I'm on the bike before I can process what happened.
The Ducati roars beneath me, eating up blocks as I weave through traffic. My left hand is pressed against my side, blood soaking through my shirt, my jacket. Every bump in the road sends a fresh wave of pain through my ribs.
Think. Focus.
We have a protocol for this. Every Sartori soldier knows it. You get hurt, you call the number. A doctor shows up, wherever you are. No questions, no hospitals, no police reports. Clean and simple.
I've never needed it.
Twenty years in this life and I've never taken a bullet that stuck. Grazed, sure. Cut, beaten, broken—all of that. But never this. Never a piece of metal lodged somewhere inside me, grinding against things it shouldn't touch every time I breathe.
I pull over in an alley. Lean against the brick wall. Pull out my phone.
The screen is slick with blood. My blood. I wipe it on my jeans and stare at the contact list.
One call. That's all it takes.
My thumb hovers over the number.
The world is starting to blur at the edges. Blood loss. Shock setting in. I know the signs. I've seen them in other men. Men who didn't make it.
I should call.
Instead, I pull up a different app. The one I check every morning. The one that shows me a little blue dot on a map of Denver.
She's home.
I close my eyes. Her face swims up from the darkness. The way she looked at me in that hospital room, broken and bruised and still so fucking beautiful it hurt to breathe.
Leave, she said.Don't come back.
I left.
But if I'm going to die tonight?—
I open my eyes. Shove the phone in my pocket. Kick the Ducati back to life.
The ride is a blur. Streetlights smear into streaks of gold. My vision tunnels. I run two red lights, maybe three. A car horn blares somewhere behind me.
I don't care.
I just need to see her face. One more time. That's all.
Her building is a four-story walk-up in a quiet neighborhood.
I park the bike at the curb. Nearly fall getting off. Catch myself on the handlebar, leaving a bloody handprint on the chrome.
The front door is locked. Security panel. I lean against the wall, trying to think through the fog in my head.
Then the door opens.
A kid in a pizza delivery uniform steps out, box balanced on one hand, phone in the other. He doesn't even look at me as he passes.
I catch the door before it closes.
Inside. Stairs.
Four flights.
