"No. Absolutely not."

Diggle's answer to Oliver's predicament was unsurprising, but ultimately worthless. He might not have wanted the Bratva captain to give in, but he still didn't offer any options.

Oliver scrubbed his hands over his tired face. "Unless you come up with some sort of alternate plan, he's going to start shooting people in there."

"You have absolutely no guarantee that he's not going to start shooting hostages if you do give in to his demands," Digg pointed out.

"Then what do you suggest I do?" Oliver demanded.

"Let us and the police take care of it."

"How? You said it yourself, he's got the whole room barricaded, men guarding every entrance from the inside."

"We'll find a way."

"He said I've only got an hour."

"An hour is plenty of time."

Oliver kept shaking his head over and over, but Digg reached over and placed both hands on his friend's shoulders.

"Oliver, you have to trust us," he insisted. "We know what we're doing. You have to protect the organization, and we have to protect you."

That was all well and good, to talk about protecting the organization. But the only thing, the only person he wanted to protect had a Chinese manufactured machine gun pointed at her head at the moment.

"It's Felicity," he said in a voice that came out like a plea.

Picturing his assistant's face contorted in terror, he wanted to break down all over again.

"I know," Digg answered. "She's going to be OK. We'll make sure of it."

With one last clap on his shoulder, Digg turned on his heel and walked away. Oliver watched his friend's retreating back, all while he tried to come to terms with the hand he'd been dealt.

Anatoly had warned him. The Bratva boss had told him ahead of time all the dangers he would face once Oliver declared war on the Triad. But Oliver had been willing to give up what humanity he had left to bring the Chinese crime family to their knees and to make them pay for killing his father.

But Oliver never could have predicted this. Not in a million years.

Lance and Digg forced Oliver to go sit by the ambulances, far away from the prying eyes of the Starling City media. Digg thought that perhaps by keeping an eye on him there, he wouldn't be able to cause any trouble. But apparently, Digg didn't have any idea how desperate Oliver was to get Felicity out of danger.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to remember what had happened before the night had taken such a horrific turn. He'd been dancing with her and they started to broach the volatile topic of that kiss.

God, had that been less than an hour ago? It felt like ages.

Only the possibility of losing her could have driven the memory of that kiss out of his mind so thoroughly.

If he had known that this might be the last time he'd ever get to see her, would he have done anything differently? What would he have said, before Digg had cut him off to lead him out of the building?

He thought back to that loaded moment. Just after she told him that she thought about that kiss all the time. It wasn't the same as saying that she had feelings for him, but it was close.

He might have said it. He should have said it. Told her he thought about her all the time. That he wondered about her childhood. That he wanted to know everything about her, from her favorite color to how she lost her first tooth. That he thought about the kiss they shared almost nonstop. That he imagined so many other scenarios that included kissing.

But he couldn't even imagine anything else at the moment. Not when there was a gun pointed at her head.

Oliver glanced down at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since Blood had given him the ultimatum.

Forty-five minutes left left for Digg to come up with a plan.

Either that, or forty-five minutes before Oliver stood before those cameras and the world and announced who he really was.


"Queen!"

Oliver's head shot up from his palms at the sound of his name. He just had twenty minutes left until they came up on Blood's deadline.

From his left, he saw Lance and Digg rushing toward him. Oliver clambered off the back of the ambulance toward them.

"What do you have?" he demanded. "What's the plan?"

"It turns out there's one entryway they don't have covered," Lance began. "The roof."

Oliver raised a skeptical eyebrow. "And how the hell is that going to work?"

"There's a balcony that's only accessible from inside the building...or if you have a helicopter drop you onto it," Digg explained.

"Isn't he going to hear a helicopter way too close to the building?"

Digg shook his head. "The room he's in is on the second floor. The balcony is on the third. Plus there have been helicopters flying overhead all night."

"Who all is going to be dropped?"

"Some SWAT agents and a few of our guard," Digg answered.

"I'm coming too," Oliver declared.

Digg shot him a long-suffering look, but didn't say anything. He knew his boss too well to try and talk him out of it.

"Fine, but you understand that we're doing this my way," Lance told them sternly. "You will follow my orders and you will do what I tell you. Do you understand?"

Oliver nodded. He had no intentions of actually following through and listening to the man's bluster, but at the moment he was so focused on getting into that building and saving Felicity that he might have agreed to anything.

Fifteen minutes later, Oliver was dangling from a suspension line with five other SWAT agents and Bratva members. The chopper gently lowered them onto the balcony, and the minute their feet hit the ground, the six of them took off running toward the door.

One of the SWAT team members took the lead while Digg took the rear. Oliver stood in front of Digg and together, they ran down the stairs and paused at each corner. Oliver had his handgun out, holding it close to him, his finger hovering over the trigger in case they ran into one of Blood's goons.

By some stroke of providence, they didn't run into anyone until they reached the ballroom.

"We go on my order, and my order only," the SWAT team captain hissed under his breath to the rest of them. "Our first priority is to secure the hostages."

"No one kills Blood," Oliver added. "I want him alive."

"That's not our priority," the team captain barked.

Oliver glared at him. "That might not be your priority, but it's mine."

The threat in his tone was clearly evident, and it sent a clear message to everyone else that the order was not to be disobeyed.

After they nailed down their plan, the team leader and the two other SWAT team members used a battering ram to slam open the double doors. Oliver and the Bratva contingent ran through the minute the doors were open, their guns drawn and pointed out in front of them.

"Freeze!" the SWAT captain shouted. "Nobody moves a goddamn muscle!"

The ballroom that had been been beautifully decorated when the evening first began had been torn to shambles. Tables and chairs were upended, drapes tattered, food smeared everywhere. On the dance floor, the hostages sat with their arms zip tied behind them.

Oliver's eyes immediately searched for his assistant, and he found her, sitting on a chair placed a few feet away from the hostages. Her arms were tied to her armrests while her ankles were secured to the chair legs. Her carefully pinned hair had completely fallen apart. The skirt of her dress was torn. Her eyes were bloodshot, and a bleeding cut had opened up right over her left eye.

The sight of Felicity injured fanned the flames of his fury until Oliver could hardly breathe.

The sound of laughter diverted his attention. He jerked his head toward the source of the sound and he saw Sebastian Blood, flanked by two mountainous bodyguards with hoods standing right in front of the SWAT team.

"Well, well, well," Blood chuckled. "Oliver, it looks like you found another way to around my ultimatum after all."

"FREEZE!" the SWAT captain screamed. His grip on his weapon tightened and the other two SWAT team members swarmed around him.

Blood looked abruptly annoyed. "There's really no need for yelling," he told the man frostily. "I'm going to have to ask you to keep it down otherwise I will have to take you out."

"Shut up, you fucking prick!" the captain snapped. The other SWAT members rustled around him, restless at the conflict.

Blood's eyes narrowed at the interruption. "That language is not necessary."

Oliver couldn't tell for sure under all the protective gear, but he was fairly certain the SWAT captain was smirking. "And what are you going to do about it, asshole? You're outnumbered, two to one."

Blood held up a hand. "That may be true," he conceded. "But superior numbers don't necessarily grant an upperhand." Then, with lightning quick reflexes, he pulled a gun from the holster at his waist and pointed it at Felicity.

Oliver's grip tightened on his firearm. "Blood," he growled. "I swear to God, if you hurt her, I will kill you."

The man in question rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I've already heard it, Oliver. You're quite tiresome in your threats, you know."

The barrel of the gun came closer to Felicity until the metal was pressed right up against her skin. For the first time since he barged into the room, Oliver's eyes immediately went to her face, bracing himself for any sort of terrified expression — but he didn't find any. Instead, her eyes were closed, the rest of her features completely smooth.

She was trying to hold onto her composure, he knew. But all he wanted in that moment was for her to open her eyes so he could catch a glimpse of what she might be feeling.

"Well since you can't seem to take simple instruction, and since I seem to be a little bit outnumbered, I think we can strike up a bit of a compromise, don't you? I will let you and all the rest of these lovely people go. But she," his gun pressed harder against Felicity's cheek and for the first time, Oliver saw her flinch, "she must stay."

"Like hell," Oliver spat.

Blood pulled a mock surprised expression. "Why, Oliver, surely you're joking? This is quite the deal. There are eleven innocent people here. Eleven people with spouses and children, brothers and sisters, people who love them. You have the choice to let them walk free! All I ask in return is that you leave this beautiful young woman here with me."

"And if I don't?"

Blood shrugged like it didn't matter. "Then I'll kill you all."

Right then, Felicity's eyes shot open. And for the first time, Oliver could read the terror in her expression.

But the words that came out of her mouth were the furthest thing from anything he could have expected.

"Oliver," she begged, "go. Leave me here. Please."

Everything inside of him was tearing in two. In any other circumstance, he would have done anything she asked of him. He would have given her the world if she wanted it.

But this, he could not do.

Yes, of course, he wanted to make sure that all of these innocent people made it out of the situation alive, but it was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to his deep need to get Felicity as far away from the barrel of Sebastian Blood's gun as possible.

The fact that she was asking him to leave her there made him want to whither and die.

"Please," she whispered.

"Felicity." His voice broke over her name.

She bit down on her lip, her eyes never straying away from his. Then she nodded ever so slightly, like she was saying it was OK. That it was OK to just abandon her. That it was OK to choose all these people over her.

But it wasn't OK. It was far, far from OK.

"I'm tiring of this, Oliver," Blood drawled. His finger inched over the trigger. "I'm giving you exactly ten seconds to make your decision."

He began the countdown, but then something peculiar happened so fast, he almost thought his eyes might have been playing tricks on him. A tiny red dot flickered over Blood's chest, almost like a laser.

A half a second later, Blood stopped mid-count. His entire body froze, his eyes still wide, his mouth still opened. But then his hand loosened over the gun and it clattered to the floor. Seconds later, his body followed with a loud, final thud.

No one in the room moved a single muscle. They were all still too shocked.

The SWAT members were the first to recover. Seconds after Blood went down, they took down the two guards on either side, then immediately went to secure the rest of the room.

The SWAT and the Bratva together took down the other guards posted at each entrance. Once they were stripped of their weapons and were cuffed, the cops came flooding in to help release the hostages.

But Oliver didn't care about the rest of them. The only person he cared about was staring right at him.

With impossibly long strides, he crossed the room to where Felicity sat. Kicking aside Blood's lifeless body, he slashed at the ropes that bound her to her chair. Once her limbs were free, she got to her feet and threw her arms around his shoulders.

Oliver clinged to her as she sobbed. He tried to keep as steady and as still as possible, but his body shook almost as much as she did.

He had been just inches away from losing her, and that thought was just too much to bear.

"Oliver," she wept. "Oliver, oh thank God!"

"Shhh," he murmured, his hand smoothing over her messy hair. "Shhh, it's all right. I'm right here. You're going to be fine."