I think about my baby.
And then I stop thinking. Because thinking is what gets you killed, and what I'm about to do runs on something older than thought.
The phone guy walks past me to check the dripping pipe in the corner as part of his routine. He's done it four times in two hours.
This time, when he passes, I move.
I come up off the chair and drive my good elbow into his throat. He drops the phone, choking, and I grab the knife off his belt with my working hand and put it in him twice before he hits the floor.
The second guard is fast. A hell of a lot faster than I expected. The rifle comes up, and I'm already moving, closing the distance to the point where the weapon can't help him.
The shot goes wide, the sound in the cellar is a bomb going off inside my skull.
I get the knife into him, but he gets me too. Something punches into my side, and the world goes gray at the edges. We go down together. I land on my broken arm, and the scream that comes out of me doesn't sound human.
He's still moving. So am I. Barely.
I finish it, driving my blade as hard as I can into his neck.
And then I'm on my back on the wet concrete, two dead men beside me, blood pumping out of my side between my fingers, and I can hear boots. Lots of boots. Coming down the stairs. Shouting in Italian.
The gunshot. The gunshot told everyone in this building exactly where I am.
That was the part of the plan I didn't have an answer for. I knew it was a risk, but it was either that or die in this cellarwithout trying. And I couldn’t do that. Harper and my kid deserved at least one shot for me to survive.
I drag myself toward the wall, leaving a smear of red across the floor, and grip the knife with the last of what I've got. If this is it, I ain't going quiet. I'm a Sterling. We die with our teeth in something.
The door bursts open. I can’t move.
Gunfire erupts from somewhere above. Not down here. Upstairs. The whole building shudders with it. The men coming through the door freeze; the shooting upstairs becomes a storm.
The men in the doorway scatter. Two run back up the stairs into the gunfire. One stays, raising his weapon toward me, and his chest opens up before he gets the barrel level. He drops.
Behind him, coming down the stairs through the smoke, is the devil in a black suit and red lipstick. The one and only, Gianna Milano.
Her hair tied back into a swishing ponytail. There’s blood splattered across her cheek. A pistol in one hand and a blade in the other, and an expression of pure, unfiltered rage.
Relief floods me when I see my brothers storm through the door behind her. Hunter. Colten. Jett. Enzo's men flood down the stairwell.
My family came. But there is no Harper.
My vision is going. The gray at the edges is turning black, creeping inward. The blood between my fingers won't slow down. I slide down the wall until I'm sitting in it.
A man stumbles down the last few stairs, hands raised, screaming in Italian. The brother. The one with the expensive watch. The one who called his sister a useless bitch and smiled while he said it.
He sees Gianna and starts begging. I don't speak the language, but I know begging when I hear it. That man is petrified of his sister.
Gianna walks to him, her heels clicking against the concrete. She listens to all of it with her head tilted, as if she’s genuinely interested.
Then she says one sentence, soft as a lullaby in Italian, and the color drains from his face in an instant.
Gianna shoves the knife through her brother's heart.
She holds him by the collar while he goes and looks her in the eyes the whole way down like a psychopath, while Colten watches from behind. She lowers him to the floor almost gently and stands, wipes the blade on his jacket, and turns away from him.
That's the last clear thing I see.
The black rushes in and there’s bubbling in my ears.
