I’m alone again.
The pain throbs in time with my heartbeat, a constant reminder that I’m on borrowed time, existing in this limbo between life and death while Romano waits for Luca to walk into his trap.
I have to get out of here.
The thought suddenly hits me. I can’t just lie here waiting to be used as bait. I can’t let Romano use me to destroy Luca, no matter what’s broken between us.
And—god—there’s another reason now. One that makes survival even more critical than it was before.
The baby.
My hand wants to drift to my stomach, to the place where a tiny life is growing despite everything. But the zip ties keep my wrists bound to the cot, so I can only think about it. Aboutthem. The child Luca doesn’t know exists. The innocent life that will die with me if I don’t find a way out.
I’ve survived too much to die here. I’ve learned too much about strength and resilience and refusing to be broken. The old Giuliana—the one who walked into that warehouse weeks ago to find her father—would have given up by now and accepted her fate and waited for rescue or death.
But I’m not her anymore.
Luca’s world has changed me. Not just by making me harder or more cynical, but by teaching me that survival sometimes requires fighting with everything I have. That being soft doesn’t mean being weak. That choosing to live—reallylive—is itself an act of rebellion against people who want to break me.
I test the zip ties again, ignoring the way the movement makes pain shoot through my chest. They’re tight, cutting into my skin, but not impossibly so. If I can work them—if I can find something sharp enough to cut through the plastic?—
Come on.
The door opens again, and I glance up frantically. It’s the doctor. He carries a bag of supplies, his expression as detached as before. Late fifties, gray hair, the kind of face that’s seen too much to be shocked by anything.
“I need to check your wound,” he says in that accented English, setting down his bag.
“Please,” I try, my voice cracking. “Please, you have to help me. Romano is going to kill me. He’s going to?—”
“I’m a doctor, not a savior,” he interrupts, already pulling on latex gloves. “My job is to keep you alive until Mr. Romano says otherwise. Nothing more.”
He cuts away the bandage, and I have to bite down on a scream as air hits the wound. It looks angry and red, the stitches pulling at torn flesh that’s already starting to bruise purple around the edges.
“No infection yet,” he observes, dabbing at the wound with something that burns like liquid fire. I thrash against the restraints. “Hold still. You really are lucky. Bullet went clean through. Another inch to the left and you’d have died before we got you here.”
Lucky. That word again.
“How long have I been here?” I manage to ask through gritted teeth as he applies fresh bandaging.
“Two days.” He works quickly and efficiently, like this is just another job, which I guess it is for him. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness. The blood loss was significant.”
Two days. Forty-eight hours that Luca’s been tearing through the city looking for me. Forty-eight hours that Romano’s been setting his trap.
“Please,” I try again as the doctor packs up his supplies, trying anything that will make him even a tiny bit sympathetic. “I’m pregnant. There’s a baby. If Romano kills me?—”
“Then the fetus dies too.” He says it with such casual indifference that I want to scream. “My advice? Cooperate. Do what Mr. Romano wants. Maybe he’ll let you live.”
But we both know that’s a lie.
He leaves, and I’m alone again with the pain and the terrible knowledge that time is running out.
I close my eyes and force myself tothink. Past the pain, past the fear, past the desperate need to curl up and give in to the darkness that keeps trying to pull me under.
The zip ties are plastic. Plastic melts. If I can find heat—friction—something.
My eyes scan the warehouse space I can see from this angle. Exposed beams overhead. Concrete floor. Metal shelving units against the far wall holding what looks like old equipment and supplies. Windows set too high to reach even if I could stand.
But nearby—is that a radiator? The old cast-iron kind that probably hasn’t worked in years but might still have sharp edges if I could reach it.
