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EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT

Before the Storm — This scene takes place the night before the showcase.

Content Warning: Explicit sexual content between consenting adults

The night before the showcase, Marina arrived at Ethan’s apartment with more than just final plans.

She’d been tense all week—coiled spring energy, barely controlled desperation. They both knew tomorrow could end in freedom or death, but either way, everything changed.

“We need to go over the timing one more time,” she said, setting down her bag. But her hands shook slightly as she pulled out the floor plans of Marco’s estate.

Ethan caught her wrist. “Marina.”

“What?”

“We’ve gone over it a dozen times. We know the plan. We know the risks. We know the odds.” He pulled her closer. “Right now, I don’t want to think about tomorrow. I want to think about tonight.”

She looked at him—really looked—and something in her expression cracked. “If this goes wrong—”

“Then it goes wrong. But tonight, right now, we’re alive. We’re here. We’re together.” His hand moved to her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone. “Let’s be alive together. One more time.”

Marina kissed him like she was trying to memorize the taste. Desperate and hungry and tinged with the knowledge that this might be the last time. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, eliminating any space between them.

They stumbled toward the bedroom, shedding clothes along the way. Her jacket hit the floor. His shirt followed. By the time they reached the bed, they were down to skin and need and the electric tension of people who’d been dancing around death for too long.

“I want to remember this,” Marina said, pushing him onto the bed and straddling him in one fluid motion. “Every detail. Every sensation. I want this burned into my memory so when everything goes to hell tomorrow, I can remember what it felt like to choose something for myself.”

Ethan’s hands found her hips, gripping hard enough to leave marks. “Then take what you want. All of it.”

She did.

Marina set the pace—slow at first, deliberately torturous, rolling her hips in a way that made coherent thought impossible. Her head tilted back, dark hair falling like a curtain, her body moving with the confidence of someone who’d stopped apologizing for taking pleasure.

Ethan watched her, committing every detail to memory. The way her breath caught when he touched her just right. The small sounds she made when she lost herself in sensation. The fierce concentration on her face as she chased something that had nothing to do with Marco or Isabella or the nightmare they lived in.

This was theirs. The only thing that belonged to them alone.

“Look at me,” he said, voice rough.

Marina’s eyes opened—dark and dilated and vulnerable in a way she never allowed anywhere else. “I see you.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” She leaned down, changing the angle, and they both gasped at the intensity. “I love you too. Even though it’s stupid and doomed and probably going to get us both killed.”

“Especially because of that.”

She laughed—bitter and honest—and kissed him hard. Her pace increased, chasing the release that would let them both forget for just a few minutes that tomorrow they’d either save Isabella or die trying.

Ethan’s hands roamed her body—mapping scars and soft skin, the contrast of strength and vulnerability that made Marina who she was. He traced the line of her spine, felt her shiver under his touch, used every piece of knowledge he’d gained over months of desperate coupling to drive her higher.

“Ethan—” His name on her lips like prayer and profanity combined.

“I’ve got you. Let go.”

She did. Came apart above him with a sound between a gasp and a sob, body arching, nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. The pain grounded him, kept him present, reminded him this was real.

He followed seconds later, pulling her down against him, holding her through the aftershocks that left them both trembling.

They didn’t separate. Stayed connected, tangled together, breathing hard.

“Again,” Marina whispered after a moment. “I need—I need to not think. Not feel anything except this.”

So they did it again. And again. Making love and fucking and everything in between, trying to cram a lifetime of connection into one night because tomorrow might not come. Or it might come and take everything.

Slower the second time. Marina on her back, Ethan taking his time, learning her body like he was studying for a test he couldn’t fail. Every touch deliberate. Every kiss meaningful. Making her gasp and arch and forget for blessed moments that they were planning murder.

“Right there,” she breathed, hands in his hair. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

He didn’t. Took her apart piece by piece, built her back up, did it again until she was incoherent and clinging to him like a lifeline.

When she came this time, she pulled him with her—falling together, breaking together, surviving together for one more night.

After, they lay in the wreckage of tangled sheets, sweat-slicked and exhausted and more alive than either had felt in months.

“Tell me something real,” Marina said into the darkness, echoing the question she’d asked before. “Something that has nothing to do with Marco or tomorrow or any of this.”

Ethan thought. “When I was eight, I wanted to be an astronaut. Not because I understood space or science. Just because I liked the idea of being somewhere no one could reach me.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Your turn.”

Marina was quiet for a long moment. “When I was little, before everything went wrong, my mother used to sing me this song. Russian lullaby. I can’t remember the words anymore, but I remember the melody. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I hum it to myself and pretend I’m still that kid who believed her mother could protect her from anything.”

“Sing it for me.”

“I can’t—”

“Please. I want to hear it.”

So she did. Hummed a melody that was haunting and sad and beautiful, her voice cracking slightly on the high notes. Ethan held her while she sang, and for just a moment they were two people who’d had normal childhoods and normal dreams instead of this.

When she finished, they were both crying silently.

“Tomorrow,” Marina said, “we save her or we die trying. But tonight, we had this. That matters.”

“It matters,” Ethan agreed.

They made love one more time as dawn approached—tender and slow and full of the terrible knowledge that this might be goodbye. No desperate hunger this time. Just connection. Just two people choosing each other one last time before the world demanded they choose survival instead.

When they finished, they held each other until the sun rose, painting the room in shades of gold that made everything look hopeful.

Neither of them believed in hope anymore.

But they believed in each other.

And for tonight, that was enough.

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