Updated Apr 20, 2026 • ~5 min read
Chapter 24: The Shot
Riot
Riot breaches the warehouse door thirty seconds after Viktor grabs Nadia—thirty seconds that feel like thirty years—and the scene that greets him is his worst nightmare made real: Viktor has Nadia in a chokehold with a gun pressed to her temple, using her as a human shield while his security team takes defensive positions around the warehouse.
“Put the weapon down, Hawke,” Viktor calls out, his accent thicker with stress, and Riot recognizes him from the intelligence photos—older than expected, but still radiating the kind of controlled menace that comes from decades of getting away with murder. “Or I paint the walls with her brain matter.”
“Not happening,” Riot says, his weapon trained on Viktor despite the impossible shot, despite the fact that Nadia’s body is blocking any clear angle. “Let her go and you walk out of here alive. Keep holding her and I guarantee you die in this warehouse.”
“Bold threats from a man whose client I’m currently holding hostage,” Viktor says with a laugh that makes Riot’s finger tighten on the trigger. “Lower your weapon. Tell your team to stand down. Or I kill her right now and take my chances with the FBI.”
Riot can hear Marcus in his ear, hear the rest of the team calling positions and asking for orders, but all he can focus on is Nadia’s face—pale and terrified but holding his gaze with an intensity that tells him she’s still fighting, still trusting him to get her out of this.
“Riot,” she croaks out despite Viktor’s arm around her throat, and there’s something in her voice—not fear, but determination. “I trust you.”
And Riot understands what she’s saying: *Take the shot.*
It’s an impossible shot—Viktor’s head is barely visible behind Nadia’s, the angle is wrong, the risk of hitting her instead is catastrophic—but she’s asking him to try anyway, trusting him to do the impossible because the alternative is dying in Viktor’s arms without fighting back.
“Marcus,” Riot says quietly into his comm. “On my mark, light him up from the left. I need him to shift six inches.”
“Copy that,” Marcus confirms, and Riot can hear the team moving into position.
“I’m counting to three,” Viktor says, pressing the gun harder against Nadia’s temple, and Riot watches her eyes flutter closed for just a moment. “One—”
“NOW,” Riot shouts, and the world explodes into motion.
Marcus and the team open fire from the left flank, forcing Viktor to instinctively shift his position to protect himself, and in that split second when his head moves six inches away from Nadia’s—Riot takes the shot.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space, and for one horrible moment Riot can’t tell if he hit Viktor or Nadia or both, can’t see through the chaos and gunfire and his own terror—
And then Nadia’s dropping to the floor, free of Viktor’s hold, and there’s blood blooming across Viktor’s chest as he staggers backward and collapses.
Riot’s moving before conscious thought kicks in, crossing the warehouse at a dead run while Marcus and the team handle Viktor’s security, and he’s on his knees next to Nadia before her body fully hits the concrete.
“I’ve got you,” he’s saying, hands frantically checking for wounds, for blood, for any sign that his bullet went wide and hit her instead. “Nadia, talk to me, are you hit—”
“I’m okay,” she gasps out, her hands clutching at his tactical vest. “I’m okay. You got him. Riot, you actually got him—”
“You’re okay,” Riot repeats, and it’s half question half prayer, and when he finds no wounds, no blood, no evidence that she’s hurt beyond some bruising on her throat where Viktor grabbed her—the relief that crashes through him is so intense he actually shakes with it.
“I’m okay,” Nadia confirms, and then she’s crying and laughing simultaneously and pulling him down into a kiss that tastes like fear and victory and the kind of desperate joy that comes from surviving the unsurvivable.
“Viktor?” she asks when they finally break apart, and Riot glances over his shoulder to where Marcus is checking the body.
“Dead,” Marcus confirms. “Clean shot through the heart. FBI is inbound, ETA two minutes.”
“It’s over,” Nadia whispers, and Riot watches twelve years of fear drain out of her expression, watches her transform from hunted to free in the space of a heartbeat. “It’s actually over.”
“It’s over,” Riot agrees, and pulls her against his chest while sirens wail in the distance and Marcus handles the cleanup. “You’re safe. You’re free. And you’re never facing anything like this alone again.”
“Never alone,” Nadia echoes against his chest. “Because I have you.”
“You have me,” Riot confirms, and makes a mental note to buy the ring tomorrow.
Because they survived.
And that means he gets to ask again.
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