Chapter Sixteen #3
My wife had killed for me. Had taken a life without hesitation to preserve mine. Had proven herself lethal when it mattered most.
I closed the distance between us in three strides, my hand coming up to cover hers on the pistol grip. “Good shot,” I said, and my voice came out rough with emotion I hadn’t intended to reveal.
She finally looked away from the body, her eyes finding mine. They were still wide, pupils blown from adrenaline and the aftermath of violence. But beneath the shock, I saw something else. Determination. Fierce pride in what she’d accomplished. Maybe even satisfaction at proving herself capable.
“I told you I wasn’t just here to watch,” she said, and her voice only shook slightly.
I wanted to pull her against me. Wanted to press my mouth to hers and taste the violence we’d shared.
Wanted to drag her into the nearest corner and fuck her until the adrenaline burned off in a different kind of intensity.
But Rizzo and his team were watching, and Luca was still behind that secured door, and Marco was still alive somewhere in this building.
So I settled for easing the pistol from her grip, engaging the safety, and tucking it into her holster with movements that were steadier than I felt. My hands found her shoulders, holding her still while I studied her face.
“You did well.” Simple words but weighted with meaning she’d understand. “But your hands are shaking. You need to breathe.”
She took a breath. Then another. The trembling in her hands began to subside as she forced control back over her body’s stress response. I watched her rebuild her composure, watched her push the horror and shock and pride into whatever mental compartment she needed them in to keep functioning.
Lombardi training. Giuseppe had taught both his children how to manage trauma and keep moving. I’d seen it in Giuseppe during negotiations that followed violent operations. Now I was seeing it in his daughter as she processed her first kill.
“I’m okay.” She pulled back slightly from my grip, testing her own steadiness. “I’m okay.”
“I know.” I released her shoulders but stayed close, my presence an anchor if she needed it. “But when this is over, when Luca’s safe, you’re going to crash hard. That’s normal. That’s expected.”
“When this is over,” she repeated, and her jaw set in that stubborn line, “I’m going to make sure Marco pays for every second of terror he put my brother through.”
The words came out cold. Certain. Not a threat but a promise. And I believed her completely. I looked at Caterina, saw her fear resurface but watched her contain it. “Ready?”
She glanced at the body she’d made, at the blood spreading across concrete, at the evidence of her capability. Then her eyes came back to mine, clear and determined. “Ready.”
Emergency lighting cast harsh shadows that made everything look like a crime scene photograph.
Which it was. Would be. When this was over and Giuseppe’s people came to clean up the evidence, they’d catalog everybody, every shell casing, every blood spatter.
They’d document the small war we’d fought to extract one nineteen-year-old kid from a madman’s leverage play.
But right now, all that mattered was the reinforced door ahead and what waited behind it.
Caterina stayed beside me as we approached, close enough that I felt her warmth against my side. Close enough that I could reach out and steady her if she needed it. But she was walking on her own strength now, her breathing controlled, her focus entirely on the mission.
She’d proven herself tonight. Proven she could handle violence, could execute under pressure, could kill when necessary. Proven she was more than Giuseppe’s sheltered daughter.
She was Lombardi and De Luca both now. Blood on her hands from both families. Capable of the darkness both our worlds required.
And fuck if that didn’t do things to me I absolutely couldn’t afford to examine right now. One of my men glanced at Caterina with something like respect. “Nice shooting, Mrs. De Luca.”
She nodded acknowledgment but didn’t respond. Her attention was fixed on the secured door, on the electronic lock one of Rizzo’s tech specialists was working to bypass. Every second stretched, tension building as we got closer to either rescue or catastrophe.
“Thirty seconds,” the tech specialist announced. “Bypassing the last security protocol now.”
I positioned myself in front of the door, Glock raised and ready. Rizzo and two of his men took flanking positions. The others spread out to cover additional angles in case this was a trap designed to funnel us into a kill zone.
Caterina stood behind me and slightly to the left, exactly where I’d indicated. Her pistol was back in her hands, held with steady confidence now. She’d proven she could use it. Proven she would.
“Ten seconds.”
I caught her eye one last time before the door opened. Saw her fear for her brother mixing with the fierce determination that had gotten us this far. Saw the woman who’d cried in my arms and the woman who’d killed to save my life existing simultaneously in the same person.
“Five seconds.”
Whatever waited behind this door, we’d face it together. Partners in violence and blood and desperate hope.
The lock disengaged with a heavy clunk. The door began to swing open, revealing darkness beyond.
And somewhere in that darkness, Marco Vitale was waiting with Luca Lombardi’s life in his hands.