CHAPTER 13
ANGELO
My hands are shaking. It’s a microscopic tremor, the kind of fine vibration you only notice when you’re trying to thread a needle or cinch a belt, but it’s there.
I thread the heavy nylon of my tactical belt through the buckle and pull it tight, the metallic click ringing like a gunshot in this fucking concrete coffin.
The adrenaline is slowly bleeding out of my system, leaving behind a cold, toxic sludge in my veins.
My chest is still heaving from the raw exertion.
Fiorella is slumped against the cold steel of the bunker door.
Her chest rises and falls so rapidly she looks like a bird that just flew headfirst into a window.
The ruined remnants of her silk dress cling to her sweat-slicked body underneath the oversized canvas of my jacket.
I watch her through the haze of my own exhaustion.
She’s a total wreckage of expensive fabric and spent fight, her spine pressed against the steel as if she’s trying to physically merge with it.
The air in the room is fucked. It’s a heavy, vibrating void of recycled oxygen.
I expect her to lash out. I expect her to scream, to cry, to call me a bastard, to claw at my face after the collision we just had against this very door.
But she doesn't. She just stares straight ahead.
Her silence is way more unnerving than her screaming ever was.
I reach down, pick up a discarded, torn strip of her silk hem from the floor, and use it to wipe a smear of her red lipstick off my thumb. I toss the rag aside.
"Get up, Fiorella."
She doesn't move. She doesn't even blink.
"The air is getting thin in here," I tell her, my voice dropping an octave, rasping against the walls. "Don't look at me like I’m the only monster in this room. You heard the truth. Now live with it."
Nothing. Not a flinch.
"The door isn't going to open itself," I push, stepping closer, my heavy boots crunching on the loose gravel near the threshold. "We're not done. Are you going to break now, or later?"
I loom over her. My shadow swallows her small frame entirely.
I expect her to recoil, to pull her knees to her chest, but she simply tilts her head back.
Her honey-amber eyes are wide, completely glassy, totally stripped of that aristocratic Silvestri arrogance that usually pisses me off so much.
She exposes her throat, her cheek coming to rest right against the rough denim of my cargo pants.
She’s looking at me not as the guy who dragged her into this hellhole, but as the only solid object left in a world that just collapsed around her ears.
I feel a strange, territorial heat spike in my gut.
I see the exact moment her loyalty to the Silvestri name dies.
It’s a quiet, devastating extinction right there in her eyes.
I feel a sharp, unwelcome pang of protectiveness that totally complicates the revenge I’ve been planning for ten fucking years.
She’s not just a Silvestri now. She’s the only person who knows my full truth.
Her fingers twitch. She absently traces the jagged, raised scar on my shin through the fabric of my pants.
"You’re staring," I mutter, looking down at her. "There is nothing left for you out there, is there? Look at me, princess."
She blinks slowly.
"The Ferraros are dead, and the Silvestris are ghosts," I tell her, my voice turning cruel because it’s the only language I know how to speak.
"You feel that? That’s reality. I shouldn't have told you.
No, fuck that, you needed to know. Does it hurt more than the bruises?
Stop touching the scar. You're making a mess of yourself. "
I drop to my haunches. The denim rasps over my knees.
The sharp ozone smell of the bunker's air filtration system mixes with the salt of her tears hitting the floor.
I reach out with my calloused hands and grab her delicate wrists.
She lets me take them, shivering slightly from the subterranean chill leaching out of the concrete and the massive drop in her adrenaline.
I turn her hands over in my massive palms. I inspect the raw, angry red welts where the silk bindings chafed her skin during her escape attempt.
The marks are a map of my own brutality.
I did this. I’m the cause of her pain, and now I’m the only one sitting here in the dirt tending to it.
The irony is a physical weight sitting square on my chest.
I blow a warm breath over her raw wrists to soothe the sting. She shivers again.
"You fought too hard," I say quietly. "These are going to scar. Do you want me to apologize? I won't. I don't apologize for surviving. Hold still. You’re freezing. The concrete is leaching the heat right out of you. Why aren't you pulling away?"
I rub my thumbs over her knuckles.
"Your hands are like ice," I mutter. "I have some ointment in the kit."
I haul her to her feet. My hands grip the heavy canvas lapels of my tactical jacket that she’s drowning in.
I yank the lapels shut, basically cocooning her in my scent of gunpowder, stale sweat, and musk.
For a second, we just stand there. Foreheads nearly touching. Sharing the exact same stale air.
Fiorella buries her face into the collar of the jacket, inhaling deeply. She’s actually breathing me in. Her physical dependence on me is growing by the hour, and it’s a massive fucking distraction. She’s a liability I’m starting to enjoy having around.
"Stand up. On your own feet," I tell her, my hands lingering on her shoulders.
"I can’t carry you out of here if it comes to that.
You smell like me now. Don't get used to the jacket.
You're shaking like a leaf. Keep your head down.
I need you to listen to me. Are you back with me?
The Silvestri princess is dead, Fiorella. Only you and I are left."
Before she can even process the words, a rhythmic, grinding scrape echoes from the ceiling above us.
My internal clock resets to absolute zero.
Every muscle in my back locks. My hand drops to the drop-leg holster at my thigh, my fingers wrapping around the grip of my Beretta before the sound even fades.
I shove Fiorella hard backward toward the wall, positioning my body as a living shield while gray concrete dust sifts down from the ceiling like dirty snow.
If Alessio’s men have found the grate, we’re trapped in a reinforced grave.
My thumb clicks the safety off with a soft, lethal snick.
"Shut up. Don't move," I hiss over my shoulder. "Get back. Further. Did you hear that? It’s too heavy for a scout. Don't even breathe. If the door opens, you run for the back room. Do you understand? Don't make a sound, Fiorella. Someone’s on the grate. Wait for my signal."
The metallic taste of fear coats the back of my tongue.
The floor vibrates. I grab Fiorella by the arm and maneuver her with rough efficiency, shoving her back into the dark recess of the secondary storage room.
She stumbles back into the shadows, slapping her hand over her own mouth to silence her ragged breathing. Her nails bite into her palms.
I don't look back at her. I un-sling my rifle, bringing the butt firmly into my shoulder, tracking the sound of heavy, deliberate boots descending the concrete stairs.
The tunnel of the iron sights is narrow.
I keep my finger hovering on the trigger, the red laser sight cutting straight through the floating dust motes.
"Stay in the dark," I whisper, my eyes locked on the bottom of the stairwell. "If I start shooting, stay down. I mean it. Don't look. Stay quiet. It’s one man. Maybe two. I'm going to end this. Don't come out until I call your name. I've got you."
A figure emerges from the gloom. My finger tenses on the trigger. The red laser dot dances dead center over the intruder’s sternum.
Then comes the code. Two sharp raps on the concrete wall, a two-second pause, then one.
Renato steps into the dim light at the bottom of the stairs. He’s got his hands raised slightly near his chest. He’s panting heavily, his face pale and glistening with sweat. The smell of exhaust and cold mountain air clings to him.
I let out a harsh breath and lower the rifle, the metal echoing off the walls.
"Angelo! It’s me!" Renato rasps, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand, leaving a smear of engine grease across his chin. "Don't shoot, goddammit."
"Code verified," I say, my voice flat. "You’re late, Renato."
"The hills are crawling with them," he says, stepping fully into the room, his flashlight cutting a bright, harsh beam across the floor. "I had to take the long way through the Ravine. Lower the weapon. Is she still alive? I thought you’d have finished it by now. We have a problem."
We move into the main room. Renato drops two massive nylon duffel bags onto the concrete floor with a heavy thud.
The sound of clinking cans and ammo boxes rattles in the enclosed space.
He looks haggard. Sleep-deprived. He starts looking around at the absolute disarray of the bunker.
He sees the smeared blood on the floor. He sees the discarded strips of silk bindings.
He realizes exactly what this room has turned into over the last few hours.
Renato kicks a stray piece of Fiorella’s lace lingerie out of his path.
"I brought the supplies," he says, eyeing me.
"Water, MREs, more 9mm. The perimeter is soft, Angelo.
We can't stay here another night. What happened in here?
It smells like a brothel and a slaughterhouse.
Did she fight you? Where is she? You look like hell, boss.
The Silvestri scouts are closer than you think. "
Movement in the corner catches his eye.