Chapter 24 · Midnight

The alarm cuts through the house at twelve fourteen, and my door doesn't open — it slams open, and Luca's already inside before I've even sat up.

"Down." He's got a gun in one hand and his other hand's already flat on my shoulder, shoving me off the bed onto the floor between the mattress and the wall. "Now, Nora."

"What—"

"Someone's in the east wing." His voice is flat, quiet, the kind of quiet that scares me more than yelling would. "Stay low."

I can hear it now, under the alarm — footsteps, fast, wrong. Not staff footsteps. Staff don't run like that.

"Is it him?" I grab his sleeve before he can move away. "Is it Marchetti's people?"

"Doesn't matter who it is." He crouches in front of me, blocking the door with his own body, and for one second his eyes flick down to my hands, still fisted in his shirt. "You don't come out. Not for anything. Not for a scream, not for a gunshot, not for my voice. You hear me?"

"I hear you." My heart's going so hard I can feel it in my teeth. "Luca—"

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it."