She nodded, her hand already on the back of his jacket, ready to be pulled.
Boots crunched closer. A radio hissed, “Package cornered. Flush them.”
Tonio edged to the far side of the pipes. Their original car sat twenty yards away, half-hidden behind concrete barriers. Shouts and boots closed in from the construction skeleton behind them.
“One shot,” he murmured.
Sofia met his eyes—scared, steady.
“Now.”
They sprinted. A round cracked, punching the fender as Tonio shoved her inside. He slid into the driver’s seat and floored it. The site vanished behind a wall of dust. He took a series of sharp, pointless turns—losing pattern, losing tails. No headlights followed.
One hand on the wheel, he hit speaker.
Luc’s voice came through, flat. “Status.”
“We’re blown. Need a vehicle switch.” The senator was proving just how far his reach was.
“Route 14 rail yard. Ten minutes. Standard protocol. Alpha package,” Luc said, referencing a preset plan.
“Vehicle?”
“Sedan at pump three. Keys under the mat. Leave the old one.”
“Copy.”
The line went dead. Sofia’s phone sat powered off in her lap—she’d already killed it.
The station emerged, washed in sickly sodium light. Empty. A beat-up sedan idled at pump three. Tonio rolled into the lot, killed the engine, and his ingrained instincts immediatelyswept the area, searching for anything out of place or any hint of danger. Satisfied, they switched cars without a word. Tonio kept the drive steady, avoiding attention. The back roads worked in their favor—fewer eyes, fewer problems. Sofia stayed silent, staring out the window. She hadn’t spoken since the switch. Tonio let her be. The adrenaline that had been a fire in his veins cooled into a hard, sharp stone in his gut. He kept his focus split between the road and the mirrors, ensuring no one followed.
In the passenger seat, Sofia was a statue. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and she stared out the window, but Tonio knew she wasn’t seeing the landscape. She saw the wall of dirt, the spit of gravel, and the danger they had just escaped.
He didn’t push her to talk. He just drove. By the time he guided the car off the highway, the sky was a deep, starless indigo. The motel was a clone of the last one, a single-story L-shape with a cracked parking lot. He parked away from the office lights and killed the engine.
“Wait here,” he said, his voice rough from disuse.
He returned minutes later with a single key. She was still staring straight ahead, unmoving. He got out, came around to her door, and opened it. She flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible jerk, before her eyes focused on him. The vulnerability there was a fresh punch to his chest.
Wordlessly, she slid out and followed him to the room.
The door clicked shut. Tonio engaged the deadbolt and the chain, then methodically began his ritual: checking the window locks, scanning the lot through a sliver in the curtains.
When he turned, she was still standing just inside the door, her arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold. The defiant survivor was gone. In the dim light, she just looked young. And breakable.
“Sofia.”
She didn’t look at him.
He crossed the room and stopped a few feet away, giving her space. “Look at me.”
Slowly, her gaze lifted to his. The shock was still there, a glassy film over the usual fire.
“You’re safe,” he said, the words low and deliberate. “No one followed us here.”
She gave a small, shaky nod, but it was a mechanical response. “People were actuallyshootingat us.”
Tonio saw the fine tremor in her hands. He stepped into the small bathroom, ran the sink until the water was cold, and soaked the thin motel hand towel. He came back and held it out to her. “Here.”
