He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 306

Chapter 306

isy’s POV)

I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I just stood there, staring between the two of them, waiting for my brain to do literally anything except sit in stunned, useless

silence.

It didn’t. Rude of it, honestly, given how much I was relying on it right now.

Aria stood with her arms folded, watching me without blinking, that same smile fixed in place like it had been bolted on.

Here’s the humiliating part.

Some small, stupid corner of me had actually believed her. The tears, the apology, the “sister” speech. I wouldn’t be standing here this wrecked over it if hadn’t. But that smirk on her face right now was the exact one I’d catalogued weeks ago, back before any of the crying, back when she’d first pointed a gun at me and absolutely meant it. Seeing it resurface told me everything I needed to know, and also made me want to personally invent a new form of regret

for this occasion.

I’d been played. Again. I was really building a collection tonight.

But underneath that particular flavor of dread sat something even bigger, something that had steamrolled every other feeling I owned into flat, silent shock.

“I didn’t know she was the one we discussed, Volkov said, his gaze still fixed on me. “I didn’t know she was the special person to DeLuca we’ve been

searching for.

He said “special” like it had teeth. I had no idea what to do with that, so I did the only thing my body currently had available to it, which was stand there

like a very

confused mannequin.

“And I didn’t know,”

he continued, “that she

is

my

my blood.”

Cool. Great. Wonderful update. I understood exactly what that meant, and I also understood that if I let myself actually sit with it, my legs were going to stop being legs. So I didn’t. I filed it away with everything else tonight had handed me and kept standing.

Volkov studied me a moment longer, something close to amusement crossing his face, and shook his head slowly.11

“You have the same eyes, he said. “Strange. Until this moment, I only knew of one person who’d stolen my features.”

u X J

He glanced toward the men beside him, and they smiled along with him, obedient, entertained, like this was a delightful little bit at a dinner party instead of the worst thing anyone had said to me all week- and this week had included gunfire, a fraud charge, and a taser to someone’s face.

I stayed frozen. Nothing about “you have your kidnapper-slash-crime-lord’s eyes” was helping me feel any less like I might throw up.

“I brought her to you.” Aria’s voice cut through it, sharper now, almost proud. “She’s the one asset that can finally help us capture DeLuca. I brought her to you myself, Father.”

There was something underneath the words. A strain. A need, barely disguised, for him to actually look at her the way he was looking at me.

Volkov made a small sound in response. “Hmm.

That was it. That was the whole reply.

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Chapter 306

Aria’s expression didn’t shift, but I saw it land anyway – her jaw tightening just slightly, her eyes staying fixed on him a beat too long, waiting for a “well done that clearly wasn’t coming. If I’d had any room left in my chest for pity, I might have felt something for her right then. I did not have room. I nad used it all up on my own imminent doom.

“All right, Volkov said. “That’s all for this discussion.”

He turned outward, addressing the room like the rest of us were a minor scheduling matter.

Take them both to the private cell. I’ll see them later and decide their fate.”

Dread built fast and heavy in my chest. I turned to see one of his men already carrying my mother off the ground, her body limp against his shoulder.

“I don’t want to see my Elena,” Volkov said, staring at her, “when she wakes.”

“No.” The word tore out of me before I could stop it. “You have the wrong people. This is wrong. I promise you, we mean nothing. Just let us go, and we’ll be out of your space forever.”

“Take them,” Volkov said, already turning away, like I hadn’t spoken at all.

Even

twisting, dragging my feet, throwing every scrap of resistance I had left into a fight I Hands closed around my arms, hauling me forward, and I fought it already knew I was losing. They didn’t slow down for any of it. Eventually my body simply ran out of fight, and I let myself be pulled forward, chest heaving, tears blurring everything at the edges.

As they dragged me past him, I caught Archer’s eyes. Still on his knees, still watching.

His lips moved, barely, no sound behind it.

Help is close. My special forces are almost here.

I understood every word, and filed that away too, next to the eyes comment and the several hundred other things I wasn’t currently allowed to process.

Then I was moving again, prodded forward, and my attention snagged on Aria as we passed her.

Something in me broke loose completely.

*You are a demon, Aria,” I spat. “You’re a demon, full of lies and deceit and evil.”

‘I think that’s expected of a demon,” she said, unbothered, almost thoughtful. “Nobody wants

bad demon, do they?”

Fury climbed straight up my throat. My fingers curled into fists, every part of me wanting to lunge at her, and every part of me held perfectly still by hands that felt like they belonged to men grown specifically in a lab for the purpose of restraining furious hostages.

“I hate you,” I said, voice shaking. “I hate you with everything in me. I regret the day I ever met you. I regret every laugh, every conversation, every single second I wasted actually believing you cared about me.”

Aria hesitated. A split second, barely visible.

Then the smile came back.

‘ill take that as a compliment.*

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13:04 Fri, Sep

Chapter 306

“You’re pathetic,” I said, because apparently I still had material. “You’re a coward hiding behind a father who doesn’t even want you standing next to haa.”

esomething flickered across her face at that- quick, sharp, gone before I could name it. Good. I hoped it stung. I hoped it stung a lot.

I didn’t get the chance to say anything else.

Volkov’s voice rang out behind us, calm, absolute, like he was reading off a grocery list instead of a death sentence.

“Kill them all,” he said. “Dump the bodies at the stand. And have everyone report in if there are any sightings of him.”

I turned.

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Chapter 310

The chief froze, his mouth still open around whatever order he’d been about to give.

The few officers who hadn’t turned stood there in stunned, frozen horror, weapons still pointed outward at a threat that had just become almost moningless compared to the one now standing directly beside them.

My stomach dropped straight through the ground.

Volkov had men inside the police. Embedded. Waiting. However many officers had just arrived thinking they were the calvary, a huge number of them ad actually belonged to Volkov this entire time, and the second he’d said the word, they’d simply flipped, quiet and total, like a switch being thrown.

The threat hadn’t shrunk.

It had just multiplied, right in front of me, disguised the entire time as help.

#to

Volkov began to walk away.

His bodyguards fell into step around him, a moving wall of black suits and silence, and for a moment I actually believed he might simply vanish into the base without another word, leaving the rest of us to whatever chaos he’d just unleashed with a single sentence and a cigarette.

Then he paused.

“Aria,” he said, without turning around. “You’re proving yourself worth something, after all. Come with me.”

I watched her go

still.

second, she just stood there, staring at his back like she hadn’t fully processed being spoken to at all. Then she started walking, slow at first, then steadier, crossing the distance toward him with her chin lifted like she’d been waiting her whole life for exactly this invitation.

For one

long

She looked at me. she passed.

I don’t know what I expected to see in that look. Guilt, maybe. Some final flicker of the girl who’d cried in that hallway, who’d called me her sister, who’d handed me a gun and told me to shoot her if I doubted a single word she said.

I didn’t get any of that.

She just looked, and then looked away, and whatever was actually happening behind her eyes stayed locked somewhere I couldn’t reach. All I knew, with total, uncomplicated certainty, was that I hated her. Whatever softness I’d let myself believe in back in that hallway had just walked itself straight back to her father’s side without so much as a backward glance.

Volkov’s entourage moved on, a

and just as the gates ahead of them began sliding open, he spoke once more, still not turning around.

“Make it snappy,’ he said. “And I don’t want bodies all over my grounds.”

Like he was giving instructions about tidying a garden.

The gates swallowed him a moment later, no one so much as reaching for him, no one daring to, and then he was simply gone, folded back into the base like the entire courtyard had just been a brief, mildly irritating errand.

swhich left the rest of us.

1:04 Fri, Sep 4

—

I turned back to face the horror still very much unfolding in front of me guns aimed in every direction, officers turned against officers, Nico’s men frozen somewhere between surrender and slaughter, DeLuca standing in the middle of it all with a promise he still hadn’t gotten the chance to keep.

Chapter 310

1ound like a poet.

My heart was slamming against my ribs like an engine redlining, revving past every safe limit it had ever known, and some small, exhausted part of m understood, with total clarity, that whatever came next was going to be very, very bad…

But I’m a scared one.

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13:04

04 Fri, Sep 4 A

He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly

Chapter 308

guns stayed raised, aimed, ready.

DeLuca didn’t flinch. Of course he didn’t. He had somehow made “several guns pointed at my kneecaps” look like a minor scheduling inconvenience.

“You were right,” he said, “when you said I was alone.”

Confusion rippled through the men around him. Volkov’s expression stayed unreadable, waiting.

“You were wrong,” DeLuca continued, “to think that meant you’d win.

Laughter broke out immediately, sharp and mocking, one of the guards muttering something about the nonsense pouring out of his mouth. The sound spread fast, rolling through the ranks of men surrounding him, careless and confident, like the punchline of a joke everyone had already decided was funny

before hearing it.

Volkov didn’t laugh.

worse than the actual laughter did. I noticed that immediately, because everything about him not laughing felt entirely stillness, calculation, the faint beginning of doubt he clearly wasn’t used to feeling, and definitely

watched DeLuca with something else

wasn’t used to feeling in front of an audience.

What’s that?” someone said, cutting through the laughter.

The sound died down slowly, replaced by a different kind of quiet, everyone straining to catch whatever had interrupted their amusement.

I heard i

it a

second later. Engines. Distant, but growing, multiplying by the second, like the whole night had decided one crisis simply wasn’t enough content.

Then gunfire.

skip the th

Not close. Not yet. But unmistakable, cracking through the night air from somewhere beyond the walls, and the confidence that had blanketed the courtyard moments earlier evaporated instantly, replaced by something considerably more alert.

Explosions followed, flashes of orange lighting the horizon in the distance, and the sound of vehicles grew louder, closer, until headlights swept across the open ground and cars began skidding to stops in formation.

Men poured out of them.

Volkov’s forces scrambled into position, guns raised toward the new arrivals, shouting orders/down into the deeper reaches of the base, calling for reinforcements. The gunfire in the distance hadn’t stopped. If anything, it intensified, the fight clearly still raging somewhere near the outer perimeter,

wasn’t even the whole war. It was just the part I happened to be standing in. this exact courtyard, this exact standoff- which meant this

I searched the new arrivals, and my stomach dropped when I found

Nico.

face I recognized.

luring Nico here, letting him believe he held the advantage, letting him walk DeLuca’s men. DeLuca’s plan, unfolding exactly the way he must have built it his forces straight into the middle of a war he thought he could win cleanly. Classic DeLuca. Three moves ahead, even while standing in the exact middle of the board with a gun pointed at his own leg.

This was it. The clash he’d spent all of tonight orchestrating

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Chapter 308

Then, underneath the chaos, another sound reached me. Faint at first, then unmistakable.

Sirens

I turned toward Archer instinctively, remembering the whispered promise from earlier. Help is close. My special forces are almost here.

The police.

It should have felt like relief. Instead it just added one more variable to a situation already collapsing under its own weight, one more force converging on a battlefield that hadn’t finished deciding who was fighting whom yet. I was fairly sure there was some kind of upper limit on how many armed factions could occupy one courtyard before the laws of physics simply gave up, and we were pushing right up against it.

Everything happened too fast to fully track. Cars screeched into the open ground, doors flying open, officers spilling out with weapons already raised. Volkov’s men swung toward them. DeLuca’s men swung toward Volkov’s. Somewhere in the noise, more of Volkov’s forces were still emerging from deeper inside the base, drawn by the alarm, guns rising toward everyone at once.

I stood frozen in the middle of it, heart slamming, entirely unsure which direction danger was actually going to come from first, which felt like a genuinely unfair amount of options to have to consider while also being someone’s hostage.

Every group had a weapon raised at another.

And nobody, anywhere, looked like they intended to be the first to lower theirs…

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for dramatic effect.

Nico and his men on one side.

Volkov and his army of terrifying, unblinking bodyguards on the other. And now, wedged into the mix like the world’s worst party crasher, an actual polige special forces unit, guns drawn, faces set in the specific expression of people who had clearly stopped believing in happy outcomes several years into this

job.

Nobody was smiling. Nobody looked like good things had ever once happened to them, in this life or any previous one. Every single gun in this courtyard was currently pointed at someone else’s chest, and there were, by my extremely unscientific count, a truly unreasonable number of guns.

This was, and I cannot stress this enough, the exact scenario every action movie built its climax around, except I was standing directly in the blast radius instead of eating popcorn six feet from a screen, and there was a very real chance I’d get to experience the ending from the wrong side of a bullet.

Roman Volkov.” The police chief’s voice cracked through the tension like a whip, aggressive in the specific way you’d expect from a man staring down an

every gang currently standing on this ground – you’re all under arrest. Drop your weapons. Get entire private army. “You, and everyone affiliated with you

on your knees. Hands in the air. Now.”

Volkov didn’t so much as glance at him.

He turned to DeLuca instead, entirely unbothered, like the chief’s voice had simply failed to register as a sound worth acknowledging-

he said. “You somehow managed to drag these men here. Involved your little police friends too.” A faint, condescending amusement touched his voice. “Do you consider that brilliant?”

DeLuca stepped forward.

What you think of this is none of my business,” he said. “But I want you to understand something/clearly. None of these guns are putting a bullet in your head. That belongs to me. I promise you that.”

The certainty in his voice should have comforted me.

It didn’t. It scared me, actually, the same specific flavor of scared that had been building steadily since the second I’d stepped foot in this courtyard, except now it had multiplied itself into something that felt structurally unstable, like the whole scene might collapse the second anyone so much as sneezed.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Nico barked suddenly. “What kind of stupid game is this?”

He rounded on DeLuca.

“Why the hell are you here? Don’t you dare think you get to interrupt my operation.”

“Don’t worry, Nico,” DeLuca said, calm as ever. “I’m in support of your operation. That’s exactly why I brought you here.”

“Brought me

here?’ Nico’s confusion sharpened into something closer to fury. “What is that supposed to mean?`

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Chapter 309

DeLuca didn’t answer him. He simply turned away, which felt, honestly, like an incredibly bold move given the current gun-to-human ratio in this courtyard

aid drop your weapons and put your hands up!” the chief barked again, louder, more strained, the kind of order given by someone who could feel the

Sigation slipping out of his grip and was trying to yank it back through volume alone.

Nobody moved.

If anything, every hand around me tightened further, fingers sliding fully onto triggers, postures locking into place like the entire courtyard had collectively

decided this was the final act.

Something in my chest screamed that I had to do something. That whatever thin thread was currently holding this scene together was about to snap, and once it did, there’d be no walking any of it back.

So, obviously, my body decided the correct response was to fling both hands into the air and yell.

“Wait, wait, wait, everyone!”

I spun in a slow circle, hands raised, addressing every furious, heavily armed group currently occupying this courtyard like I had any authority whatsoever to

do so.

Every single face turned toward me.

Which, in hindsight, should have been the moment I panicked and stopped talking.

It was not that moment.

*****2.2022 20

“I just. Okay, hear me out,” I said, my voice climbing into territory that even I recognized as unhinged. “Guns are not the answer here. Like, statistically,

think about historically, guns have never solved a single interpersonal conflict in the history of interpersonal conflicts. You know what solves conflict? Communication. Love, actually. Basic human love, the kind you’d show your neighbor, or your dog, or— okay, this is going to sound random, but bear with me

geese.”

Nobody looked like they were bearing with me.

“Geese mate for life,” I continued, at full unstoppable velocity now. “They don’t just shoot each other because things got tense at the pond. They work through it. And also, honestly, I feel like whatever higher power any of you believe in God, whoever, the universe, geese, I don’t know your personal

situation

–

would probably prefer everyone just put the guns down and had a nice, long conversation about their feelings instead of turning this beautiful, if extremely criminal, courtyard into a crime scene.

I was fully aware, somewhere underneath the panic, that none of this was landing. That I sounded less like a peace envoy and more like someone who’d had a mild stroke mid-TED talk. I kept going anyway, because stopping felt worse than the humiliation of continuing.

“Daisy!” Nico’s voice sliced through my momentum like a blade. “This is not the time for your nonsense. Move aside and zip

The words hit harder than I expected, and I hesitated, genuinely stung.

Then the sting curdled into something sharper.

**

A

‘I never expected this of you, Nico,” I said. “DeLuca was your fr

Your

best friend. And you did this to-