“Giulia, get behind me.”
“No.” Her voice trembles. “He’ll kill you.” She’s standing next to me, glued to my side, and I see Alessandro’s eyes twitch between her and me, gleaming with hate.
"Alessandro." I keep my voice calm, even though everything inside me is screaming. "Put the gun down. This doesn't have to end badly."
"Doesn't have to end badly?" He laughs, and it sounds insane. "It already ended badly, Luca. It ended badly the moment you decided you were entitled to something that belonged to me."
"She never belonged to you." The words come out harder than I intended, and I see Alessandro's finger tighten on the trigger. I force myself to soften my tone, to sound reasonable even though reason left this situation the moment he took mywife. "She was never yours, Alessandro. The engagement was a business arrangement, nothing more."
"Nothing more? You decided you wanted her, and you just took her. Like you had some kind of right to her just because you're Dante's enforcer."
“This wasn’t intentional.” My teeth grind together. I don’t want to reason with him, but making him angrier won’t help. “I didn’t intend for all of this to happen. I thought?—”
"I don't care what you thought!" Alessandro's voice rises to a shout that echoes through the warehouse. "I don't care about your excuses or your justifications. You took what was mine. You destroyed my family's plans for the Ciresas. You humiliated me in front of everyone who matters in this world. And now—everything I was supposed to inherit, everything I was supposed to become—it's all gone because of you." His voice rises to a high pitch. “I failed, and unless I can fix it, unless I can get something for my family?—”
Giulia screams, and I twist around just in time to see one of his men grab her, shoving her toward Alessandro. He grabs her before I can move in time, his hand on her shoulder as he shoves the gun against her temple. And in my peripheral vision, I see Romeo, moving slowly toward us.
But Alessandro notices too and swings the gun toward him.
"Don't. Don't fucking move or I'll kill her right now. I have nothing left to lose, Romeo. Nothing. So what's one more body? What's one more Ciresa to add to the count? You’ll lose your best friend and your wife, Luca, all because you couldn't keep your hands off something that didn't belong to you."
"She's not a thing." The words come out before I can stop them. "She's a person. A woman who made her own choices, who wanted something different than what our families decided for her. You want to blame someone? Blame me. Blame Dante. Blame the whole fucked-up system that treats women likeproperty to be traded. But don't blame Giulia for wanting to choose her own life."
"Her choices destroyed everything!" Alessandro is shouting now, spittle flying from his lips and the gun shaking in his hand. "Her choice to fuck you instead of honoring her commitment and getting pregnant with your bastard. Her choice to humiliate me and my family in front of everyone. Those choices have consequences, Luca. So do yours. You decided not to give me what I wanted, so she’s going to pay for them."
I see his finger tighten on the trigger, and I know with absolute certainty that he's going to pull it, and there's nothing I can do to stop him.
I move without thinking, operating on pure instinct and the absolute certainty that I will not let Giulia die. Not here, not like this. Not before I have a chance to see what happens if I tell her how I really feel.
I throw myself between them, my body blocking Giulia from Alessandro's line of fire, and I see his eyes widen in surprise for just a fraction of a second before he adjusts his aim and pulls the trigger.
The gunshot is deafening in the enclosed space. I feel the impact before I hear it—a punch to my left side that spins me around and sends me stumbling backward into Giulia. The pain comes a heartbeat later, radiating out from the point of impact in waves that make my vision blur and my knees buckle.
But I don't go down. I can't go down because if I do, Alessandro will have a clear shot at Giulia. I didn't take a bullet just to let him kill her anyway.
I stay on my feet through sheer force of will, my hand pressed against my side where I can feel blood already soaking through my shirt below my tactical vest, hot and wet and spreading fast. The pain is worse than anything I've ever felt, but I push itdown and focus on staying upright and keeping myself between Alessandro and Giulia.
Behind me, I hear Giulia scream my name. I see her moving, not away from the danger like any sane person would, but toward it. She throws herself at Alessandro with a fury I didn't know she possessed, her hands clawing at his face, at the gun, knocking him off balance just enough that when he fires again, the shot goes wide and punches into the wall beside us.
Romeo has his opening, and he takes it.
His shot catches Alessandro in the chest and drops him like a puppet with cut strings. He hits the ground hard, the gun clattering from his hand, and for a moment there's absolute silence except for the ringing in my ears and Giulia's ragged breathing.
Then the warehouse erupts with sound again—boots pounding on concrete, voices shouting orders, the sounds of soldiers securing a location. The cavalry has finally arrived, Dante's reinforcements pouring in through every entrance, and I can see Marchesi soldiers dropping their weapons and raising their hands in surrender. I see others trying to run and being cut down before they make it ten feet.
It's over.
The assault is over, the warehouse is secure, and Giulia is alive.
But I'm bleeding badly, the pain in my side intensifying with each heartbeat. I can feel my legs starting to give out despite my best efforts to stay upright. The adrenaline that's been keeping me functional is wearing off, and reality is crashing in with the force of a freight train.
I took a bullet. The wound is bad. I can tell from the amount of blood and the way the pain is spreading through my entire left side. My vision is starting to tunnel at the edges.
"Luca!" Giulia falls to her knees in front of me, her hands on my face and her eyes wide with terror. "Luca, oh God, you're bleeding—someone help! He's been shot! We need help!"
Her voice sounds distant, like she's shouting from the end of a long tunnel, and I realize with a strange sense of detachment that I'm going into shock. My body is shutting down, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Romeo appears beside Giulia, his face grim. I see him pressing something against my side out of the corner of my eye—his hand, a piece of cloth… I can't tell anymore. The pressure sends a fresh wave of agony through me. I end up on my back with my head in her lap, watching as the ceiling above me blurs.
