3. Victoria
VICTORIA
The crosswalk signal stays red.
Cars rush past in steady streams, headlights smearing over the wet black asphalt.
I stand at the edge of the pavement with my wedding dress glued to my legs, the hem soaked and heavy from the run.
My lungs still burn. Every breath wants to break out of me sharp and wild, but I force it down, drag air through my nose, and keep my eyes on the crossing light like it might save me if I stare hard enough.
I wait.
Then I hear it.
Fast footsteps.
I turn, pulse kicking harder.
The hotel’s glass entrance stands wide open now. Security spills out first, scanning the street. Then the men behind them.
Black suits.
Moving fast.
Giovanni is the first face I recognise. His jaw is locked tight, a phone already pressed to his ear. Mattia is half a step behind him, one hand tucked inside his jacket.
Two more men fan out across the pavement, sweeping the street, the parked cars, the pedestrians—every place I could possibly disappear.
I lower my head on instinct, trying to make myself smaller.
Less visible.
Fucking impossible in a wedding dress.
The white silk glows under the city lights, a goddamn beacon against the dark coats and umbrellas around me.
Then one of them sees me.
His head snaps still.
The others follow his line of sight.
Cold dread knots in my stomach.
“Miss Victoria!” one of the guards shouts, his voice cutting straight through the traffic. “Stop her!”
The second the words hit the air, everything changes.
Giovanni lifts his hand.
Not waving.
Pointing.
The others move.
One of them pulls a pistol from beneath his jacket, keeping it low against his thigh as he walks.
Another carries a folded copy of the Chicago Tribune in his left hand.
Beneath the thick newsprint, his right hand is already wrapped around a silenced pistol, the barrel hidden inside the paper to kill the muzzle flash for the traffic cameras overhead.
The sight freezes my blood.
This isn’t about dragging me back.
It’s a kill order.
Francesco didn’t send them to retrieve me. He sent them to erase the humiliation before it could turn into a problem.
My fingers go numb.
The pedestrian light stays red.
They keep closing in.
Forty feet.
Thirty-five.
I don’t wait for the signal to change.
I run.
I bolt straight into the intersection.
A horn blares to my left, vicious and loud, and brakes scream beneath the underpass as a silver SUV swerves around me. The bumper misses my thigh by inches.
I don’t look back.
I scramble over the yellow divider just as a delivery van slams to a stop, the driver hanging halfway out the window and yelling something that gets swallowed by the wind. Someone else shouts from a tinted sedan. Another horn joins the chaos from the opposite lane.
I keep moving.
My dress drags behind me, heavy as shit, tangling around my legs and catching under my heels. I grab fistfuls of silk and force my way between moving cars.
“Hey! Are you fucking crazy?” a man shouts through his open window.
I don’t answer.
Behind me, Giovanni’s voice cuts through the noise.
“Don’t lose sight of her!”
Footsteps thunder after me.
They’re running now.
Not walking.
I hit the centre of the road just as another line of traffic surges through, forcing me to stop for half a second. I glance back.
They’ve already cleared the hotel steps.
Giovanni is closer now. Six metres. Maybe less.
Mattia angles left, cutting off the sidewalk. The man with the newspaper stays right, still holding it open, gun hidden inside the fold.
Two more behind them.
They stop shouting.
They start hunting.
The way they spread out tells me exactly what they’re doing—herding me toward the open stretch between buildings where there are fewer witnesses and nowhere to fucking hide.
I move again.
A taxi slams on its brakes inches from my dress, horn blaring so close it rattles my skull. The driver leans out, shouting.
I don’t even look at him.
I run past the front of his car.
The second I clear it?—
A crack splits the air.
Concrete explodes at my feet.
I stumble, nearly going down, but catch myself before I hit the ground. My eyes snap to the pavement.
A bullet hole.
White dust lifts around my shoes.
Another crack follows.
The second shot slams into the wall beside me, just above waist height. Stone chips spray across my arm.
I flinch.
Not just because I’m scared.
Because there’s no room left for denial.
They’re shooting to kill.
“Get down!” someone screams from a passing car.
I don’t.
I run harder.
Ahead, the road narrows into a side avenue between the hotel complex and the adjacent building, cutting away from the main street. Less traffic. Fewer people. A tighter stretch of road, boxed in by concrete and steel.
Exactly where they want me.
I head for it anyway, because I don’t have a fucking choice.
Behind me, the footsteps get closer.
“She’s heading into the corridor!” Giovanni shouts.
I turn into the side street.
The buildings rise tight on both sides, blocking out most of the daylight. Service entrances. Loading doors. Ventilation units bolted into concrete walls. The roar from the main road dulls behind me, replaced by the frantic echo of my own footsteps.
My lungs are on fire.
My hands shake as I clutch the dress high enough to run.
Another shot fires.
Pop. Pop.
One round tears into the ground just behind my heel, spraying concrete up the back of my leg. Another punches into the brick wall three feet ahead of me, leaving a smoking white crater in the red brick.
They’re aiming for centre mass.
They want me dead before I ever make it to Michigan Avenue.
I twist instinctively?—
And a car surges out from the left.
A massive midnight-black sedan shoots up from the recessed garage ramp beneath the executive tower, coming in hard enough that I barely register it before it’s there. Its nose dips as it clears the incline, polished body catching the city light in sharp flashes.
For one split second, all I see is black metal and dark glass.
Then the car is on top of me.
Brakes slam.
Tyres scream over wet asphalt.
Too late.
The front of the sedan catches me hard enough to rip the breath from my lungs.
My body slams onto the hood, palms skidding over freezing metal before gravity yanks me sideways and throws me to the pavement.
Satin and tulle spill around me in ruined white folds, soaking instantly against the damp concrete.
Pain rips through my shoulder—hot, sharp, immediate—but the adrenaline is already flooding too fast for it to fully land.
For one broken second, I stay down.
Stunned.
Breathless.
Blood roaring in my ears.
Then I force myself up.
My knees nearly buckle, but I shove forward anyway. I crawl a few feet, drag myself upright, and throw myself in front of the sedan before the driver can move.
The driver’s door cracks open.
A burly man in a dark suit leans halfway out, one hand gripping the frame, anger already stamped across his face.
“Jesus Christ—what the fuck?” he barks over the street noise. “Get the fuck out of the road!”
I don’t move.
His eyes lock on mine through the windshield, and the irritation in his expression falters.
Chicago teaches people what danger looks like.
A torn wedding dress.
Shaking hands.
The wild way I keep looking over my shoulder.
He understands enough.
Before either of us can say another word, the next gunshot slams into the side of the car.