“Run again,” he whispers, breath hot against my cheek, “and I’ll send the Bishop your eyes in a box.”
A shudder rips through me.
Not fear.
Rage.
Images slam into me — Guido, clutching his sketchbook like a life raft.Santino’s hands shaking when he thought I wasn’t looking.Romeo’s eyes in the tunnels, sharp and wrong.Giovanni’s coffin, lilies rotting on top like they knew who was inside.
I taste iron.
“You won’t touch him,” I rasp.
Carlo hums, amused.“That’s the idea, Bella. I touch you instead. He comes running. Everyone gets what they deserve.”
My whole body trembles.
The guard grinds the gun harder against my skull like he’s begging for permission.
Carlo studies me.
I let him.
Let him see what he’s made — not the girl from the night my father died,not the thief who thought she could outrun her last name,
but something meaner. Sharper. Built from every piece they tried to break.
“I’m not bait,” I say quietly. “I’m a fucking bomb. You sure you want him walking into range?”
Carlo smiles, slow and delighted.“Explosions make the news,” he says. “Kings die in them. Everyone wins.”
Everyone except the people I love.
Santino bleeding out on this floor because of a message I didn’t send.Guido lost. Again.Romeo left alone with whatever poison he’s hiding.Giovanni still winning from the grave, his war chewing through the next generation like dessert.
No.
“No,” I say out loud.
Carlo’s eyes narrow. “No?”
I lift my chin as far as the fist in my hair allows.
“You don’t get to write the ending,” I tell him. “Not this time.”
He laughs softly.“Sweetheart, you’re kneeling on my floor with a gun to your head. You don’t even get to write the next five minutes.”
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I will die here.Maybe Santino does too.
But if there’s even a crack in this plan—one weak guard, one bad angle, one second of distraction—I’ll find it. I’ll rip it open with my teeth if I have to.
Because I will not let Santino die for me.I will not let Romeo tear this family apart while the rest of us are bleeding.I will not let Giovanni’s shadow be the last thing any of us see.
There has to be a way to end this.
I just have to stay alive long enough to light the fuse.
