He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 329

329

Fr men stood behind him, weapons up, actively covering our position.

Hanked at DeLuca. He nodded, and that was enough for me to trust the plan.

an rose, pulling the rest of us up with careful, practiced motion, shielding us as we pushed away from the wall and toward a stretch of open ground

I assumed, somewhere safer than here.

I grabbed his arm as we moved. Two of the girls are still out there. Please, find them.”

There’s a car arranged ahead,” he said. “We’ll get everyone into it.”

And Aria, my mother added. “Bring Aria too.”

He nodded, and the four men fell into formation around us, guiding us forward through the wreckage.

I looked back once, at the chaos still raging behind us, gunfire and screaming and smoke rolling up into the dark sky.

All of it, mine. Every second of it traced back to the words that had come out of my mouth.

The weight of that sat in my chest like something solid.

The apartment we ended up in was quiet in a way that felt suspicious after the last several hours, like silence itself had become something I no longer

trusted on sight.

It wasn’t even really an apartment. Bare concrete walls, exposed wiring in one corner, half–finished in the way of a building someone had abandoned mid- project years ago and never come back to. Someone had clearly used it for exactly this purpose before; a couple of cots, a crate of medical supplies, the specific, practiced feel of a place built for hiding rather than living. Survival mode, dressed up as shelter.

DeLuca rested on one of the cots, a drip line taped into his arm, fresh bandages wound tight around his side. Watching him like that – still, pale, hooked up to something meant to keep him alive – cracked something open in my chest every time I let myself actually look at him for more than a few seconds. He was healing. He’d be fine. The gunshot hadn’t taken an ounce of the danger or strength that lived in him normally. None of that made the sight any easier

Not with police still actively searching for us, and not with my name still attached to a fraud charge I hadn’t even had the

1. s. So this was what we had instead. Concrete and cots and borrowed time.

at, her body finally allowing the exhaustion to show now that the immediate danger had eased. Whatever illness she’d been of will all night had started leaking through the cracks, and I made a private note to corner her later, properly, and get real how she’d learned to fight like that.

I knew there was a car and two guards standing watch. Two of the men who’d left with us, while the rest stayed behind to finish whatever was still pening with Nico. I had no idea what that status actually was. I just wanted it over. I wanted everyone I cared about breathing, unharmed, and far away from anything resembling a gun

I wanted, more than anything else, to just go back. Back to ordinary. Back to classes and library shifts and worrying about rent instead of empires and

bloodlines

O

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103 Fri, Sep 4

Chapter 329

That was when I heard the engines.

Everyone tensed at once. DeLuca’s eyes snapped open, and he was on his feet before I could stop him, nearly tearing the drip line loose in the process. My

mother woke and rose just as fast, alert despite everything her body had clearly been through.

I pushed myself upright too, using the rough, cold surface of a support pillar to steady myself, glancing around uselessly for something to defend us with.

Stone was all that was available. Stone had already proven itself completely useless against guns tonight. I settled for hoping instead, bracing for the worst

while praying it wasn’t that.

The door opened.

The hoarse–voiced man ste

expression right behind

She stepped insid

of his men behind him, and my whole body sagged with relief at the sight of Mabel’s furious, disgusted

abel, looking like she’d personally been insulted by the entire evening.

early still processing everything she’d seen. Tessa followed, in the same rough state.

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