CHAPTER 19
ANGELO P.O.V.
I stand by the boarded window. My shadow looks like a jagged mess against the peeling wallpaper.
I rub the scarred knuckles of my right hand against the rough wood of the window frame, letting the splinters bite into my skin just to have something to focus on besides the fact that the woods out there are too quiet.
It's that absolute, predatory stillness you only get when professional killers are setting up a perimeter and doing it well.
Alessio issued a kill order and he doesn't want her back alive if it means I get to walk away breathing.
I look back over my shoulder. Fiorella is a small, curled shape on the moth-eaten mattress under a single thin blanket, her breathing heavy with the kind of sleep that only hits you after total emotional collapse.
"Stay under the blanket, Fiorella," I mutter, keeping my voice low. "Don't make me tell you twice."
She shifts slightly, shivering in the cold damp of the shack.
"The woods are too quiet. Even the crickets have stopped."
Renato’s silhouette appears at the kitchen doorway.
He lifts his hand, throwing up a sharp, rhythmic series of tactical signals.
Fucking scouts. My eyes shift back to the front window just as two pinpricks of emerald light dance across the frosted glass, searching for a target.
Laser sights. Infrared. They aren't here to negotiate shit.
I shift my weight silently, my boots making a faint, rhythmic creak on the rotting floorboards that I immediately suppress by freezing my stance.
"Renato, ten o'clock," I say, barely a whisper over the hum of the lasers. "They're using infrared."
"Cazzo, they found us faster than I thought," Renato breathes back from the dark.
I disengage the safety on my rifle with a sharp click. I smell Renato’s stale tobacco wafting from the kitchen. I actually feel a grim surge of satisfaction hit my chest. Finally, a physical target I can kill instead of just wrestling with the ghosts in my own head.
Fiorella bolts upright on the mattress. Her eyes are wide, wild, completely disoriented in the dark.
I see the scream building in her throat.
I don't give her the chance to ruin this.
I lunge across the tight space and slam my body into hers, driving her back down onto the mattress.
My heavy, calloused hand clamps over her mouth with bruising force.
She thrashes beneath me, terrified. I press my forehead hard against hers, my eyes boring into hers until the panic breaks and she sees the lethal intent in my face.
"Zitta! Not a single breath, Fiorella," I hiss against her skin. "Look at me. Only me. Do you understand?"
The warmth of her frantic breath hits my palm.
Her heart thuds against my chest like a trapped animal.
The metallic scent of my rifle barrel sits between us in the dark.
Her skin is too soft for this shit. I hate that I have to be the one to break her in, but I’ll be damned if Alessio gets the chance to put a bullet in her first. She gives a jerky nod against my hand.
I grab her by the arm and drag her off the bed, keeping her low to the floor.
I shove her into the narrow gap behind the heavy, cast-iron woodstove in the corner.
It’s the only thing in this rotting box thick enough to stop a high-caliber round.
I pin myself in front of her, prioritizing her safety over my own mobility, effectively boxing myself into a corner just to make sure she's covered. I reach out and tuck a stray strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear, a jarringly tender gesture in the middle of a tactical nightmare, but I can't stop myself. She’s not just a debt anymore. She’s mine. I protect what belongs to me.
"Stay small. If you move, you die," I tell her, my voice dead serious. "Keep your head down and don't look out the window."
The world explodes. A massive volley of rounds punches through the thin wooden siding of the shack, instantly turning the air into a blinding storm of splinters, drywall dust, and lead.
The staccato rhythm of automatic fire echoes off the mountain ridges outside.
We are trapped in a box that’s literally falling apart around us.
A stray bullet shatters a glass jar of old preserves sitting on a shelf near my head, exploding in a shower of sticky red liquid and glass shards that coat my neck.
"Incoming! Get down lower!" I yell over the deafening roar.
"They’re trying to suppress us. Bastardi!" Renato barks from the back.
The roar of the gunfire is deafening. The smell of cordite and fresh-cut pine fills my lungs. Dust stings my eyes. Alessio sent these men knowing his sister was in here and he doesn't give a fuck if he hits her. That realization fuels a cold, black rage right in my gut.
I roll to the window, kick out the jagged remains of the glass with my boot, and lean out just enough to see the muzzle flashes lighting up the dark tree line.
I squeeze the trigger, sending controlled, three-round bursts into the shadows.
From the back, Renato adds the heavy thud of his shotgun, creating a crossfire.
I’m a superior marksman, but we are outnumbered five to one.
I have to make every single bullet count.
I count my shots under my breath, a rhythmic habit from years of enforcement.
"I see two by the oak! Drop them!" I shout, my shoulder absorbing the jarring kick of the rifle.
"Renato, watch the flank! They’re moving right!"
Hot brass casings clink onto the floorboards. Flashes of light illuminate the room in wild strobes. I feel totally alive in the chaos. This is my element. This is where I make sense.
Click. My rifle bolt locks back with a hollow metallic sound.
I swear violently, dropping behind the wall just as a stream of bullets chews through the wood exactly where my chest had been a second before.
I reach for my belt, but my fingers find empty loops.
My spare magazines are in the tactical bag ten feet away in the middle of the room, and the suppression fire is too heavy for me to reach them.
I punch the wall in a flash of pure frustration, leaving a dent in the wood.
"Cazzo! I'm dry!" I yell.
"Fiorella, stay where you are!" I bark, seeing her shift behind the stove.
My ears are ringing. The rifle barrel is scorching hot. Stupid. Fucking stupid. I let the adrenaline cloud my logistics and now I’m a man holding a useless piece of plastic in a gunfight.
Fiorella doesn't stay put. She sees the bag.
Despite the shards of glass covering the floor and the bullets whistling through the air, she drops to her stomach and begins to crawl.
Her silk slip catches on a protruding nail, tearing loudly as she drags herself toward the center of the room.
She is risking a bullet to the spine to get me those magazines.
My heart stops for the first time in my miserable life.
She winces, dragging her bare, bruised foot over a jagged piece of window glass.
It leaves a thick trail of dark blood on the wood.
"Fiorella! Get back here, you stupid girl!" I roar.
"Stronza! You're going to get killed!"
She ignores me. I hear her heavy breathing. Her trembling hands reach out and grab the black nylon straps of the tactical bag. What the fuck is she doing? She should be hiding. She should be waiting for her brother to save her. Why the fuck is she helping me?
She grabs the handle of the heavy bag and hauls it backward toward the stove, her muscles straining.
A bullet strikes the iron stove with a deafening clang, showering her in bright orange sparks, but she doesn't stop. She drags the bag behind cover and rips the zipper open with frantic, clawing fingers. She wipes a smudge of soot from her forehead with a shaky hand, leaving a dark streak across her aristocratic features. She’s bleeding and terrified, but she’s highly functional.
She’s transitioned from a victim to a participant.
"I have it! Angelo, I have the bag!" she yells over the gunfire.
"Shut up and just keep shooting!" Renato screams from the kitchen.
The smell of burnt iron is overpowering. Her blood is smudged on the dusty floorboards. She has Silvestri blood in her, but right now she’s acting like a goddamn Ferraro. The irony is poetic.
She pulls out the cardboard boxes of 5.56 ammunition.
Her nails are broken, her fingers are shaking uncontrollably, but she starts pressing the brass rounds into the empty magazines.
One by one, they click into place. She is clumsy, dropping a few rounds into the dust, but she doesn't stop.
Every second she takes is a second I can't return fire.
The scouts are closing the distance. She bites her lip so hard it bleeds, focusing entirely on the mechanical task.
"How many? How many do you need?" she asks frantically.
"Faster, Fiorella. They're on the porch!" I yell. The heavy thuds of boots are sounding on the steps outside. Her brother sent these men. She’s literally loading the bullets that will kill her own family's soldiers. There's no going back for her now.
Fiorella slides the first loaded magazine across the floor.
I catch it with a practiced hand. Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second.
Hers are wide with a terrifying kind of clarity.
Mine are dark, predatory. In that exact moment, the bond between us shifts permanently from captor and hostage to something far more lethal.
Our fingertips graze as I grab the mag, a spark of friction that feels hotter than the gunfire.
"Take it," she spits out. "Kill them all."
"You're mine now, Fiorella. Do you understand that?" I growl.
She told me to kill them. My little princess has teeth.