Page 1 of Caught in the Crossfire

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LEONA

“Hello, Leona.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.Max.

Fear turned my body cold, numbing my fingertips. He’d kidnapped me. I wrestled against my restraints, another shock of pain filtering down my arms.

I’d been taken off the streets of New York, only a block or two away from our home. Wynn and I had been attacked on the way to buy Ciel a new gaming mouse. We’d fought, and he’d tried his best to protect me, but it hadn’t been enough. My body ached with the memory of vicious arms banding around me, punches to my torso. Before I lost consciousness, I’d screamed for Wynn.

Now, my arch-enemy sat in front of me, and I had no way to fight back.

“Get the fuck away from me,” I snapped as I shimmied backward—the best I could do with my current predicament. Metal walls formed two sides of this small cell, and prison bars formed the other two, trapping me. My mind raced as I tried to think of a plan to get free.

I had to get back to my men. There was no way I was letting Max kill me now.

He didn’t move, only tilted his head back. Itthunkedagainst the metal behind him, and the sound reverberated through the room.

“I would if I could.”

What the fuck did that mean? I breathed through my nose to calm myself despite my fear response being dialed all the way tofight. I scanned his body—why was he sitting on the floor like I was? Where were his arms?

Why was he inside this cell, instead of taunting me from the other side of the bars?

“Max…” A chill climbed up the back of my neck. The ground under me pitched and rolled again. I licked my lips to taste a hint of salt. “Where are we?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “I wish I knew, but sadly, you removed my hacker.”

“Lucia? What are you talking about?”

His arms jerked, but still didn’t show themselves in front of his body. “It appears we share a similar problem.”

Max’s arms were restrained behind him, just like me. He wasinsidethis cell, just like me. Which meant…

“Who the fuck did this?” I whispered.

“My guess is the Albanians,” he responded with a half-hearted shrug, followed by a wince. “Given the men speaking Albanian, and that we seem to be on some kind of ship.”

Shit. I looked around, inhaling the salty air. My mouth tasted gritty, and my throat was already dry. “A ship? The Albanians?”

“I warned you, Leona.” His voice sounded exhausted. Lifeless. It reminded me so much of how he pulled away from me and Cas after his father died, and it took weeks before we could pull him out of his shell again. Had he…given up? “I warned you that you were paving the way for them to infiltrate the city, but you just couldn’t stop yourself. This is your fucking fault.”

“This isnotmy fault?—”

At that, his eyes flared to life. He sat forward. “Itis, Leona. I’ve been doing everything I could to keep you out of this—” his words cut off and his lips pressed together.

“What, Max? What have you been trying to keep me out of?”

He turned his head and shifted his arms behind him, a weak struggle to get free of his restraints. A breath hissed from between his teeth. “Nothing.”

Rage flared inside me, staving off the creeping cold blanketing my body. He’d spentyearshiding things from me. He was going to do it again, and then blame me for his problems?

I struggled to my knees, my arms aching behind me. “Don’t do that. This all started because you shut me and Cas out. If you had told me what my father was doing?—”

“No.” His jaw clenched. “You weren’t capable of doing what I had to do. You still aren’t, despite how you’ve been running around the city pretending to be some joke of a queen. This is not a fucking game. I’m fighting a war on all sides, and now we’re both dealing with the consequences of your actions.”

I drew a sharp breath, recoiling from his words. Somehow he still knew how to shape his words into daggers and drive them into my heart. My eyes burned with tears. If my arms were free, I would have lunged across this cell to strangle him.