lucien—"
"I know." Viktor's voice was calm, professional. "And there's nothing we can do about it except follow his orders."
Follow his orders. Even when those orders might get him killed.
The loading dock opened onto a narrow alley where two armored vehicles waited, engines running. Viktor's team formed a protective perimeter, weapons drawn, scanning for threats with military precision.
Behind them, the warehouse continued burning—smoke billowing into the night sky like a beacon announcing exactly what happened when someone stole from the Ghost.
How many inside? How many dead because Lucien took me?
Viktor was moving her toward the first vehicle when the explosion hit.
Not distant this time. Not muffled by walls and corridors. This was immediate, catastrophic—a blast that originated somewhere deep in the warehouse's heart and tore through the building with devastating force.
The shockwave knocked Viktor off balance, and they both went down hard on the asphalt. His body instinctively covered hers, protecting her from debris that rained down like deadly hail.
Kael. Oh God, Kael was still inside.
"Status!" Viktor barked into his comm, one arm still shielding her. "I need status on Thorne NOW!"
Static. Just static and the roar of flames consuming what was left of the building.
He's dead. The explosion killed him. I watched him walk into that building and he's not coming out.
"Sir? Mr. Thorne, do you copy?"
More static. Elara's chest tightened until breathing became a conscious effort. She stared at the burning warehouse—or what was left of it—and tried to process the reality that Kael might be dead.
He came for me. Burned everything down to save me. And now he's—
"Thorne, respond!" Viktor's professional calm was cracking. "Goddammit, Kael—"
The comm crackled to life. "I'm here." Kael's voice, rough with smoke but unmistakably alive. "Exiting south entrance. Mercier's in the wind—basement tunnel we didn't account for."
He's alive. He's alive and Lucien escaped.
Relief and dread hit simultaneously. Relief that he'd survived the explosion. Dread at what him surviving meant for whoever had caused it—and for Lucien, who'd managed to slip away.
"Copy that," Viktor said, his relief evident despite years of professional training. "Primary is secured. Moving to extraction point Alpha."
"Negative. Route compromised—saw movement on approach. Take the south access. I'll meet you at the vehicles."
Viktor helped Elara to her feet with gentle efficiency, but she could see his hands shaking slightly—not from fear but from the adrenaline crash that came after thinking his boss had just died in an explosion.
How many times has he done this? Waited to see if Kael survived whatever violence he'd thrown himself into?
They were almost to the vehicles when he appeared.
Kael emerged from a side door she hadn't noticed, moving with that predatory grace despite being covered in enough blood and soot to look like he'd crawled through hell. His white shirt was mostly black now, his face streaked with ash, his hands—
His hands are shaking again. Barely visible but definitely trembling.
His eyes found her immediately, and something in his expression made her breath catch. Not the cold fury from before. Not the controlled Ghost who'd carved through the building. Something rawer, more vulnerable, absolutely terrifying in its intensity.
"Get her in the car," he said quietly. "Now."
Viktor obeyed without question, guiding Elara toward the open door of the first vehicle. The interior was all leather and bulletproof glass—luxury designed to survive warzones.
How appropriate.
She climbed in, her body moving on autopilot, still processing the fact that they were both alive when so many others weren't. Kael slid in beside her, and Viktor closed the door with the finality of a tomb sealing.
"Drive," Kael ordered the driver. "Don't stop for anything."
The vehicle pulled away from the burning warehouse with smooth efficiency, the second car falling in behind them as escort. Through the rear window, Elara watched the flames consume what was left of the building, smoke rising like a funeral pyre for all the people who'd died tonight.
All because of me. All because I couldn't trust the cage that was keeping me safe.
The silence in the car was suffocating. Kael sat beside her, not touching, just staring straight ahead with an expression she couldn't read. His hands rested on his thighs, and she could see them trembling—not violently but persistently, like tremors from an internal earthquake he was trying to suppress.
"Kael—" she started.
"Not yet." His voice was soft, almost gentle. "Just... not yet. Let me just—"
He didn't finish the sentence. Just sat there, covered in blood and ash, trembling hands and careful breathing that suggested he was using every ounce of control not to completely fall apart.
He's in shock. The Ghost is in shock from what he just did.
Elara reached out slowly, telegraphing her movement, and placed her hand over his. His fingers were cold despite the heat still radiating from the burning warehouse behind them.
The moment she touched him, something broke.
He turned toward her with a sound that might have been a sob or a growl or both, his arms coming around her with crushing force. He pulled her into his lap like she weighed nothing, burying his face against her neck, his entire body shaking with tremors that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with whatever breakdown he'd been holding off through sheer willpower.
"I couldn't stop them," he said against her skin, voice rough and broken. "When they took you, I couldn't—I tried to reach you, tried to stop them, but I was too slow and they had you and I—"
He's been replaying it. Over and over. The moment he failed to prevent my kidnapping.
"I'm okay," she whispered, her arms coming up around him. "I'm here. You got me back."
"I burned everything." The words came out flat, factual. "Sixty-three people dead. Mercier's European operations completely destroyed. Three of his distribution networks eliminated. And it still wasn't enough because he got away."
Sixty-three. Sixty-three people dead tonight.
"The explosion—"
"Was his exit strategy. Took out the entire east wing to cover his escape." Kael's arms tightened around her until she could barely breathe. "He planned it from the start. Knew I'd come, knew I'd be focused on finding you. Used you as bait to draw me in, then burned his own building to get away."
I was bait. Exactly like he said. And it almost worked.
"But you survived."
"I survived." His laugh was bitter, sharp. "I always survive. That's the problem—everyone around me dies or gets hurt or disappears, and I just keep surviving."
Everyone around me. He's including me in that category now. Acknowledging that being near him is dangerous.
She pulled back just enough to look at his face, seeing the blood and ash and exhaustion written in every line. But beneath it all, she saw something else—fear. Real, genuine fear that had nothing to do with his own survival and everything to do with hers.
"I'm alive," she said firmly. "You came for me and I'm alive. That's what matters."
"Is it?" His dark eyes held hers with devastating intensity. "Is it what matters? Or does it matter that sixty-three people died tonight because I couldn't control my rage long enough to plan a strategic extraction? That I turned a rescue operation into a massacre because the thought of you being hurt made me lose every bit of control I've built over five years?"
Five years. Since Isabella. He's comparing this to Isabella.
"This is different," she said.
"How? How is this different? I lost control, people died, and the man who took you got away to try again another day." His voice cracked. "How is that different from five years ago when I lost someone because I wasn't strong enough to protect them?"
He thinks this is happening again. Thinks history is repeating and he's going to lose me the way he lost her.
"I'm not Isabella," she said quietly.
"No." His agreement was immediate. "You're not. You're stronger, more defiant, more likely to get yourself killed seeking truth than accepting protection." His smile was sad, self-mocking. "Which somehow makes you even more valuable and even more vulnerable."
The car was moving through the city now, leaving the burning warehouse behind. Through the bulletproof windows, Elara could see normal people living normal lives—unaware that a war had just been fought, that dozens had died, that the Ghost had painted the night red to reclaim his possession.
"What happens now?" She made herself ask.
"Now?" Kael shifted slightly, one hand coming up to trace her face like he was confirming she was real. "Now I take you home. I clean up this mess. I hunt Lucien Mercier to the ends of the earth until he understands that taking you was the last mistake he'll ever make."
Hunt him to the ends of the earth. He's not exaggerating.
"And me? What about what I want?"
Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, that she was still thinking about autonomy after everything that had happened. "What do you want?"
What do I want? I don't even know anymore. Freedom? The cage? Him? None of it? All of it?
"I don't know," she admitted. "I just know I don't want more people dying because of me."
"Then you're going to be disappointed." His voice was soft but absolute. "Because people are going to die, Elara. Lucien's people, anyone who helped him, anyone who even knew about the kidnapping and didn't report it. I'm going to systematically destroy everyone involved until the message is clear."
The message. That I'm his. That touching me means death.
"That's not protection. That's revenge."
"It's both." He pulled her closer, and now there was no space between them at all. "It's showing you that I meant what I said—I would burn the world down to keep you safe. And it's showing everyone else that the cost of taking you from me is extinction."
The possessive anger from earlier was gone, burned away by the violence or exhausted by the adrenaline crash. What remained was something rawer, more honest, absolutely terrifying in its vulnerability.
This wasn't the Ghost making threats. This was a man who'd just lived through his worst nightmare and was trying to process the fact that he'd survived it—and that surviving might not be enough to prevent it from happening again.
"I can't lose you," he whispered, so quietly she almost missed it. "I survived losing Isabella by becoming something that couldn't feel anymore. But you—" His voice cracked. "You made me feel again. And now the thought of losing you is worse than dying because I know exactly what that loss feels like and I can't—I won't survive it twice."
He's saying he loves me. In his way, with his vocabulary of violence and possession, he's saying he loves me.
"I'm here," she said again, the only comfort she could offer. "I'm alive and I'm here."
"For now." His arms tightened until she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, could feel the tremors still running through him. "But Lucien got away. And he knows now—knows for certain that you're my weakness. He'll tell others. Sell the information to my enemies. And they'll all come for you eventually."
Eventually. Not if. When.
"So what do we do?"
He was quiet for a long moment, his face buried against her neck, his breath warm against her skin. When he finally spoke, his voice held a resignation that was somehow worse than his rage had been.
"We go home. We fortify. We prepare for the war that's coming." He pulled back to look at her, and what she saw in his eyes made her chest ache. "And I hold you as tightly as I can for as long as you'll let me, because I don't know how much time we have before someone tries to take you again."
The possessive anger was gone.
In its place was something raw and terrifying—not the controlled Ghost, not the cold businessman, not even the vulnerable man from the study.
Just someone who'd touched his worst fear and survived, but knew that survival was temporary and the nightmare would come again.
And as the car carried them through the city toward the penthouse, toward the cage that would be her home again, Elara Chen held her captor while he shook with aftershocks and realized with crushing clarity that she'd just become the most dangerous person in his world.
Not because of who she was.
But because of how much he loved her.