Something shifts inside me, hard and settling into place, where the fear used to be. Marco died protecting us. He gave everything he had so that Luca and I could live. I’m not going to waste that.
“Luca.” My voice comes out rough, barely recognizable. “Baby, I need you to listen to me.”
He pulls back, his face streaked with tears and puffier now. “Mama?”
“I need you to go with these men.” I gesture to the two surviving guards who are watching us with stoic faces. “They’re going to keep you safe while I go help D.”
“No!” His grip on my neck tightens. “Don’t leave me! Please, Mama, don’t leave me!”
“I have to, baby. D needs me.”
“But what if you don’t come back? What if you—” He can’t finish the sentence. Can’t say the word. But I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking it too.
What if I die up here, just like Marco?
I cup his face in my hands and force him to look at me. “I’m coming back. Do you hear me? I’m coming back for you, and then we’re all going home together. You, me, and D. But right now, I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”
He’s crying so hard he can barely breathe, but he nods.
“That’s my boy.” I kiss his forehead, then his cheeks, then his forehead again. “I love you more than anything in this world. Never forget that.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
I hand him to one of the guards, a young guy with kind eyes who looks like he might have kids of his own. “Protect him with your life.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I pick up my gun from where I dropped it earlier. Check the magazine. Still half full. It’ll have to be enough.
As the guards take my son back into the catacombs, I stand and face Isabella. My legs don’t want to work. My hands won’t stop shaking. The rational part of my brain is screaming at me to turn around, to go back to Luca, to hide until this is over.
But Marco’s face keeps flashing in my mind. His last words. His hand going limp in mine.
He died so I could live. The least I can do is fight.
The cathedral is still raging with violence, bodies everywhere, blood and smoke and the constant crack of gunfire. I spot Dante across the sanctuary, fighting like a man possessed, cutting through Isabella’s soldiers.
He needs help. He needs me. I raise my gun and start moving.
The first soldier who sees me doesn’t expect me to shoot. His mistake. I put two rounds in his chest before he can bring his weapon up, and I don’t even flinch. In fact, I don’t feel anything except cold determination.
The second soldier is faster, gets off a shot that whizzes past my ear, but I’m already diving behind a pillar. I lean out, fire twice, and he goes down.
I’m not the same woman who walked into this cathedral a few hours ago. That woman was scared and hesitant. Unsure if she could pull the trigger when it mattered.
But this woman is different. She knows exactly what she’s capable of.
I fight my way toward Dante, and when he sees me coming, there’s a moment of pure shock on his face.
“Luca?” he shouts over the gunfire.
“Safe. With the others in the passage.”
He looks like he will argue but nods. Then I fall in beside him, and we don’t need to say anything else. We just fight. We keep having each other’s back until we make it to Isabella at the altar.
And now, as I point my gun at her, I can finally see everything clearly.
Not just Antonio’s wife. Not just the woman who walked into this cathedral with an army at her back. I see the architect of my six years of trauma and fear. The woman who orchestrated the kidnapping that started all of this. The shadow behind the monster who took me from my life and tried to turn me into merchandise.
