Chapter 35 · Flatline

"Open the door, Lucia. Let's talk like family."

My uncle’s voice filtered through two inches of reinforced steel, smooth as Sunday gravy.

The bastard who ordered my mother dead was calling me sweetheart.

Dante’s head rested heavy in my lap. Hot, sticky blood soaked through my jeans, pooling between my thighs. Every time he dragged air into his lungs, the plastic chest seal fluttered and hissed.

Too slow. Way too shallow.

I dug my palm into the dressing. "Don't you dare die on me. Wake up, you arrogant prick. Wake up."

Nothing. His eyelashes didn't even twitch. His mouth was gray.

The radio beside my knee burst into static. Katia’s voice rasped through, choked by gunsmoke and a wet, rattling cough. "Lucia. Report."

"He’s right outside the master suite," I said, my teeth clicking together. "Salvatore."

"I know. He took the south elevator. I’ve got two down, four pinned on the landing—I can’t reach you!" Gunfire chewed up the drywall on her end, deafening and close. "Nightstand. Second drawer. He keeps a combat carbine locked and racked. Take it!"

I eased Dante’s head onto a silk pillow like he was made of spun glass.

Then I scrambled across the floor.