The kid nods, jaw tight, trying to look tougher than he feels. I remember being that age. I remember sitting on a gurney just like this one, my first real wound… a knife across the palm, earned in a warehouse fight I barely survived. Aurelio sat beside me and said nothing. waited until the medic finished, then handed me a glass of whiskey and told me to sleep.
I didn’t sleep for three days.
“Get some rest,” I tell Dante. “You earned it.”
“Sir.” He hesitates. “The girl. The one you moved to the panic room. Is she—is she okay?”
I go still. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” His eyes flick sideways. “Some of the guys were talking, that’s all. Saying she’s the one who found the mole. Saying she’s—” He stops. Smart enough to read my expression.
“She’s fine,” I snap. “And what the guys say about her is none of your concern. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
I leave before I say something I’ll regret. The hallways are empty at this hour, lit by fluorescent strips that hum and flicker. My footsteps echo. I count them out of habit, a rhythm that grounds me when everything else is spinning loose.
The men are talking about her.
Of course they are. A compound full of soldiers, a war raging outside the walls, and the Don’s right-hand man has moved a civilian woman into his personal quarters. The rumor mill doesn’t need fuel when the fire’s already visible from orbit.
I need to be more careful. Not with Alexandra—with everything around her. The way I move, the way I react, the way I look at her when I think no one’s watching. Because someone is always watching.
Dawn turns the compound grey.
I walk the perimeter, stepping over bloodstains that the cleaning crews haven’t reached yet. Shell casings glint in the early light. A section of the east fence is torn open, the metal twisted by the force of the breach. Two SUVs still sit in the courtyard, their windows shattered, tires flat, riddled with holes. One that we can repurpose and scrub for information.
Eighteen bodies, now bagged and stacked in the basement cooler. Eighteen families who’ll never get a call, never get a grave, never know what happened. That’s the cost of hiring yourself out to men like Marco Castillo.
I feel nothing for them. I’ve never felt anything for the dead. That’s what makes me good at this. The emptiness, the disconnect, the ability to separate the act from the aftermath.
But tonight, something was different.
When the shooting started, I wasn’t thinking about the compound. I wasn’t thinking about Aurelio or the war or the Bonaccorso empire. I was counting floors. Three levels above the panic room. If they breach the west side, they reach the lower corridors.
They reach her.
I fought tonight like I had something to lose.
That’s new. That’s dangerous. And I don’t know how to make it stop.
I finish my sweep and head back inside, my boots leaving prints in the wet concrete. The compound is quieter now—soldiers standing down, adrenaline fading, the post-battle exhaustion settling in like fog.
Outside my door, the guards snap to attention. I wave them down and step inside.
Alexandra is asleep on my bed. She’s still wearing the clothes from yesterday, curled on her side with one arm tucked under the pillow. Her breathing is slow, even. Peaceful in a way she never manages when she’s awake.
I stand in the doorway and watch her.
This is the part Dahlia warned me about. The part where wanting something becomes needing it. The part where need becomes weakness, and weakness becomes a weapon your enemies can use against you.
The part that she could never give herself until she found her other half.
If I were smart, I’d put distance between us. Reassign her to another handler. Move her to a different floor, a different wing,somewhere I can’t hear her voice or see her face or feel her hands on my chest, checking for wounds she’s terrified she’ll find.
I should do a lot of things.
Instead, I sit in the chair by the window and watch the sunrise paint the sky in shades of blood and gold. Alexandra sleeps. The compound breathes. And the third player, faceless, nameless, powerful enough to arm mercenaries and fund a war.
