Page 32 of Savage Little War

“He will. He’s smart,” I reply. Sure, he can act like a clown sometimes, but he has survived this long on his own for a reason.

“Where do we go now? We should hurry before we come across any more guards,” Cara says as she peeks out of the entryway to look up and down the street. There isn’t a soul in sight so far.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and look over the list of directions that Luca sent me on how to get to the safe house. This would be much easier with him here, but I think we all know by now that nothing goes exactly according to plan.

“Stay close to me,” I tell her as I hold my hand out to her.

“Always,” Cara says as she grabs my hand and gravitates to my side.

10

Cara

I never thought I could feel this on edge somewhere so beautiful.

A cloudless blue sky hangs overhead as Dmitri and I thread through Amalfi’s back streets, trying to look like tourists instead of targets.

We keep checking behind us, fingers locked like someone could tear us apart with one hard tug.

Here, a wrong turn could be a death sentence.

“Not much farther,” Dmitri says, checking his phone again as he leads me up another flight of stairs.

My chest tightens, and pain flares through my calves and the soles of my feet as I keep pushing myself physically. I stop halfway up, palm slapping the wall as I bend over and suck air.

“Hold on. I’m sorry,” I breathe out as I bend over, my lungs burning.

Dmitri immediately turns to me, worry etched into his brow. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired,” I say, swallowing back the truth that’s been sitting in my chest for weeks.

“We’ll stop,” Dmitri says, scanning the street.

I suck in as deep of a breath as I can. “We can’t stop for that long. I just need a minute.”

Dmitri rubs my back. “I will give you as much time as you need. Are you sure you’re alright?”

I need to pull myself together. If he’s too busy worrying about me, he’s not focused on the mission. Distraction could cost him his life.

“I’m okay,” I tell him as I straighten up, fighting through the exhaustion weighing down my entire body. “Let’s go. I want to get to the house.”

Dmitri’s worried eyes linger on me for a moment before he nods and continues up the staircase. “Once everyone reaches the safe house, we’ll work on a plan to find Ferro. We need his location before sunrise.”

“That’s a pretty strict deadline,” I say, trying to keep my voice from wavering from exhaustion.

“The longer we’re here, the higher the chance Ferro hears we’ve landed,” Dmitri replies before stepping into a small clearing in front of a two-story white building—shuttered windows, a balcony, nowhere to hide. “This is it.”

My eyes roam over the building, seeing a small balcony up ahead, along with a lot of shuttered windows. “I wonder if we’re the first ones here.”

“One way to find out,” Dmitri replies before taking a step toward the safe house.

The air cracks, then a bullet slices past Dmitri’s temple

“Dmitri!”

His gaze snaps up toward the terraced hillside above the rooftops. “Get down!”

Before I can move, Dmitri lunges for me, yanking me into a nearby entryway just as another bullet sails over our heads. His body becomes a wall between me and the street.