Chapter 19 · Ozone and Iron

The elevator dropped so fast my stomach stayed on the third floor.

Wet silk plastered to my ribs. Freezing lake water dripped down my spine, but my skin still burned everywhere he'd touched me upstairs. My wrists. The bruised corner of my mouth.

I hated that my pulse still answered him.

"Eyes front, Lucia."

Dante stood half a step behind my shoulder.

He hadn't touched me since the study. He'd pulled on a dry black shirt, left the top buttons undone, and kept his Glock drawn low against his thigh. Like the steel was just an extension of his fingers.

He was wound tight. I’d seen his face go dead-white upstairs the second I hummed that tune.

Dante Ferrara didn’t rattle for anybody. But he was rattled now.

"You swore I'd get answers," I said, staring at the steel doors.

"You will."

"You won't even look at me."

"I'm watching the doors." His jaw clenched hard. "Somebody's waited ten years for you to step into this basement. The second they show up, I'm putting them in the ground."

My mouth shut.

The doors slid back with a hiss. Cold concrete air hit my wet clothes like a slap.