"No."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand. My knuckles are still healing from the mirror incident, the cuts scabbed over and pulling every time I make a fist.
No.
One word. That's all I get.
I set the phone down carefully on the desk. Then I reach for the whiskey bottle.
Pietro's voice echoes in my head: You're going to drink yourself into an early grave.
Maybe.
But at least graves are quiet. At least graves don't call you just to tell you they don't need anything from you.
I pour two fingers. Then three.
Claudio will stay. I don't care if Kristen hates me for it. I don't care if she never speaks to me again.
Liar.
I care. That's the whole fucking problem. I care so much it's eating me alive from the inside out.
The muzzle flash blinds me before the pain hits.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
I came here alone because I couldn't sleep, couldn't think, couldn't function without whiskey numbing the constant ache in my chest.
Tonight I traced the pattern. Warehouse 7, east side dock, 2 a.m. rotation gap. I should have brought backup. I should have waited for Dante. But the hollow space where Kristen used to be made me reckless.
Made me want to feel something other than this.
The bullet grants my wish.
It punches through my chest like a fist made of fire. The impact throws me backward into a stack of wooden crates. I hit the concrete hard, my Glock clattering from fingers that suddenly won't obey.
"Nico!" Dante's voice cracks through the warehouse, followed by rapid gunfire. Three shots. Four. A body drops somewhere to my left.
I try to count the Russians. Saw four when I entered. These aren't Baganovs—I'd recognize their men. These are new players. Freelancers maybe. Hired muscle moving in on our territory while I've been too busy destroying myself to notice.
Funny. I always thought getting shot would hurt more.
It doesn't compare to watching Kristen walk out my door. Doesn't touch the agony of her voice on the phone, flat and done with me.
"Stay with me!" Dante slides to his knees beside me, hands pressing hard against my chest. The pressure should be excruciating. I barely feel it. "Don't you fucking dare, Nico."
"How many?" My voice sounds distant. Underwater.
"Doesn't matter. Liam's cleaning up." Dante's face swims above me, features blurring at the edges. "Why the hell did you come alone? What were you thinking?"
I wasn't. That's the problem.
I was drowning in surveillance footage of Kristen walking Lily to kindergarten. Yes, I asked Claudio to record. I stay there watching her laugh at something on her phone. Seeing her look over her shoulder, checking for threats I'd put there. I was drinking myself blind because the alternative was driving to her apartment and begging her to forgive me for being exactly what she escaped.
"Kristen." Her name scrapes past my lips.
