He was coming through that door.
And I had nowhere left to run.
CHAPTER 17
Alessio
Twenty minutes earlier, I'd been in the back of an FBI transport vehicle, cuffed and compliant, watching Phoenix slide past through reinforced glass.
Then the convoy ambush hit.
Marco's contractors—four vehicles, military precision. The sniper hit must have failed, Valentina's warning getting through, because this was the backup plan: kill me in transit, make it look like a rescue attempt gone wrong.
They miscalculated.
In the chaos of the attack—Loss of FBI vehicle control, the transport fishtailing into a guardrail, agents returning fire—I got my hands on a contractor who'd breached the rear doors. He went down hard. I took his Glock, his keys, and his phone.
His vehicle was still running fifty feet away. I was gone before the smoke cleared.
Now, I was weaving through Phoenix traffic at speeds that would get me killed or arrested. Neither mattered.
Valentina's livestream played on the phone propped against the dashboard. The screen showed Marco outside the panic room with a cutting torch, blue flame already eating through reinforced steel.
I didn't know how much time she had. Minutes, maybe.
Blood dripped from the gash above my eyebrow where the contractor's rifle stock had connected during the ambush. Ribs screamed with each breath—cracked, probably broken. Didn't matter. Pain was temporary. Losing Valentina was permanent.
The viewer count on her stream climbed as I watched. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Going viral in real-time as the world watched Marco DeLuca's carefully constructed persona burn.
His voice came through tinny speakers, cold and controlled despite the cutting torch in his hands. "Clever girl. Just like your mother. But it won't save you."
Valentina's face in the camera feed—pale, determined, terrified, but refusing to break. My brave, brilliant woman who'd survived everything her father threw at her and kept fighting.
Hold on,principessa. I'm coming.
The GPS showed twelve minutes to the DeLuca estate. Police response would be faster—dispatch already scrambling units based on thousands of 911 calls from livestream viewers. But coordinating tactical entry into a fortified estate took time. Staging, planning, securing perimeter.
Valentina didn't have time.
I pushed the stolen vehicle harder, engine screaming in protest. Ran two red lights, sideswiped a taxi, and kept going. The driver's frantic horn faded behind me.
Nine minutes out.
On screen, Marco's phone rang. He stepped back from the door, torch dying, and answered with visible irritation. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I watched his expression change—irritation to confusion to something like fear.
He barked orders at someone off-camera and strode out of frame, leaving the half-breached door behind.
Something had gone wrong for him. The ambush on my convoy, maybe. Or the police responding faster than expected. His empire was crumbling in real time, and he was scrambling to hold it together.
It bought her time. Bought me time."
Six minutes.
The DeLuca estate appeared ahead—chaos already erupting. News vans clustered outside the gates, satellite dishes extending toward the sky. Crowds of onlookers drawn by the viral livestream, everyone with phones raised, watching the same feed I was watching. Police cruisers arriving, officers trying to establish a perimeter, but the scene was pandemonium.
Perfect.
I ditched the stolen vehicle two blocks away and moved on foot through the gathering crowd. The badge I'd taken from the contractor got me past the initial police cordon. Everyone was too focused on the livestream to check credentials carefully.
