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I cross the room, putting my gun away. A bullet would be too clean. Too painless. He doesn’t deserve that. I grab his collar and haul him up. The sound he makes is high, surprised, a boy who's never had to take a hit in his life.

"You put your hands on her," I say.

Then I hit him. The first breaks a bone in his face. The second is worse, and after that I stop counting. My knuckles split open against his teeth.

His hands come up, weak, batting at my arms like he thinks he can push me away.

When it's over, he's not moving, and I'm breathing hard and heavy. Not from exertion. From fury and rage. For a second, I hover over what’s left of him, taking in the destruction.

Amanda makes a small sound from across the room, and I forget my anger, remembering why I came in here.

I'm on my knees beside her before I have time to think about it. Her eyes are open, rolling like she can't get them to focus on anything. Her pupils are blown out black, almost no color left, swallowing the blue-green whole.

Drugged. I’m not surprised. She didn’t stumble in here by accident or of her own accord. She was carried. It only makes sense that she was drugged.

"Amanda." I say it quietly. Like she might break. "Amanda. It's me. It's Valentino."

Her gaze drags toward my voice and snags on my face. Her cracked lips move, and no sound comes out, but I read it anyway.

You.

"Yeah," I say. "Me."

I shrug out of my jacket. My hands shake. I fumble the buttons for a half-second. I've never had hands that shook.

I get it open. I wrap it around her shoulders. She's cold. I pull it tight, keeping my hands there for another second. I smell myself on her, covering what they left, and I'm glad of it, even if I shouldn't be glad of anything right now.

"I've got you," I tell her. "You hear me? I've got you. Nobody's touching you again."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Valentino

The car lurches before Elio's door shuts.

"Get us out of here," I tell him. "Now."

"I'm going, I'm going⁠—"

"Faster."

Elio takes the corner like something's burning behind us. Given what I left in that room, it is. Amanda's head rests against my chest. One of her shoes is gone, and an unnatural desire to go back and kill Aldo again over that shoe possesses me.

My phone rings, and I dig it out with my free hand, refusing to let her go.

"I'm at the front," Luca says. "Valentino. Something's off."

"Talk."

"Guards. Four of them, moving in fast. Suits, but they're carrying like soldiers, not waiters. They came from a black SUV that wasn't here ninety seconds ago." He pauses. I hear him breathing the way he does when he's measuring a room.

"Then get out. Right now."

"Already gone."

"Bergamo," I say. "The place outside the city. You remember it."

"I remember it."