I raise mine, squeeze the trigger, and cringe at the not-so-quiet silencer. It sounds like a car backfiring. Without hesitating, I hit the driver as he tries to duck beneath the dashboard.
Head down, I hurry around the driver’s side to check that he’s dead. His unseeing eyes tell me everything I need to know, and I pull the keys out of the ignition and continue to the back.
My fingers tremble as I unlock the van’s barn doors. The abductors probably rendered them both unconscious for easy transportation. I would do the same in their position.
Thinking about Phoenix lying cold and vulnerable and at their mercy eviscerates my heart with imaginary blades.
I open the door, and she flies at me like a banshee with her arms outstretched. I grab her wrists, but she’s so lost in her fury that she continues to thrash and kick within my grip.
“Miss Stahl,” I snap, using the voice I know will cut through her haze.
Phoenix melts against my body, her eyes focusing. “Professor?”
I set her on her feet. “Are you alright?”
“Professor Segul?” says a male voice I hoped would be silenced.
Fuck.
Veer Bestlasson leans his body against the side of the van and eases himself up to stand. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing,” says a cold voice from behind.
Stepping away from the car door, I move Phoenix behind my back, and meet the wintry eyes of Odin Bestlasson.
ChapterForty-Five
MARIUS
Shit.
Fuck.
Bollocks.
How the bloody hell did Odin work everything out so quickly?
Phoenix trembles at my back, probably wondering what the hell is happening, while I’m staring down the country’s most ruthless crime lord.
My insides light up with a thunderstorm of self-doubt. Paranoia has always kept me out of trouble. So, how the fuck did I drive through the outskirts of Marina and not notice Odin?
I raise my gun, its barrel aimed at his throat. Not between the eyes, because I need a distraction. If the shot I make is only semi-lethal, at least one of Odin’s men will forgo killing me to rush to their leader’s aid.
“Uncle?” the Bestlasson boy says from within the van.
Odin doesn’t so much as twitch, but a pair of men wearing black emerge from the other side of the vehicle, each holding guns.
When the rumble of another vehicle fills the other side of the dead-end road, my mind makes rapid-fire calculations about my chances of getting through this ambush alive.
Conclusion: there’s no escape.
“Take my nephew and his fiancée,” Odin says, still not moving his gaze from mine.
His presumption grates across my nerves like jagged pebbles, and when Phoenix’s breath catches, I can’t tell if it’s because she’s worked out the identity of the man standing in front of us or because Odin just announced he intends for her to marry Veer Bestlasson.
One of the men lifts the boy from the van, while the other trains a gun at my head, seeming to prioritize the threat to his boss over the order to take Phoenix.
Odin steeples his fingers. “Please put down your gun, Mr. Vanir.”