Another shot cracks—close. Carlo’s found the edge.
Time’s up.
“Go,” I snarl—and shove her.
I put everything into it: the terror, the obsession, the warped, brutal thing that passes for love in a man like me. She stumbles—catches—then she’s running low and fast along the crates, vanishing into steel and shadow toward the exit I clocked the second we walked in.
I don’t watch her go.
I can’t.
I burst from cover in the opposite direction, drawing fire like a curse.
The world detonates.
Metal screams as rounds tear into beams and ancient machinery. Concrete chips dance under my boots. A crate behind me explodes open—plastic-wrapped product spilling across the floor like a dirty snowfall.
Pain brands my upper arm as a bullet kisses skin instead of bone—white-hot and immediate. My fingers go numb. Blood slicks my sleeve, warm and wrong.
I bare my teeth and keep moving.
I don’t have the luxury of caring.
Not while Carlo laughs above, shouting something I can’t hear over gunfire and the thunder inside my skull.
I roll behind a support column at the base of the mezzanine stairs, lungs scorching, vision tunneling. The column shudders when another round smashes into it. Dust rains down like mockery.
“Come on, Bishop!” Carlo’s voice slices from above—bright with delight. “Let’s see what kind of saint you are when your heart’s on the floor!”
I look up at the metal staircase spiraling toward him.
Each step exposed.Each step a gamble.Each step another chance to die.
Perfect.
A trial isn’t a trial if you walk it safe.
I clamp my palm over the bleeding groove, feel the heat, the slick proof I’m still here.
Still moving.
Still choosing.
My father built me to be a weapon.The Church tried to make me do penance.Pia made me want a future that didn’t stink of graves.
Now Carlo wants to see which man survives.
My lips peel back.
“Final test,” I murmur, more to God than to him. “Watch close. You don’t get to claim this one.”
For Pia.For the truth under Giovanni’s lies.For the man I am choosing—again and again—to become—
I step from behind the column and set my boot on the first metal stair, climbing into the kill zone.
Above me, Carlo steadies his aim.
The barrel follows my chest with lethal, almost-loving attention—
