Page 131 of Shadow Waltz

But even as I said the words, I understood their deeper truth. Love wasn't weakness—it was vulnerability that could becomestrength if you were willing to risk everything to protect it. What Luka and I shared wasn't perfect or conventional or probably even healthy, but it was worth defending against people who would destroy it simply because they couldn't understand it.

The hours crawled by with bureaucratic slowness, federal agents coordinating operations while I sat in comfortable captivity and tried not to think about how many ways our plan could go catastrophically wrong. But it was when night fell and tactical teams began moving into position that I realized exactly how much we'd underestimated our enemies' capabilities.

“Change of plans,” Chen announced, entering my room with the kind of professional satisfaction that made my blood run cold. “We've decided that your boyfriend is too dangerous to take alive. The operation tonight is elimination, not capture.”

They didn't want to arrest Luka—they wanted to eliminate him as both operational threat and symbolic challenge to the order they were trying to establish.

“You said he'd have the chance to surrender,” I said, though the protest was what someone genuinely betraying their lover would make.

“We said a lot of things,” Chen replied with a shrug that suggested my concerns were irrelevant to decisions that had already been made. “But the reality is that some people are too dangerous to allow continued existence, regardless of their willingness to cooperate.”

I felt something cold and calculating unfurl in my mind, because I understood exactly what they were telling me. This wasn't about justice or law enforcement—it was about eliminating someone whose existence challenged their authority, whose relationship with me represented possibilities they found too threatening to tolerate.

“And me?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew the answer.

“You'll be relocated, given a new identity, protected from any remaining elements of his organization who might want revenge for your cooperation.” Chen smiled. “You'll get exactly what you asked for—a normal life, free from the violence and chaos that comes from loving criminals.”

But there was something in her tone that suggested promises made to cooperative witnesses weren't always kept, that my usefulness would expire the moment Luka was eliminated. They'd gotten what they needed from my betrayal, and witnesses to federal operations had ways of disappearing into administrative errors and bureaucratic oversights.

The realization that we'd walked into a trap designed by people who understood us better than we'd understood ourselves should have been terrifying. Instead, it sent something fierce and defiant unfurling in my chest, because it meant they'd revealed their true intentions before our own trap could be sprung.

I touched the collar at my throat, feeling its familiar weight and the small transmitter hidden within the diamond setting, the signal that would tell Luka exactly where I was and what we were facing. Our plan had been based on the assumption that they'd want to use me as leverage, but their decision to simply eliminate him changed everything.

Which meant it was time to remind them why underestimating people like us was always a fatal mistake.

“When?” I asked, voice carefully neutral despite the rage building in my chest.

“Two hours,” Chen replied, checking her watch with professional satisfaction. “Long enough for final preparations, not long enough for him to escape whatever hole he's hiding in.”

But what she didn't understand was that Luka wasn't hiding anymore. He'd been watching, waiting, preparing for exactly this moment when our enemies would reveal their true capabilitiesand intentions. The trap we'd set wasn't designed to capture federal agents—it was designed to eliminate everyone who'd participated in the systematic destruction of our world.

As Chen left me alone with my thoughts and the weight of choices that couldn't be undone, I realized that some love stories could only be written in blood and fire, tested by forces that would destroy anything less than absolute commitment.

In two hours, federal agents would move against the man I loved, expecting to find him vulnerable and unprepared. Instead, they'd discover why hunting the Prince had always been a mistake that people made only once.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about all the ways our plan could still go wrong, all the possibilities for permanent separation that existed between this moment and whatever came next. But I could feel the collar around my throat, warm from my skin and heavy with promises that transcended whatever immediate dangers we faced.

Some things were worth risking everything for.

The waiting wasthe hardest part, sitting in comfortable captivity while knowing that somewhere in the city, the man who'd become my entire world was preparing for a battle that would determine whether we lived or died together. But it was also the most necessary part, because it gave our enemies time to commit resources and reveal capabilities that Luka could exploit when he finally moved against them.

At exactly eleven PM, the tactical teams began their final approach to the warehouse where they believed Luka was hiding. I watched through surveillance feeds as federal agents and criminal organizations worked together to eliminatesomeone whose only crime had been loving me enough to pay half a million dollars for the privilege.

But what they found wasn't a cornered criminal waiting for rescue or capture.

What they found was fifteen pounds of C-4 explosive and a recorded message that would be the last thing they ever heard.

“This is for everyone who thought love made us weak,” Luka's voice echoed through their communications as the warehouse exploded in a fireball that could be seen from Queens. “This is for everyone who tried to destroy what we built together.”

The explosion that followed eliminated three federal teams and twice as many criminal collaborators, but more importantly, it served as signal for the coordinated counterattack that Luka had been planning since the moment we'd conceived this trap.

The building shook as secondary explosions rocked the federal command center three blocks away, Dmitri's handiwork turning their coordination hub into a crater that would take weeks to rebuild. Through the chaos of emergency communications, I could hear our people moving with methodical violence, eliminating response teams before they could regroup or call for backup.

“Signal received,” I whispered into the transmitter hidden in my collar, knowing that Troy would relay my position to Luka within seconds. “Package is secure and ready for extraction.”

Agent Chen's face had gone pale as she processed the scope of destruction her colleagues were facing, but her training kicked in fast enough to recognize that I'd played them from the beginning. “You fucking lying piece of shit,” she snarled, reaching for her weapon with movements that spoke to years of crisis management.

But her hand never reached the gun. The blade I'd concealed in my shoe found her throat before she could clear leather,arterial spray painting the safe house walls in abstract patterns that spoke to the cost of underestimating people like us.