up the stairs, asking God to protect the detective and my father. I fumbled up each step, tottering as dizziness once again enveloped me.
My head throbbed.
Shouts and bellows sounded from below, but I didn’t stop until I reached Nico’s office and locked myself inside. I dug my revolver out of my purse and clutched it like a lifeline. My phone was—dead.
Shit.
I couldn’t even dial 9-1-1 because Nico didn’t have a landline telephone in the office. That’s when I heard the crashing of glass downstairs, followed by an ominous whoosh that sounded all too familiar.
“Molotov!” one of the byki shouted.
I froze. As in, Molotov cocktail?
Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window? Who the bloody hell would do that? Were there more Voiny here?
It didn’t take long before I smelled it.
Smoke.
Oh, God. Please, no.
I flung the office door open and ran out into the hall. I heard the flickering of flames before I saw them. Looking over the stair banister, I saw the orange and yellow flames already licking their way along the wall of the taproom. Clearly, they were being accelerated by something. They shouldn’t have spread that fast.
Batya!
He couldn’t even walk. If I didn’t get him out, he was going to burn. Without thought, I started back down the stairs.
More gunfire.
One bullet struck only inches from my foot.
“Alexia!” Dimitri bellowed.
A plume of smoke billowed up from the fire and blew right in my face. Coughing like crazy, I dashed back up the stairs. I could barely see through my watery eyes as the smoke began to thicken around me.
Hot. Destructive. Deadly.
Not again.
It couldn’t have come back for me. I couldn’t be lucky enough to make it out of two fires in my lifetime, could I? No one could escape death that many times. Was this my fate? Was this how it ended for me?
With fire and fear?
The only means of escape from the second floor was the window behind Nico’s desk. It wasn’t too terribly high off the ground, and there was a small ledge about six or seven feet below the window. I could shimmy out that way and go back in downstairs for my father. I’d shoot anyone who got in my way if I had to.
I wouldn’t let the fire get him.
It took all my strength to lift the heavy window, but I eventually got it open. Sticking my head through, I peeked over the edge—
And nearly fainted from terror.
The fire had already engulfed the small ledge below the window. I couldn’t even see the ground over the rising flames.
Devastation gripped me. Panic rocked me.
I had no way out.
Something inside me shut down right then. My mind went somewhere else. A place without so much pain and anguish. Somewhere that allowed me to live inside my dreams forever.
Safely. Happily.
The people I loved most in the world were there with me. I forced my mind to see nothing but that place and nothing but those faces. That way I wouldn’t have to see what was coming for me. What was about to happen.
That way, Nico’s face would be the very last image I’d see.
Before I left him forever.
I never even got to tell him that I love him.
911. BAH. Now.
That was the text I’d received from Bryce about twenty minutes ago. I’d heard the chime when we’d all been looking for Lexi at my house, but I’d figured whatever he had to say couldn’t have been more important than finding my wife.
I’d earned myself another ass kicking.
That text came in before the fire alarms went off. Which meant shit had already been going sideways at my distillery. I just hoped Bryce had the situation under control.
“Faster!” I snapped at Cris.
Too much time had already passed since those alarms sounded.
He slammed his foot onto the accelerator, cursing under his breath.
I flipped my favorite dagger around in my hand, hilt to blade, hilt to blade, over and over. I didn’t flinch when the blade nicked my skin and drew blood. Didn’t blink. I liked the pain. Needed it to fuel my anger, fuel my rage, fuel my energy to take down whatever stood between me and my woman. Until I had Lexi back in my arms, in one piece and unharmed, I wouldn’t be capable of forming another sane thought.
We sped around a corner, and the distillery came into sight.
“Oh, Christ,” I murmured.
“Fuck me.”
The building was ablaze.
Lexi!
Through the busted-out windows, bright orange flames illuminated the interior of the first floor. It didn’t look like the second floor had