Every vent hummed like a hidden voice. Every shadow looked like it wanted to move.
Skye froze at the corner, hand raised. They stilled, statues sweating bullets in the airless heat.
Somewhere ahead: a crack, a door closing.
“The guard near the front entrance went to the bathroom. He’s back in his office now,” Jules whispered through the comms. Her voice, tinny in Lucia’s ear, barely steadied her nerves.
Skye gestured them forward. They crept down the corridor, past another keypad. The display glowed faintly in the dark. Skye typed the code—one click, then a low creak that made Lucia’s stomach flip.
They waited—thirty slow heartbeats—before slipping into the climate-controlled storage room. The air there was cooler, almost sharp with refrigerant. The rows of crates stretched like sentinels in ordered lines.
No one spoke. They flicked on penlights and got to work, cracking lids, rifling through packing straw and inventory slips.
Wood rasped. Paper crackled. Every sound seemed too loud.
Ten minutes later, Lucia’s pulse was pounding in her throat. Empty crates, wrong crates, all wrong.
NoMadonna.
Her stomach sank. Had it already been moved?
“Skye, check out the other section across the hall,” Francesca murmured.
Skye nodded and vanished through the door.
Minutes stretched, thin and taut. Then: voices, faint but approaching.
They killed their lights. The room dropped into total blackness.
“Shit, you guys need to hide. Varnelli got inside.” Jules’s whisper crackled sharp in her ears. “I don’t know how or why. Didn’t even see her coming, but she’s heading right for the storage room.”
“I told you your girlfriend has loose lips!” Skye hissed into the comms.
“Shut it,” Lucia growled, heart hammering like faulty wire sparking against metal.
“Hush,” Francesca snapped, already melting into shadow.
Lucia tried to flatten herself against the wall, breath shallow, sweat prickling down her spine.
The door swung wide.
Overhead fluorescents blazed to life with a sharp buzz.
And there she was. Valentina Varnelli.
She didn’t hurry. She strolled in, heels clicking on the concrete, one manicured finger brushing a shelf as if this were her private gallery. Tall and poised, with pale skin and a sweep of long blonde hair, she moved with an elegance that belied the steel in her spine. She paused to wipe imaginary dust from her fingers, her smirk sharp enough to cut glass.
“You’ve always been so predictable, Francesca.”
“Where is she?” Francesca said, her voice low and taut as she stepped out of the shadows.
“She’s gone.”
A muscle jumped in Francesca’s jaw. “Gone?” Her fingers flexed at her sides, like they were reaching for something to break.
“It’s almost tragic that you still think you’ll ever get her back. I simply wanted to see how far you’d come, and whether you’re still foolish enough to think you could win.”
Francesca took a step closer.
