Smoke poured from the engine compartment. One wheel still spun uselessly..
Silence.
Then screaming. Someone inside was screaming.
Valentina.
I was already moving—door open, boots hitting pavement, Glock in hand. Domenico shouted something behind me, but the words dissolved into white noise.
The embankment was steep, loose rock and scrub brush shifting underfoot. I half-ran, half-slid down it, gravel tearing at my hands when I caught myself.
Every second she screamed was a second too long.
A figure stumbled from the wreckage, blood streaming from a scalp wound.
He saw me. Tried to raise his weapon.
I put two rounds in him before he dropped.
The second one appeared through the smoke, weapon tracking me.
I dove as his shot cracked past. Rolling, I came up firing. Double-tap. Another man down.
The third one tried to flank. I spun and caught him in the shoulder. He went down screaming.
"Clear right!" Domenico's voice came from behind me.
I reached the van, lungs burning, chest tight.
The side door hung open, shattered glass framing the darkness inside. Smoke poured from the engine, thick and chemical, making my eyes water.
"Valentina!"
Silence. Just the hiss of escaping fluids, the tick of cooling metal, the distant wail of approaching sirens.
No answer.
Terror clawed up my throat. What if I was too late, what if the crash killed her, what if—
I climbed into the wreckage, Glock raised but not steady. The interior was a chaos of dislodged seats and bent metal glass everywhere catching light like scattered diamonds.
In the back, a shape. Small. Still.
My heart stopped.
Then she moved.
"Valentina." Her name came out broken.
She looked up, and I saw it all in flashes—blood down her face, bruises blooming across her cheekbone, zip-tied hands.
But alive.
Those green eyes found mine—wide, terrified—and something in my chest unlocked.
She was alive.
And then, I saw Caldwell. He was pressed against the far wall, gun shaking in both hands. It was pointed at Valentina's head.
