Chapter 21 · Untitled Chapter

Chapter 21: Chapter 21

"Move, June. Now."

Luca's hand closes around my wrist and yanks me sideways half a second before the charge blows the loading door off its hinges. Smoke rolls across the warehouse floor in a gray wall, and my ears ring like someone cracked a bell inside my skull.

"How many," I say, and I'm proud my voice doesn't shake.

"Four that I counted. Maybe six." He presses me flat against a stack of shipping crates, his chest against my back, gun already up. "Stay behind me."

"I'm not a china doll, Luca."

"No. You're the only person in this room who can read a cabinet number, so stay alive."

Boots hit concrete through the smoke. Two shapes, then a third. I count the muzzle flashes like he taught me — short, controlled, not the spray-and-pray of amateurs.

"There," I whisper, pointing past his shoulder. "Blind corner by the pallet jack. Somebody's going to swing wide around it."

He looks at me like I just handed him a gift wrapped in ribbon.

"Walk toward it," he says. "Slow. Let him see you."

"You want me as bait.