We fire simultaneously.
His shot goes wide by three inches—close enough that I feel the heat, far enough that it doesn’t matter. Mine doesn’t miss. Center mass. Controlled burst. Professional.
He drops, and I’m already moving past him, stepping over his body, my bare feet silent on the blood-slicked floor. Clear the next corner, weapon up, scanning for threats.
More guards. Two of them are at the end of the hallway, backlit by a window. They see me at the same moment I see them. Weapons raising.
I drop the MP5—too slow to transition, too unwieldy for this range—and draw the Glock in one smooth motion. The draw is clean despite the pain in my shoulder, despite the way my hands are starting to shake from blood loss.
Four shots. Two for each target. Mozambique drill—two to the chest, assess, two more if needed.
Both are down before they can return fire.
Professional. Efficient. The part of me that’s been doing this since I was eighteen, moving on autopilot while my brain tracks other things. The sound of the breach. The layout of the building. Exit routes. Where Parker might be.
The sounds of the breach are getting closer now, the organized chaos of a tactical entry in full swing. I can hear Cal’s voice somewhere ahead, shouting coordinates with that manic edge he gets when the adrenaline kicks in. Jace giving orders, his voice carrying that absolute authority that makes people obey without thinking. Charles’s deeper tone cutting through the chaos, directing teams, orchestrating the violence.
They’re almost here.
I turn to head toward them, toward the sound of family coming to save me even though I told them not to.
And she’s standing there.
Aria.
Ten feet away at the end of the hallway. Gun raised. Pointed directly at my chest with both hands, proper grip, proper stance. She’s been trained. Recently, by someone good.
Her face is streaked with tears and mascara, black lines running down her cheeks like war paint. Her hands are shaking so badly I can see it from here, the gun trembling, but her finger’s on the trigger, and at this range even a bad shot will do the job.
“I loved you,” she says, and her voice breaks on the words. Shatters completely. “I would have given you everything. Everything I am. Everything I built. It was all for you.”
“I know,” I say, because what else is there? What do you say to someone whose love is actually obsession, whose devotion is actually possession? “I know you believe that.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she continues, and now she’s crying harder, her breath hitching. “You were supposed to see.Supposed to understand. Parker doesn’t love you the way I do. She doesn’t?—”
She fires.
The first shot hits center mass. High chest. Right side. The impact is immediate and overwhelming—like being hit with a sledgehammer, like every atom in my body suddenly decides to move in a different direction. Knocks me backward, stealing my breath, turning my vision white at the edges.
Before I can recover, before I can even process the pain, she fires again.
Lower. Left side. Different angle.
The second shot spins me, sends me stumbling, my leg finally giving out completely. I’m falling. Can’t stop it. Can’t catch myself. My back hits the floor hard enough to rattle my teeth, hard enough that I taste blood, my head bouncing off the hardwood.
Aria’s standing over me now. The gun is shaking in her hands, pointing down at my face, and I can see her finger tightening on the trigger. See the moment she decides to finish it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and somehow I believe her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want it to be you. I wanted it to be us.”
I wait for the third shot. The one that will finish it. The one that will put me out of this pain that’s spreading through my chest like fire.
It doesn’t come.
A different shot. Louder. From behind her. Different caliber—bigger, angrier.
Aria’s eyes go wide. She looks down at her chest, at the bloom of red spreading across her black shirt, dark on dark. Her mouth opens like she wants to say something but nothing comes out. Just blood. Just the wet sound of lungs that suddenly don’t work.
Then she falls.
