Now I just had to keep Marco away from that door.
I found him in the main hallway, FBI tactical vest spattered with blood from the two guards he'd already killed. He had agun, a knife, and the kind of desperate fury that made men dangerously unpredictable.
Our eyes met across twenty feet of hallway.
"Valestri." His voice was rough, controlled despite the blood. "You took something that belongs to me."
"She was never yours. She's a person, not property."
"She's my daughter. My blood. Mine to protect or destroy as I see fit."
"Not anymore."
He smiled without warmth. "Then I guess we settle this the old way."
He raised his weapon.
I dove behind a column as bullets chewed through drywall, returned fire, and caught him in the shoulder. He grunted, stumbled back, and kept shooting.
We moved through the safe house like ghosts, both of us bleeding, both of us hunting, months of tension finally exploding into violence.
I caught him in the living room. He caught me with a knife across the ribs. We crashed through furniture, destroying everything, fighting with the desperation of men who knew only one of us was walking away.
I finally got him down—knee on his chest, gun to his head.
I could end it. Right here. Pull the trigger, eliminate the threat permanently.
But Valentina's voice echoed in my head:We're better than that.
I hesitated.
That hesitation cost me everything.
Marco twisted, threw me off with desperate strength, and scrambled toward the panic room control panel.
No.
I lunged after him, but he was already there, punching codes into the keypad with shaking, bloody hands.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," he gasped, grinning through blood. "You think Martinez didn't give me every code in this building before I put a bullet in him? I've been buying federal agents since before you were born."
The panic room door mechanisms began to disengage with a mechanical hiss.
Horror flooded through me. Valentina was in there. Carrying our children. Terrified. Defenseless.
"If I'm dying," Marco said, raising his gun toward the opening door, "she dies with me."
Everything slowed down.
The door was sliding open. Valentina's terrified face appeared in the gap. Marco's gun rose, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Our babies. Innocent. Defenseless. Growing inside the woman I loved.
I had no choice.
I threw myself between Marco and the door just as he fired.
The impact was like being hit by a truck—white-hot agony exploding through my side, just below my arm, the bullet tearing through muscle and stealing breath, stealing strength.
