That's how long it takes me to go from Serafina's mouth to a weapon in my hand.
Three seconds, and a different kind of hunger takes over.
"Stay." I put her behind me. She doesn't argue — smartest thing she's done since I met her. I scan the dark. No power. No cameras. No perimeter alerts. Someone cut the grid from the outside. Knew exactly where the junction box was.
This wasn't opportunistic.
This was planned.
I key my earpiece. "Caruso, talk to me."
Static. Then: "Two on the front steps, one on the alley gate — jammer's up, we're running on?—"
The line dies.
Shit.
One breath. Two.
The front door comes off its hinges.
I move before they're through it.
The first man is big — tactical gear, no insignia, professional. He raises his weapon and I'm already past him, one hand redirecting the barrel toward the ceiling, the other driving an elbow into his jaw. The crack runs through my forearm like a bell.
He drops. Knee in his back. Done.
The second man comes from the left. My blade is already in my hand — it lives there in moments like this, smooth as breathing, sharp as consequence. I have it at his throat before he clears the frame.
"Drop it."
He hesitates. Half a second.
I apply pressure. The math becomes very clear very fast.
He drops it.
I introduce his head to the doorframe and step over him.
The third man has made it to the kitchen.
He has his hands on Serafina.
The world goes red.
Not metaphor. Not a figure of speech. The edges of my vision actually narrow and turn the color of something I've spent my whole career trying to keep leashed. The leash Matteo trusts.The leash Enzo relies on. The thing that separates me from the men I've put in the ground.
It doesn't hold.
I cross the kitchen in four strides. I don't think. Don't calculate. Don't do any of the things I was trained to do when the animal surfaces. I rip him off her by the collar — feel the fabric give, feel his weight, feel absolutely nothing except the need to put him as far from her as physics will allow — and I throw him through the cabinet door.
Wood detonates.
He hits the floor, and I go down with him, blade at his throat, his shoulder already wrenched to the point of separation, and I am one breath away from finishing this permanently.
One breath. One decision.
"Luca."
