Hands grab me—not Luca's hands, these are rough, gloved, yanking me up by my arms.
I try to scream but smoke fills my lungs. I'm coughing, choking, fighting blind. Someone hits me across the face and stars explode behind my eyes. Then I'm being dragged, my feet barely touching the ground.
The smoke starts to clear and I see them—men in tactical gear, black masks, guns. Several pour through the apartment like an invasion force.
And then I see Luca.
He's already moving, gun in hand, firing. One man drops. Then another. Blood sprays across the white walls. I see Luca move like violence personified, precise and brutal and utterly focused.
But there are too many.
He kills a third man with a knife I didn't see him draw, the blade opening the man's throat in one smooth motion. Butsomeone else is coming up behind him and I try to scream a warning but my voice won't work.
"Luca!"
He spins, bringing his gun up, but an arm locks around my throat from behind. Cold metal presses against my temple—a gun barrel. I freeze.
Luca freezes too.
For one second our eyes meet across the chaos of his destroyed kitchen. His face is splattered with blood that isn't his. His gun is trained on the man holding me. And in his eyes I see something I've never seen before—fear, not for himself, but for me.
"Let her go." His voice is deadly calm. The kind of calm that comes right before someone dies.
The man holding me laughs. He says something in Russian. I don't understand the words but I understand the tone—mocking and triumphant.
More men close in around Luca. He's still holding his gun but there are weapons pointed at him from every direction.
They start dragging me backward toward the elevator. Luca's eyes go wild.
"Francesca!" He's moving, trying to get to me, but there are too many of them. Someone kicks his knee from behind and he goes down hard. The gun gets knocked from his hand.
"No!" I'm fighting now, thrashing against the arm around my throat, but the man holding me is too strong. "Let him go! Don't hurt him!"
He's fighting to get up, roaring my name, feral and desperate. "FRANCESCA!"
I've never heard him sound like that—not controlled, not calculating, just raw animal need to get to me.
But they swarm him with boots and fists and rifle stocks. He goes down under the weight of them.
"Luca!" I'm screaming now, watching them beat him, watching him try to fight through it to reach me.
Our eyes lock one more time. Even bleeding, even pinned down, he looks at me like I'm the only thing that matters.
"Francesca." He says my name—not a plea, but a promise.
Then someone brings a rifle butt down on the back of his head.
He goes still.
I scream. Really scream this time, raw and desperate and broken. I'm still screaming when they drag me toward the elevator. Still screaming when I see Luca's body motionless on the floor.
"Luca! Luca, please, get up, please?—"
Someone hits me again and the world spins. I taste blood—my own this time.
Then I'm being shoved into the elevator, and they drag me down. The doors close and we descend. When they open again, cold air hits my face. A black, windowless van is parked on the street. The kind of vehicle that screams bad things happen inside.
They throw me in the back. I hit the metal floor hard enough to knock the breath out of me. Before I can recover, someone zip-ties my wrists behind my back. Another tie goes around my ankles. I'm trussed like an animal.
