Page 250 of Merciless Daddy

Gunfire sounded to our left.

Then Tonio’s voice tore through the white air.

“Western corridor clear!”

The guard swung his rifle toward the sound.

Gianni changed direction. He dragged me between two archive rows, driving me ahead of him.

“Move.”

I stumbled over a box.

His arm tightened.

“Move, ptichka.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He laughed against my hair.

The sound was wrong now. Breathless. Fraying.

“You still think he can keep you?”

A burst of gunfire struck the shelves behind us. Metal screamed. Boxes split open. Paper spun into the suppressant. Then I heard him.

“Lena!”

Sal’s voice.

My name carried through steel and alarms and men dying in the dark. My knees nearly folded. Every part of me wanted to answer. To turn. To fight blindly toward the sound.

Gianni felt it.

The gun pressed deeper beneath my jaw.

“Call out,” he whispered. “Let him come close enough to watch.”

I breathed through my nose.

Sal called me again.

Closer.

“Yelena!”

“I’m here!” I shouted.

Gianni jerked me backward so hard my head struck his shoulder.

“I will kill you,” he hissed. “I will kill you before I let him take you back.”

“Gianni,” Donatella called.

She stood at the end of the archive row, half-hidden by white suppressant. Her pistol pointed toward the floor.

“The proxy completed.”