This moment. The gunshot. The screams. It felt so familiar.
My eyes snapped to the floor when I heard a pained whimper. My muscles locked tight as my body went rigid at the sight in front of me.
I almost stumbled back in shock but stopped myself in time as I stared at Maddie in complete horror. My eyes followed the pool of blood surrounding her, and my stomach rolled.
Blood wasn’t something new to me. I was accustomed to blood and the horror that came with it. I made people bleed. I laughed when they bled. Hell, I took pleasure in seeing them begging for their lives as they bled to death.
No, I wasn’t scared of blood. It wasn’t why my stomach rolled and my knees felt weak.
It was this moment, this feeling of déjà vu that made me sick. I saw this when I was seven, when my mother took her last breath.
And now I was seeing it again.
I rushed to Maddie’s side and knelt down beside her before pulling her into my arms. “Maddie?” I choked.
Her next words were filled with pain, but I heard them. Clear as day. They brought another type of pain in my chest. Pain and then anger. So much anger.
“Artur…” she gasped through the pain. “He…is…the…the…traitor…spy…”
Maddie winced as her body convulsed. She stared at me with frightened eyes, begging me. I didn’t have to see my face to know my expression thundered with fury. I felt it vibrating through my bones.
Maddie kept talking even through her labored breathing.
“He…knows,” she broke off and her face twisted, sweat breaking out on the skin of her forehead. Blood dribbled in the corner of her lips.
Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried to speak. “He…knows…where…Ayla…is…”
Ayla. At the sound of her name, my heart picked up a beat. My arms tightened around Maddie.
The numbness was gone. My mind was clear once again. Instead of the coldness seeping through my body, all I felt was burning anger.
“Get him!” I bellowed. I saw Viktor running out of the room. Nikolay jumped out of the window.
I felt hot, my skin itching with the need to kill. To make him bleed.
Artur, one of my most trusted men. How did I not see it? I trusted him, yet he betrayed me. For how long?
He was dying, cold, homeless, starving. But I picked him up, gave him a home. A family. Even when his father was a traitor, I believed in him.
Stupid. So fucking stupid. I didn’t trust people easily, but trusting Artur had been a mistake. A big fucking one.
Shaking my head, I looked down at Maddie. She had to pay the price. Ayla had to pay the price of my stupidity.
Maddie cried in my arms, her entire body shaking with how heavy her sobbing was. She placed her hand over her stomach, right over where the bullet went through.
Closing her eyes, she whispered. Her voice was low, her words so softly spoken. “My…baby…”
What—?
I stared at her, completely horrified.
I heard her wrong. My mind was playing tricks on me. I wanted to ask her, try to clear this confusion, but my tongue felt heavy.
She opened her eyes again. “Baby…my…baby…” she cried in my arms.
There was no mistake. No confusion. My mind wasn’t playing a trick on me. I heard it clearly, and it hurt. The words hurt, and I couldn’t imagine how badly it was hurting Maddie.
My lips didn’t move. I just stared. Even when Maddie was taken from my arms, Phoenix screaming, crying, begging her not to leave him, I didn’t move.
My eyes slowly made their way to Maddie’s stomach, where she was bleeding profusely. There was no way the baby would make it. It was impossible.
Would Maddie even make it?
I didn’t fucking know anything.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when Sam came running into the room. Phoenix carried Maddie to the bed, and I quickly got to my feet.
My blood roared at the unfairness. No, it roared with anger, with the need for answers. I was raging, my body shaking with the force of my fury.
My eyes moved around the room, making contact with Viktor as he rushed into the room again.
I saw the fury, impatience, and worry in his expression. I also knew he was wrestling for control. I was too. We all were.
Artur wasn’t going to make it out alive.
Viktor stared at me and gave me a single nod before walking out again. One nod was all it took to drive me to the point of insanity.
Artur had been captured, and my control had snapped.
Giving Maddie a final glance, I walked out of the room. I didn’t call Phoenix. There was no point. He wasn’t going to leave Maddie’s side now.
Making my way to the basement, I let the fury boil. I let myself feel the anger, knowing it would serve me well later.