Ten hours. That was what she said it would take to make eleven years of Vane’s architecture safe to kill.
My chest tightens until it aches. Every breath is a fight against the urge to take her back to the compound and put every wall I own between her and the war. This isn’t a distraction anymore. It has rooted itself in my nervous system. She is theoxygen in the room. She is the only reason my pulse bothers to clock in.
“Almost there,” she whispers, voice rough from ten hours of work. “The master node is isolated. If I can route the South Loop/Wabash relay into the dead channel, the switch won’t have a clean destination when we kill him.”
I move closer. The proximity is a narcotic. I need to be within reach. I need the scent of her shampoo to cut through the metallic tang of the cooling fans. If a round comes through the glass, it has to hit me first.
"Focus, Amara," I grunt. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged over broken stone. I’m wound so tight I’m vibrating.
"I am focusing, Alessio. You're the one pacing like a caged tiger." She doesn't look up, but the corner of her mouth twitches.
She isn't afraid. That realization is both my salvation and my ruin. She knows the blood on my hands. She knows Turi—the man who taught me to tie my shoes and then sold my family to the wolves—is currently rotting in a vault because of his betrayal. She knows the world is screaming around us, yet she stands her ground.
The screen flashes red, then a steady, pulsing green. Progress bars race toward the edge of the monitor.
"I've got the map," she says, her breath hitching. "Alessio, the whole network. It’s a spiderweb. And the center is right here in the city."
“Tag it, then tell me where you need me.” The hair on my arms stands up. The silence in the building has shifted from empty to expectant.
"Thirty seconds," she says.
I step toward the door, scanning the hallway through the reinforced glass. Nothing but the dim glow of exit signs andthe monotonous drone of the air conditioning. Then, the air pressure drops, heavy and expectant.
"Amara. Now."
"Ten seconds. Don't rush the genius, Costa."
She hits a final key, her face illuminated by the glow of the successful upload. She grabs her bag with the efficient movements of a woman who has spent her life ready to bolt.
The glass doesn't shatter. It explodes.
The roar of the blast is a body blow. I’m moving before the sound even registers. I’ve spent my life putting things back together, but now, I’m built only for destruction.
I tackle her, hitting the floor hard. The cold tiles bite into my shoulder as I roll us behind a heavy steel desk.
"Stay down!" I roar.
Bullets chew into the furniture. The suppressed thuds of incoming fire are punctuated by the screech of metal. The Bellantis’ dogs found the node. Or they found us.
I pop up, the Beretta barking twice. A shadow in the hallway drops. I don't look to see the damage. I just need him neutralized.
"Amara, the bag!"
She’s already reached for it, her face pale but her eyes fierce. She isn't screaming. She isn't freezing. She’s proving exactly why I can never let her go.
"I have it," she says, her voice steady.
Another burst of fire shatters a monitor above us, raining plastic and glass down. A round tears through the strap of the laptop bag in her hands, so close the bridge nearly dies with it.
The doctor in me calculates the cut. The man in me stops calculating.
It isn't just anger. It’s a primal, tectonic shift. The man who heals is gone. The keeper of secrets is gone. There is only the animal that answers to her blood.
I lunge out from behind the desk. I move from cover to cover because rage without tactics is how men die before they can protect anyone.
I fire until the slide locks back. Three of the four in the hallway drop, bodies jerking as the rounds hit. I drop the empty magazine and slam a fresh one home in a blur of motion. I move through the rising dust with violence so clean it feels unreal.
One man is left. He’s scrambled into the room, his rifle leveled at the desk where Amara is hiding.
