Chapter 14 · Ten Minutes

Three bolts slid home behind me. Clack. Clack. Clack.

Like a gun being cocked three times.

"Sit," Dante said.

"I'll stand."

"Lucia." He didn't raise his voice. He never did. "Sit on the bed, or I put you there."

My bottom lip throbbed where it had split in the dark. Salt and copper in my mouth. Downstairs, boots were slamming against tile, flashlights slicing through smoke. The entire estate was on lockdown. Steel shutters sealed over every window. Every single guard twitching on a hair trigger.

And inside my right fist, shoved up the wide sleeve of my silk robe, was the plastic keycard I'd ripped off a dead guard's belt twenty minutes ago.

I sat.

Dante dropped into a crouch in front of me. His dress shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, splattered with fresh, dark blood that wasn't his. He smelled like cedar soap, burnt gunpowder, and sweat. I hated that my body recognized it.

"Look at me."

I didn't move.

He hooked two fingers under my chin, turning my face toward the low amber glow of the bedside lamp. His thumb brushed the cut on my lip. Not rough. Soft.