THE MAFIA KING BROKEN ROSE novel Chapter 204

Chapter 204

Chapter 204

Aria’s POV

The countdown timer glowed like a demonic eye in the darkness, five minutes and thirty–seven seconds.

Victoria’s finger hovered over the detonator, her face twisted with the kind of madness that comes from years of nursing hatred.

But I wasn’t the same broken girl she’d kidnapped. Days of torture had stripped away everything except the core of who I really was. And at my core, I was a survivor.

I tested the chains holding my wrists, feeling for any weakness I might have missed. The metal was old, rusted in places where moisture had seeped through the concrete walls. Not enough to break free, but maybe enough to use as a weapon.

I stared at her. Until she slipped, that’s when I moved.

I lunged forward as far as the chains would allow, swinging my bound arms like a club. The heavy metal links caught Victoria across the side of her head with a sickening crack.

She stumbled sideways, crying out in pain and surprise.

“Aria!” Dominic’s voice cut through the chaos.

Victoria spun toward me, blood streaming from a gash above her ear. “You little bitch!”

I swung again, this time catching her wrist. The detonator flew from her hand, skittering across the concrete floor toward the far corner of the room.

“Get it!” I screamed to Dominic.

But Victoria was faster than she looked.

She dove for the device, her fingers closing around it just as Dominic reached her. They struggled on the ground, Victoria clawing at his face while he tried to pin her down.

The timer read four minutes and eighteen seconds.

“It doesn’t matter!” Victoria shrieked, spittle flying from her lips. “Even if you get this away from me, there are backup detonators! Motion sensors! This place is going to blow whether I’m alive or dead!”

Dominic’s hands wrapped around her throat. “Then we all die together.”

“No!” Victoria’s thumb found a different button on the device. Not the main detonator, but something else. “IN can’t have my full revenge, I’ll take what !

can get!”

She pressed the button.

The explosion wasn’t the massive blast that would level the entire building.

It was smaller, more focused, but it hit like the fist of an angry god. The floor beneath us buckled and cracked. Chunks of concrete rained down from the ceiling. The lights went out, plunging us into absolute darkness.

I felt the chains holding me snap as the wall they were anchored to crumbled. Pain shot through my shoulder as debris struck me, but I was free.

“Dominic!” I called out, my voice lost in the roar of falling masonry.

“Here!” His voice came from somewhere to my left. “Stay down!”

I pressed myself against what remained of the floor, covering my head with my arms as the world came apart around us. The sound was deafening —

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Chapter 204

metal twisting, concrete shattering, the groaning of a structure that was slowly collapsing in on itself.

Then, through all the chaos, I felt strong arms wrap around me.

“I’ve got you,” Dominic’s voice was right against my ear. “Hold on to me.”

He pulled me against his chest, his body shielding me from the worst of the falling debris. I could feel him flinch each time something heavy struck his back or shoulders, but he never loosened his grip on me.

“The stairs,” I gasped. “Can we reach the stairs?”

“I don’t know. The whole structure is compromised.“.

Another explosion, bigger this time. The backup charges Victoria had mentioned. The floor tilted at a crazy angle, and we slid toward what had once been the far wall. Dominic’s arm tightened around my waist, his other hand braced against a fallen beam to stop our slide.

“There!” He pointed through the dust and darkness. “Emergency exit. Can you move?”

My left ankle screamed in protest when I tried to put weight on it, but I nodded. “I can move.”

We crawled through the wreckage, Dominic leading the way and testing each surface before putting his full weight on it. Behind us, I could hear more of the building coming down, the sound getting closer with each passing second.

The emergency exit was blocked by a massive piece of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling. Dominic threw his shoulder against it, straining with everything he had, but it barely moved.

“It’s too heavy,” I said.

“No.” His voice was fierce, determined. “I’m not losing you. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

He braced his feet against the wall and pushed again, muscles straining, veins standing out on his neck. The concrete shifted slightly, just enough to

create a narrow gap.

“You first,” he said.

“Dominic-”

“Go! Now!”

I squeezed through the opening, feeling the rough concrete scrape against my ribs. Once I was through, I turned back to help pull Dominic after the gap was already closing as more debris fell from above.

3

me,

but

“Dominic!”

His hand appeared through the narrowing space, and I grabbed it, pulling with all my strength. For a terrifying moment, I thought he was stuck, that I was going to lose him just when we’d found each other again.

Then he was through, and we were stumbling up a set of concrete steps that led to ground level. Behind us, the basement was completely go under tons of rubble.

5

We emerged into the night air just as the rest of the mansion began to collapse. Dominic tackled me to the ground, covering me with his body as windows exploded outward and walls crumbled into piles of brick and mortar.

When the noise finally stopped, we lay there in the grass, breathing hard and covered in dust,

“Is it over?” I whispered.

Dominic rolled off me and sat up, looking back at the ruins of what had once been Victoria’s final trap. “Yeah. It’s over.”

ried

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Chapter 204

“Victoria?”

“Dead. Her body’s somewhere under all that.”

I should have felt relief, or satisfaction, or something resembling closure. Instead, I felt empty, hollowed out by everything we’d been through

“I can’t believe we survived that.”

Dominic pulled me against him, his arms trembling slightly from exhaustion and adrenaline. “I told you I’d never let you go.”

“Even when I thought I was going to die down there, I knew you’d come for me.”

“Always. No matter what it costs, no matter how long it takes. I will always come for you.”

I looked up at his face, seeing the cuts and bruises, the blood matting his hair. He looked like he’d been through hell, which I suppose he had.

“What she said about your father…”

Dominic’s jaw tightened. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter. You can’t carry that guilt forever.”

“Can’t I? She was right, Aria. If I’d been where I was supposed to be—”

“You were seventeen years old. You were a kid who fell in love. That doesn’t make you responsible for what happened.”

“Tell that to my father.”

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