12. Alessio
ALESSIO
By the time we get back inside the Gold Coast server room, the rain has turned the city silver.
The air is sterile, vibrating with the hum of hardware that costs more than a suburban zip code.
My grip stays tight on the Beretta. The weight of the steel provides the only anchor in a world that’s currently spinning off its axis.
Amara Osei is hunched over a terminal, fingers flying across the keys.
She moves with a terrifying, rhythmic precision.
The data matters. The switch matters. But my body has narrowed the world down to the curve of her neck and the fact that she is still breathing.
The only thing real is the curve of her neck under the fluorescent lights and the steady, stubborn rise and fall of her shoulders.
She’s pulling the teeth out of a monster’s mouth, and she’s doing it with a snarl.
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 the oxygen 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 and the 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.
I don’t have the angle for a clean shot, so I close the distance.
I’m on him before he can pull the trigger. I wrench the barrel upward, driving my shoulder into his chest. We slam into a rack of servers, the blinking lights reflecting in his wide, terrified eyes. My hand clamps around his throat.
I want the certainty that he can never raise that rifle again. I want the certainty that he will never look at her again. He claws at my arm, nails digging into my skin, but I don't feel it. I only feel the rage. I only feel the need to erase him.
His face turns purple. His eyes roll back.
"Alessio!"
Her voice pulls me back from the edge. I let the body drop. It hits the floor like a sack of wet sand.
I turn to her. She’s standing by the desk, chest heaving, the laptop bag clutched to her chest. She stares at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Not the doctor. Not the man in her bed. The weapon this family made.
I care. I just cannot care more about being gentle than I care about getting her out alive.
I cross the room in three strides and grab her by the waist. I pull her against me so hard the air leaves her lungs. My hands move frantically over her arms, her ribs, her legs.
"Are you hit? Tell me. Where are you hit?"
"I'm fine," she gasps, her hands landing on my chest. "Just the glass. Alessio, I'm okay."
"You're bleeding," I growl. I swipe my thumb over the red line on her cheek. The sight of the blood on my skin makes me want to find Lorenzo Bellanti and peel the life out of him an inch at a time.
"It's a scratch. We have to go. More are coming."
She’s right. Her survival instincts are cleaner than my rage. I grab her hand and lead her out of the server room.
I radio Vincenzo before we clear the block—Gold Coast cut, breach contained, Amara alive—and then the drive back is a blur of high speeds and white knuckles.
I weave through the late-night traffic of the Gold Coast, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
Every pair of headlights makes my heart hammer against my ribs.
My skin feels too tight. The adrenaline is a poison demanding an outlet.
Amara is silent beside me, her hand still locked in mine. I won't let go. If I let go, the world will take her.
We reach the gates. The guards see my face and open up immediately. I send the cut confirmation to Dominic and Vincenzo before I drive to the garage beneath my wing. Then I don’t stop at the main house. I drive straight into the private garage and slam the car into park.
I’m out of the car before the engine stops humming. I round the hood and pull her out, my movements jerky and frantic.
"Alessio, slow down," she says as I drag her toward the elevator.
I can’t. The elevator ride is an eternity in a metal box with the woman who almost died because I let her leave these walls. The doors open on my floor of the East Wing, and I walk her to the suite. I pull her inside and kick the door shut. The click of the lock finally offers a second of peace.
I lead her to the bathroom, sitting her on the marble counter. I grab a cloth and wet it with warm water.
My hands are shaking. My hands start to shake, and I hate the familiarity of it. We have already done this once. I was supposed to be better the second time.
"I can do it," she whispers, reaching for the cloth.
“Let me,” I say, softer than the animal in me wants.
I tilt her head back, fingers firm on her chin. I dab at the blood with agonizing care. I’m trying to be the protector, but the animal is still screaming in the back of my mind. It wants to mark her. It wants to ensure the world knows she belongs to me.
"You almost died," I say, the words a heavy weight in my throat.
"I've almost died a lot of times, Alessio. It comes with the job."
"Not anymore." I lean in, my face inches from hers. “This part of the job is over. We do not walk into fire without a better plan again.”
She looks at me, her dark eyes searching mine. "I'm a partner in this, remember? You said it yourself."
“I meant it. That is the problem.” I drop the cloth. It hits the floor with a wet thud. “I want you as my partner, and I still can’t watch you bleed. I can’t think about a world where you aren’t in it.”
The trauma of the past twenty years roars to the surface. I see my mother’s face the last time I saw her alive. I see the emptiness of the life that followed. I’m not the keeper of secrets. I’m just a man terrified of being alone again.
"Look at me," I demand, my voice breaking.
She looks. She sees the fear and the feral need.
"I'm here," she says softly. She cups my face, her palms warm against my stubble. "I'm right here, Alessio."
The touch is a spark in a powder keg.
I don't kiss her. I devour her.
My mouth crashes against hers, hard and desperate. I taste the salt of her skin and the lingering metallic tang of the adrenaline. I groan into her mouth, a sound of pure hunger. I need to be inside her. I need to feel her heart beating against mine until I can't tell where I end and she begins