Ellie's POV
BOOM.
The sound wasn't a sound. It was a wall. A solid wall of force slammed into Ellie's chest, stole her breath, and threw her backward. Her head cracked against the cold, wet brick of the alley wall. Stars exploded behind her eyes.
For a second, there was nothing but ringing silence and blinding white light.
Then the world rushed back in like a tsunami of noise and heat. The roar of fire was a living beast. The air was thick with the smell of burning gasoline, melted plastic, and something acrid she couldn't name. Pieces of the car, shards of metal, chunks of plastic, a spinning hubcap rained down around her, clattering on the concrete like deadly hail.
She was lying on the filthy ground. A heavyweight was on top of her, pinning her legs. The man. Nicholas. He wasn't moving.
Panic, sharp and clean, cut through the daze. Was he dead? Had she saved him only to have him crushed by debris? She tried to shove him off, but her arms were weak, trembling noodles.
Then he groaned. A low, pained sound. He pushed himself up on his elbows, his face inches from hers. Soot blackened one side of his sharp jaw. A cut above his eyebrow wept a steady stream of blood, mixing with the grime and running down his temple. His dark eyes, wide and shocked, found hers.
In the flickering, hellish orange light of the burning car wreck, she saw his confusion. The raw, unfiltered shock of a man who had just kissed death. That look lasted only a heartbeat.
It vanished, wiped away by something colder, harder, sharper. His gaze snapped from her face to the inferno that had been his car, then to the alley mouths, then back to her. The calculation in his eyes was visible, almost audible, like gears grinding into place. She wasn't a person to him anymore. She was a new piece on a dangerous chessboard. An unforeseen complication.
Before she could speak, before she could even draw a full breath, new sounds cut through the crackle of the flames. Heavy, running footsteps. Two men, built like linebackers in tailored suits, appeared at the entrance to the alley. They moved with a terrifying, coordinated purpose, their eyes scanning the scene. Their hands went to their jackets.
Nicholas moved. He was on his feet in one fluid, powerful motion, as if the explosion had been a minor inconvenience. He didn't brush himself off. He didn't look at his burning car again. He looked down at Ellie, still sprawled and gasping on the wet ground.
His voice, when it came, was flat. Calm. It carried an authority that brooked no argument, cutting cleanly through the chaos.
"Get her," he said to the two giants, nodding once at Ellie. "In the car. Now."
The command wasn't for her. It was about her. She was a thing to be collected.
The two men closed the distance in three strides. Hands like industrial vices clamped around her upper arms, hauling her upright. Her legs gave out, but they held her easily, her feet barely skimming the ground.
"Wait! Stop! Let me go!" Her voice was a raw scrape, lost in the roar of the fire. "My bag… my phone is inside!"
They didn't acknowledge her. They were a machine. They marched her, half-dragging, toward a different black SUV that had silently glided to the alley's mouth, its engine purring, back door already open.
Nicholas was already there. He opened the front passenger door, gave one last, sweeping look at the alley, a general surveying a lost battlefield, and slid inside without a backward glance.
Ellie was lifted off her feet and deposited onto the soft leather of the back seat. One of the stone-faced men climbed in beside her, blocking the other door, his bulk taking up all the space. He smelled like gun oil and cold winter air.
The door slammed.
Thunk.
The locks engaged with a heavy, final sound.
The SUV pulled away, smooth and fast, leaving the nightmare of light and noise behind. Ellie twisted, pressing her hands against the cool, tinted window. The alley, now filled with dancing shadows of running people and leaping flames, shrank, turned a corner, and was gone.
She was in a silent, plush, moving tomb.
In the front seat, Nicholas was already on a sleek, black phone, speaking in low, rapid Italian. His voice was hard, clipped. She didn't understand the words, but she understood the tone. It was the sound of cold fury. Of orders being given after an attack.
The driver, the other giant, watched the road with a frightening, unblinking focus. The man beside her stared straight ahead, a silent statue.
The adrenaline began to leak away, leaving her shivering violently. It wasn't from the cold. The car was warm. It was the shock settling deep into her bones.
"Please," she whispered, the word cracking. "I just want to go home."
Nicholas finished his call. He didn't turn around. He spoke to her reflection in the rearview mirror, his eyes meeting hers in the glass.
"What's your name?"
"Ellie. Ellie Wells. Please, just let me out at the next corner. I won't tell anyone. I swear."
He was silent. The city lights painted stripes across his impassive face in the dark. "Ellie Wells," he repeated, as if testing the weight of it. "You pulled me from a car bomb. Do you understand what that means?"
"It means I saved your life!" Anger, hot and sudden, flared in her chest, burning away some of the fear. "This is my thank you? Kidnapping?"
Finally, he turned in his seat to look at her directly. His gaze was intense, probing, missing nothing. "No. It means you saw the device. You can describe it. You saw my face. The people who did this will know that. You are a witness, Ellie. And in their world, witnesses are not thanked. They are erased."
The word erased hung in the warm, recycled air of the car. He didn't say it with cruelty. He said it like a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis. A simple, awful fact. The bomb wasn't bad luck. It was a message. And by pulling him away, she had accidentally written a response. She was now part of the conversation.
"I don't know anything," she protested, but it sounded weak even to her own ears.
"You know enough." He turned back to the front, his profile sharp against the passing lights. "You're under my protection now. Whether you like it or not."
Protection. It sounded an awful lot like captivity. She looked at the door. There were no handles. Just smooth, black panels. Master-controlled from the front. A cold certainty solidified in her stomach. She wasn't getting out. The driver's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror again. "Boss," he grunted, a single syllable of warning. Nicholas and Ellie both looked back. A pair of headlights had changed lanes and was speeding up behind them, weaving aggressively through the late-night traffic, gaining fast.