THE HONEY AND RYE BAKER

I dropped my phone.

It clattered against the concrete floor, the light spinning dizzily before settling on the pool of dark blood seeping into the grain sacks.

I backed up, pressing my hands over my mouth to stifle a scream. My chest heaved, panic threatening to drag me under. They had killed her. We were too late. Marcus had gotten what he wanted and slaughtered Lily’s mother in this rotting tomb.

Roman didn’t panic.

He didn’t gasp. He didn’t drop his weapon.

He simply knelt beside the bloodstained coat, his face an utterly unreadable mask of stone. He touched the velvet fabric, rubbing the wet blood between his fingers. He picked up the heavy industrial shears, examining the blades in the dim light.

“Roman,” I choked out, tears burning my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

“Stop,” Roman commanded quietly.

He stood up, wiping his bloody fingers on his trousers. He looked at me, his dark eyes sharp and utterly devoid of grief.

“She isn’t dead, Clare,” Roman said.

I stared at him, bewildered. “Look at the blood! Look at the coat!”

“I am looking at it,” Roman replied, his voice completely level. “Elena is small. Five-foot-two. This coat is an extra-large. And the blood pattern on the sleeve—it’s not a gunshot wound. It’s a laceration. Someone used these shears to cut the fabric away from a wound.”

He pointed the beam of the flashlight toward a narrow, rusted iron staircase leading up to the administrative offices suspended above the factory floor.

Small, bloody footprints led directly up the stairs.

“That’s not Elena’s blood,” Roman said, a terrifying, proud smile touching the corners of his mouth. “That’s Marcus’s. My sister fought back.”

Adrenaline slammed through my veins, washing away the terror. She was alive. And she was fighting.

“The offices,” I whispered, pointing up. “They’re soundproofed. The mill used them to block out the noise of the grinding machines.”

Roman nodded. He raised his weapon, his eyes locked on the catwalk. “Stay here.”

“Not a chance,” I said, stepping right behind him.

We climbed the rusted stairs, the metal groaning softly beneath our weight. At the top of the landing, a heavy steel door stood slightly ajar. Faint, muffled voices drifted through the gap.

Roman pressed his back against the wall, signaling for me to stay low. He pushed the door open another inch.

I peered through the crack.

The office was vast, lined with shattered glass windows overlooking the factory floor. Sitting tied to a metal chair in the center of the room was Marcus Vance. He was a large man, wearing an expensive suit ruined by a massive, bleeding gash across his forearm.

Standing over him, breathing heavily, was Elena.

She looked older than the woman in Lily’s drawing. Her dark hair was streaked with silver, her face hollowed by years of captivity. But her eyes—Roman’s eyes—were blazing with unhinged fury.

In her trembling hands, she held a heavy silver revolver. The barrel was pressed squarely between Marcus’s eyes.

“Give me the codes, Marcus,” Elena hissed, her voice raspy from disuse. “Give me the accounts, and I’ll put the bullet in your leg instead of your head.”

Marcus laughed. It was a wet, ugly sound.

“You don’t have the nerve, Elena,” Marcus spat, blood dripping from his chin. “You never did. You’re a frightened little bird. You’ve always been.”

“I’ve had ten years in a cage to find my nerve,” she snarled, pulling the hammer back with a sickening click.

Roman tensed, preparing to breach the room.

But Marcus’s laughter only grew louder.

“You think you’re in control?” Marcus wheezed, tilting his head back to look at her. “You think you wounded me? I let you cut me, Elena. I let you take the gun.”

Elena frowned, her hands shaking slightly. “Shut up.”

“I needed you distracted,” Marcus smiled cruelly. “I needed you focused on me, while my men went to pick up the final piece of the puzzle.”

He nodded his head toward the far side of the office.

A shadow moved in the corner. A man stepped out from behind a row of filing cabinets. A dirty cop, holding a sniper rifle.

But he wasn't aiming at Elena.

He was aiming through the shattered window, down at the factory floor. Down at the shadows where I was supposed to be hiding.

“The baker’s daughter,” Marcus grinned. “My men tracked her phone. They’re watching her down there right now. Drop the gun, Elena, or they blow Clare Bennett’s head off.”

Elena gasped, the color draining from her face. Her hands shook violently.

Slowly, agonizingly, she lowered the revolver, the heavy metal clattering onto the concrete floor.