Nothing.
I adjust my fingers. Press harder.
Still nothing.
Hot tears burst from my eyes. They streak down my face, dripping onto her ruined dress.
"Don't do this to me." My voice cracks. Breaks. "Don't you fucking do this to me, Antonella."
Behind me, Scar groans.
The sound cuts through my grief like a blade. I turn my head slowly. The bastard lies crumpled against the wall where my bullets drove him. Blood bubbles from his chest with each labored breath. His eyes find mine, and even now—even dying—he has the audacity to smile.
"Too late," he rasps. "Told her... she wouldn't survive."
Something snaps inside me.
I raise my gun. My hand steadies for the first time since I entered this room.
I pull the trigger.
The bullet tears through his shoulder. He screams.
I fire again. His knee explodes.
Again. His other shoulder.
Again. His stomach.
I empty the entire magazine into his body, watching him jerk and twitch with each impact. The screaming stops after the second shot. By the sixth, he's nothing but meat.
I keep pulling the trigger anyway.
Click. Click. Click.
The gun is empty. Has been empty for several seconds. But I can't stop. Can't make my finger release the trigger. Can't make my arm lower.
"Bruno."
Valentino's voice reaches me from somewhere far away.
"Bruno, she's alive."
The words don't register. I stare at Scar's ruined corpse, at the holes I've torn through his chest and face and throat. At the blood painting the wall behind him.
"Bruno!" Valentino grabs my shoulder. Shakes me hard. "Listen to me. She's alive. I found a pulse. It's weak, but it's there."
I turn back to Antonella.
Valentino crouches beside her, his fingers pressed to her neck where mine failed to find anything. His face is grim but focused.
"Pulse is thready. She's lost blood, but most of this isn't hers." He gestures at the spreading pool. "It's his. You hit an artery when you shot him."
I drop the empty gun. It clatters against the concrete.
"The baby." The words scrape out of me.
Valentino's expression tightens. "We need to move her. Now. Nico's clearing the upper floors. Pietro has a medical team waiting."
