Chapter 31 · Ninety Seconds

The housekeeper's scream was still ringing in my teeth. Thin. Wet. Cut off right in the middle.

I crouched behind a rack of humming server towers, my left hand—the one with Dante’s diamond digging into my finger—flat against freezing concrete. Lake water dripped from my hair down between my shoulder blades. Every breath tasted like copper, burnt wiring, and ozone.

"Lucia." Salvatore's voice came through the comm in my right ear, sickeningly smooth. Like he was calling me down for Sunday dinner. "You still with me, sweetheart?"

"I'm here," I said.

My voice didn't shake. I hated how good I was at that.

Across the four feet of bloody floor, Dante was propped against the reinforced wall. His dress shirt was soaked black from his collar down to his belt buckle. His right arm hung limp and ruined, but his left held a custom Beretta aimed straight at my chest.

Not to shoot me. To keep me from doing something insane.

"Good girl," Salvatore purred. "Here’s the deal. You spin the wheel lock. You walk out into the corridor with your hands up. You bring me the cipher key, and you leave Don Ferrara right where he sits.