Footsteps pass outside the door. Two male voices speak in hushed tones.
“You really think they’ll come this way?” one asks.
“No,” the other says, snorting. “This way is too obvious. No way they’d be that dumb. But, hey, boss tells me to sit on it, I sit on it.” It’s said with a condescending sneer, as if he knows better.
I hear one of them say, “Bellandi’s gonna be pissed if she slips away in the hands of those Cuntis.”
I narrow my eyes at the bastard. Antonio’s grip on my waist tightens, a warning squeeze.
“Hell, he’s already pissed. He tapped into that asshole CEO’s computer and, apparently, they’re passing on Bellandi for the acquisition. Officially. So now we gotta clean this mess up.”
So that’s what the urgent meeting was going to be about. They had taken my recommendation and passed on Bellandi.
“All this for one woman?”
“Not one woman. The decision-maker, shake her, break her, whatever it takes. If she signs, we win. If she doesn’t—” I imagine him shrugging, like that’s all my life is worth. “Then we don’t need her anymore, do we?”
My blood turns to ice, and I begin to tremble.
Antonio’s mouth brushes my ear, barely there. His arm tightens around me.
Outside, the men keep walking. Their voices fade, then spike again for a second as one of them laughs under his breath—like my life is a punchline—and then even that disappears down the corridor.
But Antonio doesn’t move. Not yet. Not for a while.
We stay exactly as we are, perfectly still. Well, Antonio does. I try.
It’s not for a while that his hand finally leaves my mouth slowly, not all at once, like he’s testing whether I’ll panic out loud.
I swallow hard, taste fear, and force it back. Antonio is here right now, protecting me. He doesn’t have to be here, but he is. I’m going to be all right. I trust him.
He shifts the gun slightly, angling his body between me and the door, and leans in to murmur against my ear, “When I open this, you stay behind me. You don’t run. You don’t look around. You hold onto my jacket, and you do exactly what I tell you.”
My fingers curl into his sleeve on instinct.
He pauses, listening—head tilted, every muscle tuned to the hallway. Then, softly, he says, “A hundred yards. No more than that. Then we’re out of here.”
I nod and watch as he eases the door open—just enough to look out with one eye—then goes still again.
For a heartbeat, all I can hear is my own blood.
Then his gaze flicks left, right, and he pulls back, easing the door shut without a sound.
“Hold,” he breathes.
Footsteps—different ones this time—tap past the closet. Faster. One set. The cadence of someone moving with purpose.
The steps fade.
He waits two more beats anyway. One. Two.
Then he cracks the door again, wider.
His eyes land on mine for a split second, reassurance.
“Now,” he murmurs.
He slips out first, body angled to shield me, and I move exactly the way he told me to—close, tucked behind him, fingers clamped on the back of his jacket.
