Submitting To The Devil - The Devil's Snare - Book 2

Chapter Fifty

Bianca

My breath hitches violently in my chest as an unexpected wave of panic crashes over me, dragging me down into its suffocating depths. It isn't just the shadows of impending doom or the reality of my most likely capture that grips me in icy terror; it's the realisation that Niko has willingly thrust himself into danger, taking risks that I can't comprehend, all in a desperate bid to protect me, even after I attempted to warn him about the ominous red dot of doom that hovered like a harbinger of death, he brushed off my concern with stubborn resolve, telling me to accept the possibility of his demise.

I couldn't. Oh, God, I couldn't bear the weight of his sacrifice. The thought of allowing him to die for me is a suffocating knot in my throat, a visceral fear that churns in my stomach. I... when I... damn it.

"Bee," he cautions, his voice low and steady as he strides back toward me despite the chaos outside this room. He and Sven have scribbled maps across multiple sheets of paper, desperately charting a course to our escape. Yet, even through the thick walls, Derek's menacing voice echoes, tinged with a distance that only amplifies the threat he poses. He's relentless, goading Niko to surrender me, his words like a sinister chant that wraps around my thoughts.

It's as if Derek's persistent taunts have driven me to the brink of my sanity, unmooring me from my own sense of control.

Suddenly, hands envelop me, grounding me in an unexpected embrace. My chest collides with a wall of muscle and masculinity; the impact is both jarring and oddly comforting. I catch a whiff of Niko's uniquely captivating scent—a blend of sun-soaked warmth and the briny kiss of the ocean, stirring something deep within me as my breath hitches. He's my new power; having him grounds me like nothing else ever has. But that also makes him my biggest weakness.

"I know this isn't favourable, Bee. You've saved me once, and I know you can do it again. I trust you. But I can't talk you down, baby. Please, we need to put our heads together," he coaches me, and I stop him.

My laboured breathing falters yet again, slowing as I come to the unsettling realisation that he's right—my presence is becoming a burden to them. I'm complicating their efforts, distracting them from the crucial task of planning and executing their next move, and forcing them to divert energy toward calming my unnecessary panic over potential futures that haven't materialised. This has always been my weakness, something my father tried to beat out of me. Something that prevailed above the training he littered on me over the last few years.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, unhappiness settling in my chest as I step away from the tension, approaching the cluttered maps sprawled across the table. With a furrowed brow, I scan the intricate drawings they've meticulously crafted from mere memory, searching for any shred of insight I can contribute. At first, the task overwhelms me; the sheets seem like a chaotic jumble of lines and notes. But then, as if a light flickered on in my mind, I remembered something from just a few days ago—when we had fought to rescue Alexandra from what we believed was a dire situation.

"There," I whisper in realisation, my finger hovering over the paper as I point to a critical error in their drawings. "You've misidentified the layout of the hotel rooms below us. We escaped beside room nine right next to the stairs; that must surely be directly two floors beneath us."

"She's right," Sven affirms, fervently nodding as he tears another sheet from his notepad, an urgency in his movements. Determinedly, he sketches the narrow alleyway that had been our escape route, leading us back to the getaway car parked a few blocks away. The adrenaline surges within me as we draw closer to putting the pieces together, each detail becoming a lifeline in this tense game of survival.

"Alright, if we can reach the alley, there's a loose drain cover around there. Maybe it will lead down into the underground passage, and we can slip away toward the beach covertly," Sven proposed, his eyes darting nervously as he scanned the images they haphazardly drew in a matter of minutes.

"It's too risky, Sven," Niko replied sharply, urgency lacing his voice. "They supposedly have snipers positioned all around us. We're only armed with a rifle, a few handguns, and blades that are no match to any of those. We can't take that chance out in the open."

"Perhaps a distraction and redirection of their resources will suffice?"Sven counters him in argument, his brow furrowed in thought just as Derek's booming voice erupted, cutting through the tension between them.

"Okay, so you're not willing to play by my rules. How about this: for every ten minutes you remain in this room denying me the payment I was promised, I'll kill one of your own. Think carefully now, Niko; you wouldn't want your dear little sister dead so soon after you found her, would you?"

"No," I almost scream in horror, Sven's hand clamping down over my mouth as if he expected me to scream out my upset at the threat of Emma's life and that of her unborn child's being taken because of me.

"Shh!" he warns me with annoyance.

My gaze locks with Niko's as we wait for Derek's reaction to my outburst. Only a chuckle comes, but even I know he heard me clear as day.

"I have to go back next door," Niko whispers out of nowhere. His voice is resolute; he's made up his mind without so much as a small debate. So I shake my head, inhaling the horrid smell of cigarettes from Sven's palm. He doesn't listen to me; he only talks over me to Sven. "You lock me in there, and you don't let me back in unless I give you the safe word."

"The same one?" Sven agrees almost immediately.

"Always," Niko's word comes like a knife to my insides. I flip with anger coursing through me as I bite down on Sven's hand, pushing him away in his moment of stupefied pain and shock. And then I ran without glancing at either of them, heading right for the door because there was no way I just prevented Niko's death for him to walk right back into the firing line.