Across the room, Lucia lifts her chin. “Nico.”
He turns toward her.
“Give me yours.”
Nico hesitates.
It is only half a second, but Lucia sees it.
Her eyes narrow. “I’m a Conti too. And before you were, even.”
Nico’s mouth tightens. Then he pulls his gun and hands it to her grip-first.
“Lock it behind us,” Vito says.
I nod.
He and Nico move through the door together, weapons ready, shoulders squared, disappearing into the dark after Adrian.
The door closes.
The lock slides into place.
And the rest of us are left inside the bunker, armed, waiting, and listening.
Chapter Thirty Three
Adrian
By the time I make it outside, I have taken out three more.
One in the upstairs hall near Caterina’s room. One at a back entrance trying to force a balcony door open from the outside. One in the mudroom with a radio in his hand.
Now I am crouched behind the low stone wall bordering Caterina’s garden, breathing through my teeth while my side screams at me.
The night air is cold against the sweat at my neck. My shirt is sticking to my skin, and the warmth beneath the bandage has spread enough that I know I am bleeding again. Not badly enough to stop. But badly enough that Teresa is going to lose her mind if she sees it.
If any of us live long enough for Teresa to lose her mind about anything, I will take it as a win.
The property feels wrong in the dark.
I know this house now. Every approach. Every camera. Every weak point. The front drive, the garden path, the old stone wall near the east side, the slope down toward the service road, the decorative hedges Caterina likes and I hate because they create too many pockets of shadow.
Tonight, every one of those shadows feels occupied.
I keep low and scan.
My people are scattered across a property I cannot see clearly, and I do not know who is alive, who is wounded, who is dead, or who is still engaged.
That is the part cutting hardest.
Not the wound or blood or screaming pain.
The unknown.
A muffled shot cracks somewhere near the rear patio.
Then another.
