The way he's walking. Too eager. Too relieved. A man facing down a Sartori enforcer doesn't look relieved unless he thinks he has a way out.
I shift my weight, hand moving toward the gun at my hip.
Webb reaches the door. Opens it.
And I hear it.
The distinctive click of a safety being released.
I'm already moving when Webb spins around, but he's faster than I expected. He throws himself to the side as a figure emerges from the doorway behind him—big guy, hired muscle, gun already raised.
My Glock clears the holster.
The first shot isn't mine.
It catches me in the left side, just below the ribs. The impact spins me sideways, but I'm still firing. Two shots. Three. The hired muscle drops, a red bloom spreading across his chest.
Webb is screaming something. I can't hear it over the ringing in my ears.
He's got a gun now too. Where the fuck did he?—
I fire again. The bullet takes him in the throat. He staggers back, hands clawing at his neck, and then he's down. Twitching. Still.
Silence.
I stand there for a moment, gun still raised, scanning the room. The hired muscle isn't moving. Webb isn't moving. Blood pools on the expensive carpet.
Then the pain hits.
I look down. My left side is wet. Dark. The bullet went in clean, but I can feel it—still in there, lodged somewhere it shouldn't be.
"Fuck."
I holster my gun and press my hand against the wound. Blood seeps through my fingers. Not arterial. Not yet. But bad enough.
I need to move.
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.
