Page 96 of Ruthless Scar
I’m so tired.
“I want to give us a chance.” The sentence lands between us. Quiet. Real. Tested on the air like I’m checking if it’ll survive outside my head. “I want to see what we could be if we both stopped running.”
I’m shaking. Not from the cold.
“I want?—”
Sound. I freeze. Listen.
Distant. Muffled by concrete and distance. But unmistakable. Not the routine sounds of the compound. Not doors or footsteps or the things I’ve trained myself not to imagine. This is different. Sharper. The rhythm of chaos instead of routine.
Gunfire.
I strain to hear, pressing myself against the wall. More sounds. Shouting, maybe, though I can’t make out words. Something crashes. An alarm starts wailing, high and piercing even through the concrete.
The building is waking up. And not in a good way.
“Come on.” I’m on my feet. Shaking. But steady. Pressing my palms flat against the wall like I can feel the answer through the concrete.
He came. I don’t know it for certain. Could be law enforcement. Could be a rival operation. Could be anything.
But I know.
Lorenzo is here.
And I’ve already made my choice. I’m done. With the fear. With the running.
“Done,” I say to the dark. And mean it.
If I survive this, I’m choosing him.
The sounds outside are getting louder. Closer.
I orient toward the door even though I can’t see it. Ready.
“Come find me,” I whisper. “And when you do, we’re having a conversation about locking people in rooms.” I swallow. “But first, I’m going to let you hold me.”
The gunfire is closer now. I stand in the black and wait for him to tear it apart.
28
LORENZO
The first guard dies before he can raise his weapon. Two shots center mass. He drops and I’m already moving, not looking down, because there’s nothing behind me worth looking at.
The second guard gets his hand on his holster before Dante puts him down.
We move. Four brothers. Twenty-two men at our backs. The Benedetti estate sprawls around us — marble floors, expensive art, wealth built on women transported in shipping containers. The money is everywhere. In the crown molding. In the crystal chandeliers. In the original paintings on the walls of a man who sells human beings and uses the proceeds to buy beautiful things.
Every room I clear is one room closer to her.
I’m coming.
“Main corridor splits ahead.” Marco in my ear, low and focused. He’s got the building schematics on a tablet strapped to his forearm, calling positions as we advance. Black ink marks his knuckles. Routes, fallback positions, extraction points in shorthand only he can read. He moves differently from the rest of us. Not a fighter. An architect of the assault, reading thebuilding the way Isabella reads code. “Left goes to the residential wing. Right takes us toward operations. She’s in the basement level, east side.”
“We clear as we go,” Dante orders. “No one at our backs.”
We split. Nico and half the men take the residential wing. Dante, Marco, and I push toward operations.
