Page 119 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“Three steps to your right.”

I move three precise steps. He mirrors them, taking my lane, blocking their sight line. His gun never wavers, his eyes don’t move from his target.

“Stop there,” one of them barks at Cal. “She can go. You—drop the gun.”

“Go ahead, sweetheart,” says Bored Voice, smiling like a dent in the world. “Take the door.”

Cal doesn’t move. From behind him, I can see his jaw tick. The room goes still and silent.

“Cal,” I say, because I can’t not.

Because leaving without him wasn’t actually what he meant when he said to run.

I step to the side slightly to look at his face.

He was going to be behind me when he told me to run.

Wasn’t he?

His eyes flick—only to me, only once. He tips the muzzle of his pistol up slowly, freeing both hands, palms open to the ceiling. The gun tilts backwards but doesn’t leave his grasp. I suck in air, tears brimming the lids of my eyes, knowing what’s coming and not ready to listen. Not ready to leave him behind.

One of the men steps forward to Cal and places the barrel of his own gun inches from Cal’s forehead.

“Get on your knees, Renzetti.”

Cal takes half a step forward to put the muzzle of the man’s gun flush against his own forehead.

My heart drops.

“Never will you find a Renzetti on their knees for anyone. I’d die before I put myself on my knees for you or anyone else.”

Cal holds the man’s stare for a moment before blinking.

And then, his voice is cold as ice, flat: “Run.”

I run.

Every cell of my body says to turn around, every muscle yells at me that I am running the wrong way, and my heart begs me to go back. But I follow the rule about listening this one time.

Through the swinging kitchen door, down the dim back hall where the exit sign hums like the chandelier did, breath burning, lungs raw, gasping or sobbing, or both.

Behind me, someone calls, “After her!”

The crash bar gives.

I pitch into night air, take four or five strides, and fall right into arms that smell like cologne and gunpowder and family.

“Got you. I got you.” I look up into the familiar voice as Nico lifts me, sounding like steel.

Gio is upright beside him, pale and wrapped, Rudi already sighting the alley. Both armed.

Another shadow lunges from the door behind me; the night explodes with the controlled thunder of three guns. I make sounds but I don’t hear them through the ringing in my ears.

Gasping. Sobbing. Screaming?

It feels like my throat rips open again.

Then the man in front of us folds. Nico hauls me back, his eyes and gun never losing sight of the man on the ground.