Page 249 of Merciless Daddy

Donatella glanced toward me.

“They got us,” she said.

The steel door shuddered under an impact.

Gianni looked at it.

For the first time since he had climbed into the SUV beside me, he looked afraid.

Gianni shot the terminal before Donatella could shoot him.

The screen burst inward. Sparks sprayed across the desk. The camera shattered. Burning plastic filled the suite with a bitter smell.

He came over the cabinet before I could move.

One arm caught me across the chest. The pistol jammed beneath my jaw. His injured hand shook against my shoulder.

“Drop it,” he told Donatella. She kept her weapon aimed.

Gianni dragged me backward.

The barrel pressed harder into the soft place below my chin.

“Drop it.”

Donatella lowered the gun.

Not to the floor.

Enough.

Gianni kicked open a narrow panel behind the records cabinet. A dark passage waited beyond it, built between the corporate suite and the archive stacks.

A private exit.

Of course he had one.

He hauled me through.

My shoes slipped on concrete. His forearm crushed my chest. I clawed at it once, and the pistol dug into my skin.

“Do that again,” he breathed against my ear, “and Salvatore finds you without a face.”

The passage opened into the archives.

Suppressant rolled across the floor, thick around our ankles. Red emergency lights pulsed above the shelves. The alarm cut through my skull.

A guard waited near the western aisle with a rifle.

“Tunnel,” Gianni ordered.

The man moved ahead of us.

Donatella came through the hidden panel at a distance. Her pistol remained low.

She had no clear shot.

Gianni had built my body into a shield.