Instinct surges through me. I grab for him.
My fingers catch fabric and slide.
Boris falls.
The sound is nothing I will ever be able to unhear. Not a single impact but a series of them, heavy and wet and wrong, his body folding over itself as it tumbles down the remaining stairs. The last sound is different from the others. A crack, dense and final, and then silence.
He lands at the bottom in a shape that no living person makes. His head is turned too far, past the point where the cervical spine holds. I don’t need to check for a pulse to know what I’m looking at. His eyes are open and they’re staring at nothing.
I press my back against the wall and slide down until I’m sitting on the step. My hand is still raised, the stun gun warm against my palm. I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel anything.
The house is quiet. The terrible, loaded quiet of before, except now there is a dead man at the bottom of the stairs. Whether I meant for that to happen or not does not change the fact that it did. It means I have minutes, not hours. It means whoever comes through that front door next will find Boris and it will be over for me.
Move. Move now.
I force myself down the stairs.
But—keys first. I need keys.
My fingers shake as I search Boris’s pockets. I find a ring of keys, a wallet, his phone. I take all of it. The phone screen lights when I press the side button, but it needs a face to open.
I stare at Boris, bile rising in my throat.
Then I make myself do it.
The phone unlocks, and the homescreen blooms to life.
His text messages. My father’s number is at the top.
I scroll with my thumb, reading fast.
We’ve got him at the place on Boulder. Nik’s starting on him soon. Keep the girl in her room. I’ll send for her when we’re ready.
On it.
Sent an hour ago.
Starting on him soon.
The words seem to swell on the screen.
My grip tightens around the phone until my knuckles ache.
Boulder. I know the street name, but that’s not enough to go tearing through it on my own and somehow find the right building before my father does something irreversible.
For one wild second I picture trying anyway, taking Boris’s car and driving every block until I find the right place.
Then the thought runs headlong into reality. Even if I found it, what would I do? Walk into a building full of dangerous men with a stun gun and expect that to be enough?
There’s only one place left to go.
The Andrettis.
The family my father has spent years teaching me to fear. The family of the man sent to kill me.
A shiver works its way through me. I don’t know what waits for me if I go to them. Suspicion. Guns. Questions I don’t have time to answer. But they are Luca’s family, and if anyone can get to him before it’s too late, it’s them.
And they’re going to want more than my word.
