“Your arm?—”
“Is fine. Go get your son.”
He doesn’t wait for me to argue. Just rolls out of cover and starts moving, his wounded arm held tight against his body while he fires with his good hand. Viktor’s men shift their attention to him, which is exactly what we need.
I move.
Three defenders between me and that side exit. The first one doesn’t see me coming until my bullet is already in his throat. The second spins around just in time to catch two rounds in the chest. The third is faster, gets off a shot that grazes my ribs like a line of fire, but I push through the pain and put him down with a headshot.
I can see the doorway now. Can see Viktor’s back as he drags my son through it, disappearing into whatever lies beyond.
“Luca!”
My son’s voice answers, muffled but desperate, echoing from somewhere in that darkness. “D!”
I feel my legs running before I can even think twice.
But Viktor’s rear guard is doing their job, throwing everything they have at me to buy their boss time to escape. Bullets tear up the floor around my feet, force me to dive behind a pillar, cost me precious seconds I can’t afford to lose.
Roy’s there again, appearing from a different angle, his face tight with pain, but his aim is still precise. Together we cut down twomore defenders, then a third, but every second we spend fighting is another second Viktor has to disappear with my son.
“The secondary team,” I gasp into the comm. “Tell me they’re in position.”
“We’ve breached the lower levels,” Marco’s voice comes through, along with the sound of gunfire from below. “Heavy resistance in the catacombs. We’re pushing through but it’s taking time.”
We don’t have time.
The church is worse than a warzone now, bodies scattered across the floor, the smell of fresh blood and death so thick my intestines twist. My men are still fighting, but Viktor’s forces are putting up more resistance than we expected.
He planned this perfectly. Knew exactly how many men to position, exactly where to place them, exactly how to slow us down while he made his escape.
And I’d taught him all of these. He watched me, learned from me, memorized my tactics and my weaknesses and my patterns.
I’d tried to change things enough to throw him off, but it wasn’t enough.
I push forward through the sanctuary, killing anyone who gets in my way, and moving through the chaos with the kind of coldness and inhumanity that used to scare me when I was younger. Back then I wondered if there was anything human left inside me. Now I’m grateful for the monster my father created.
Because monsters are what it takes to save my son.
Roy stays at my shoulder, bleeding but still fighting, still covering my advance while I push toward that side exit whereViktor disappeared with my boy. Bodies fall around us, some of them wearing tactical gear like ours, others in civilian clothes. The gunfire is starting to thin as Viktor’s forces realize they’re losing, as my men cut them down one by one, but the damage is done.
Viktor is gone. And he’s taken Luca with him.
I reach the doorway and stare into the darkness beyond, my chest heaving, blood dripping from the graze on my ribs, my hands shaking with rage and fear.
30
SCARLETT
I stay low behind the pillar while the world falls apart around me, when all I want to do is get out there and get my son back.
Bullets are flying everywhere. The noise is so loud my ears feel like they’re bleeding. People are screaming, dying, and I’m pressed against cold stone trying not to throw up or pass out or both.
Dante told me to trust him and stay behind cover. To let him handle this while I hide like some useless damsel waiting to be rescued.
But I’m not useless. I’m a nurse, and right now, about fifteen feet to my left, one of Dante’s men is bleeding out on the cathedral floor.
I can see the wound from here. A deep hole on his thigh. It’s arterial, from the way the blood is spurting in pulses that match his heartbeat. He’s got maybe three minutes before he loses too much blood to survive, and nobody is helping him because everyone else is too busy shooting or getting shot.
