“Got him,” another guard says, cool as ice.
“Move!” Nico commands. “On me. Elena, now.”
He’s up and moving, parting the space, one arm extended, palm back toward me. I rise into a crouch, grab Caterina’s wrist, andthe three of us become one line—Nico pulling, us following, Marc compressing space behind.
We break for the car.
The sidewalk is both near and far. There’s a scream somewhere—not close. A horn. The thrum of the SUV engine right in front of us, steady and ready.
Another crack. A window up the block spiders. People on the sidewalk panic in every direction at once. I focus on the door handle of the SUV, on the slick silver of it, on the way it will feel in my hand. I focus on not falling.
“Eyes on—there!” a guard barks. “Second is moving—roofline—”
“Get them in the car,” Nico barks. He never looks away from the threat. He doesn’t have to; he knows where we are by sound and instinct.
Caterina slides across the back seat the second Marc hauls the door wide. I go after her on auto, one knee on leather, trying to pull the rest of me in fast as—
Another shot. Closer? Farther? I can’t tell except by the way Marc’s shoulders hitched, and then he shoved even harder. My hip clips the seat belt anchor; pain flashes, irrelevant. He slams the door behind us so hard the SUV rocks.
Nico’s at the open front passenger door now, half-turned, scanning, gun out—not big, not waved around. Ready. Barely visible to anyone not looking.
“Go,” he tells the driver. “Now.”
We lurch forward. The driver threads us into traffic with a speed that makes my stomach leap. Caterina’s hand finds mine and squeezes hard. The SUV takes the corner too fast. A horn blares. People shout.
I crane my head and see the back of Nico’s head and one shoulder, as he snaps commands on the comm. I see the side mirror throw a flicker of the street behind us, where the alley is getting smaller and fading.
“Two outside are tailing,” Nico says into his mic. “Sal, you and Marc are on the second car.”
“Copy,” Sal’s voice comes, smaller and more distorted now that he’s not in our same space.
I suck air in and feel it actually reach my lungs this time. My hands won’t stop shaking. I flatten them to my thighs and press, breathe again, try to keep track of what my body is doing.
Heart still racing. Vision fine. Hearing too sharp. The baby—a new flare of fear rips through me, and I put my palm flat against my belly and hold it there like I can calm from the outside in.
“You’re okay,” Caterina says, reading me right. “We’re okay.”
“For now,” I say, and I hate the way it sounds. I try to soften it. “Thank you. For—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Save it for when we’re through the gate.”
The city rushes by. We’re not on a straight shot; the driver is weaving through a course I can’t make out, rerouting around whatever traffic and whatever threats the two outside are calling in. The wheels thump a manhole cover; we drift into the opposite lane for a breath, then back. People blur into colors. A street vendor yanks his cart back to avoid losing a front wheel to us.
“Shot came from the second-floor window, east building,” Sal’s voice says over the comm again. He sounds calmer, farther away. “First shooter is gone. Second shooter on the roofline, lost visual.”
“Copy,” Nico says. “Stay with us until we hit the turn.”
“On you.”
I slide down one inch in the seat and try to make my shoulders lower. The leather is warm from the sun; the air conditioning blows cold at the back of my neck and makes the sweat I didn’t know I had feel like ice.
“Your head,” Caterina says suddenly, touching the edge of the hair by my temple.
I go still. “What?”
She shows me two tiny freckle-sized specks on her fingertip—paint, not blood. “From the door,” she says. “Just paint. You’re fine.”
The memory snaps sharp again: the paint spitting off the steel at my face, the sound that wasn’t a sound I’d ever heard in person before. I swallow, and it sticks in my throat. I push it down with the next breath and find the driver’s eyes in the rearview for half a second. They’re focused. That helps.
