"What the—" I mumbled and slowly opened my eyes.

My head hurt like shit and I could already feel a bruise forming on my forehead. I looked out of the window to see the sun already setting.

I must have been out for a few hours.

Oh god, please tell me Viktor was not—

"Tiana? You okay?"

Wait, why did Viktor just call me Tiana?

"Viktor? What's going on?"

My eyes then fully opened. I saw Viktor beside me, as well as felt my hands tied to the back of the chair I was sitting on. The Spanish man we saw earlier sat directly in front of Viktor and I, a knife in his hand.

Great, we've been captured before we even tried to execute our plan.

"Hello, sweetheart, we've been waiting for you to wake up." The man in charge clicked his tongue.

"У тебя есть план?" I turned to Viktor.

(Do you have a plan?)

"нет." Damn it.

(No.)

Our captor sighed. "I hate Russians."

"What the hell do you want? You already took my money. And as you can see, we're quite harmless. So why don't you let both of us go and you can keep the money?" Viktor tried to reason desperately.

He crossed his arms and leaned forward. "I want to know why the two of you were spying on us."

Viktor didn't falter for a second, his face remaining impassive. "We were just checking if we got the correct warehouse. This whole place already looked pretty sketchy and we wanted to make sure we didn't have a misunderstanding with the wrong people."

Damn, he's good.

"That's bullshit." Viktor rolled his eyes, "Look, I don't care if you believe me or—"

"I'll make sure you care." the Spanish man stood up and pointed his knife straight at Viktor's throat.

"Stop! Don't hurt him. We just want to have a word with your boss, Felon." I burst out, sweat rolling down my forehead.

He turned his head to me. "What's your business with him, sweetheart? Aren't you only like what, fifteen?"

"I'm seventeen, and my business with him is none of your concern." I tried to put up a strong front.

"Okay, you want to do this the hard way? I have a tech guy here who can crack the passwords to both of your phones. I'll give it a maximum of half an hour before he does, then we'll be having a very different conversation which includes the people you care about." He turned to a guy—presumably, the tech—and said, "Get on with it."
I froze when I realised he had our belongings, but let out a sigh of relief when I felt Nikita's necklace around my neck.

Luckily I wore a shirt with a high neckline.

"Well, I'm hungry, so I'll go and eat my dinner now. But if you change your mind before the time is up, feel free to let Zen here know about it." He patted a short, skinny looking guy's shoulder, who immediately flinched at the contact. He looked pretty young, maybe a year or two older than me, with a bald cut and a huge tattoo on his ankle.

"Marlene," Viktor whispered as soon as our captor was out of sight—and hopefully, earshot.

"I know," I whispered back.

We needed a plan, and fast.

I looked around. There were at least twenty men in the room and their collection of knives were all the way in the far right corner. But, even if we managed to get the knives, we couldn't fend off all the henchmen, we'd take out five guys tops.

Luckily, there was a door less than ten meters away from us, and we could make a run for it. The only problem was Zen over there—and being tied to a chair.

Viktor seemed to be thinking the same thing as he started talking to the guy, "You new here, Zen?"

"Just joined two weeks ago," he answered, not looking at either of us.

We exchanged a look,  knowing very well what that meant.

Viktor questioned him further, "What does that tattoo on your ankle mean?"

At first glance, it just looked like a huge rose. But when you really looked at it, there was a ring looped around the flower, and clearly it was one half of a matching tattoo.

He seemed hesitant to answer, but finally made up his mind, "Matching wedding rings for my fiancé and I. We were supposed to get it on our honeymoon, but she was killed."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Now I just have to play the pity route to get through to him.

"You said she was killed?" Viktor asked. Zen nodded.

"By whom?" What the hell was he doing?

"Viktor, don't—" I tried to stop him before he made things worse, and by worse, I meant getting a taste of the knife in Zen's hand.

"None of your business," Zen shot back.

Crap.

"Sorry, Zen. But I can tell that, unlike any of the guys here, you're not suited for this type of job. You don't have the muscle, no offence. And your hands are shaking just from holding that knife, so I presume you're not a violent person either. Both qualities that are important in this kind of work. Now, I can't help but notice the dirt on your hands, that I'm guessing is from fixing their cars, and that's the reason you were hired in the first place."

I looked at Viktor in awe, and Zen did too.

"Are you like a detective or something?"

"I wish," Viktor said with complete seriousness, "Most importantly, I think that your fiancé's death is the reason you joined them."

I looked at Viktor, dumbfounded, but really hoping he was right. If not, we'd be in so much trouble. And then I turned to Zen, seeing a pained expression on his face.

Viktor was right.

Zen closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "She was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Saw something she wasn't supposed to, and they killed her for it."

Viktor looked at me with his eyebrows raised, signalling for me to take over the conversation.

Bad cop, good cop.

"So you want revenge," I simply stated.
"I want them all dead. Especially Luis. He shot her." Luis... the Spanish man, the guy in charge. He was our only link to Felon.

"We're on the same team here, but I want Felon."

He scoffed, "Good luck with that. Even Luis himself has never met Felon in person before."

"But do you have any information that could help us find him?" Viktor asked hopefully.

Zen thought for a while. "All I know is that he has a grudge against the Spanish royal family. Don't know why though."

"How do you know that?"

"I heard from some people here that he was the one who orchestrated the bombings of two of their private houses before."

"I see," I replied, trying to piece it all together in my head. What does the Spanish royal family have to do with Felon?

"So uh, you want me to bust the two of you out?"

"I thought that was obvious enough, dude," Viktor deadpanned.

"I'm just messing with you. I managed to get a bomb from my contacts that I planted underneath their cars while you were unconscious this afternoon. I'm planning to blow it tonight," Zen mumbled at such a low volume I almost didn't catch a few words.

Viktor scoffed, "So-so I just showed off my deduction skills for nothing."

Zen chuckled. "Usually when someone is held hostage, they always try to talk to the person watching over them for the boss. If you guys were silent the whole time, they would have sensed something was wrong."

"Hmm. You're right."

"Just curious, how big is the bomb?" I asked.
"This whole warehouse will collapse within thirty seconds of it setting off."

"That should be enough time to run to the exit," Viktor said and Zen nodded in response.

"How is it looking, Maceo?" Luis yelled, apparently having returned from dinner.

"Almost there, boss!" The tech guy yelled back.

Shit.

I turned back to Zen again. "So when exactly are you setting it off?"

"Any minute now." Zen stood up from his chair and went behind us, using his knife to cut off our bindings and freeing us from the chairs.

"Hey, Zen! What the hell are you doing?" someone shouted from the upper level.

"Oh, shit," I mumbled.

Then, I saw Luis turn his head in our direction.

"Any second now would be good," Viktor told Zen.

"Now."

And then, there was the loudest sound I'd ever heard in my entire life. Men were screaming, flames spreading like wildfire.

I looked over to see some unconscious bodies already on the ground. I spotted Zen, still cutting the ropes holding Viktor down. I heard the walls rumbling, ready to tumble down at any given moment.

"All done, let's go now!" Zen yelled.

The three of us dashed towards the exit door with Zen taking lead, followed by me, and lastly, Viktor.

After the ten most excruciating seconds of my life, I had made it out just as the warehouse started to collapse. I looked at Zen, a satisfied smile on his face as he watched the remaining building fall to the ground.

He got his revenge. And I was still alive.

But when I looked around to find Viktor, I couldn't see him anywhere.