First, I hear bullets ricocheting off metal, then I feel the unmistakable buckling as it begins to give way.
“Get us out of here. Now!”
I twist us, my body taking the brunt of the impact as we’re slammed into the side of another vehicle.
Pain blooms hot and immediate across my shoulder, sharp enough to make my vision white at the edges.
Worth it. Always worth it, because I’m still alive.
“Giovanni—”
“I’ve got you,” I snap, pushing her down into the footwell, one hand fisted in the back of her coat, the other already drawing my weapon in preparation for when the severely cracked glass shatters. “Whatever happens, do not move.”
They’ve chosen their ground well: gritty, semi-private, a service alley feeding into a half-abandoned industrial strip just inside the city limits.
Close enough for chaos but isolated enough for blood.
Bellandi’s shadowy signature.
Another impact hits the SUV like a hammer blow. A brutal, metallic thud that makes even bulletproof glass shudder in its frame.
My eyes narrow, recognising the sound with a twist in my gut.
Armour-piercing.
Of course.
The second round spiders the window in a sharp white bloom, the laminated layers holding for now, but I can hear the stress in it, the thin scream of something engineered being forced beyond its limit.
We’re pinned.
Front and rear, both sides boxed in by the narrow Red Hook street, the warehouses looming like indifferent witnesses. Traffichas stalled too neatly at the far end, cars abandoned at odd angles as if the city itself has been instructed to look away.
“Stay down,” I bark, already twisting back.
Lucia’s tucked into the footwell exactly where I’ve shoved her, her hands clenched tight, her breathing fast but controlled. She promised me. She’s keeping it.
Good.
I press my palm against the centre console, feel the hidden latch give under my thumb as a panel slides back with a soft hydraulic hiss.
Lucia’s eyes widen when she sees what’s been beneath our feet all this time. Beneath the leather and luxury is what Dragoni territory always is beneath the surface?—
An armoury.
Compact. Efficient. Purpose-built.
I tuck my pistol into my waistband and grab the nearest heavier weapon without thinking. An HK MP5K, short-barrelled and vicious, made for close quarters and urban slaughter.
My jaw tightens as another round slams into the glass.
Fuck, they’re now hitting from all sides.
More vehicles. Bellandi’s crew has us bracketed, a kill box designed to make even my security hesitate. I taste the trap in the air.
I grit my teeth, shifting forward, preparing to kick out what remains of the window and take the street the old way?—
Then salvation arrives in steel.
