Chapter 31 · The Bleeding Shield

The red dot didn't wobble.

It sat on my breastbone like a fingertip. Steady. Patient. Whoever held that rifle had all night.

"Don't move," I whispered.

"Wasn't planning to." Lucian's voice came out flat, but his hand had already found my wrist in the dark. His grip was hot and tight enough to bruise.

The whole penthouse was black. Silvio had cut the grid. No hum from the fridge, no glow from the city, nothing but the one emergency strip along the baseboard bleeding weak red across the marble. Wind screamed through the crack in the outer pane. Rain came sideways and hit my bare shoulder like thrown gravel.

My phone was a brick. No bars. Lucian's radio on the console crackled once, then spat out a voice I knew better than my own.

"Bianca, sweetheart."

Silvio. Warm as a Sunday dinner.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"I'd say hello to the husband too, but he's busy being brave," he went on. "Listen to me, piccola. Your sister wants to say something."

A scrape. A wet, ragged breath. Then Mia, small and cracked. "Bia? Bia, it's so cold. There's water, I can hear it, I can—