Chapter 9 · Proof of Life

Three blue pulses.

Then the click of a hammer sliding back.

I didn't think. I threw my entire weight at Dante’s gun arm.

The shot cracked across the black water like a slammed iron door. Granite chips bit into my cheek. Out in the fog, that single blue light jerked sideways and died.

Just swallowed whole.

"No," I choked out. Small. Pathetic. "No, no, no—"

Dante didn't look at me. Not once.

He kept the barrel leveled at the empty lake, icy rain sheeting off the slide. His free hand already had my wrist locked in an iron clamp, squeezing until the bones ground together.

"Three pulses," he said. Flat. Deadly calm. "Slow. Fast. Slow again. That wasn't a buoy, Lucia."

"It’s a stray boat light—"

"It’s a pickup signal." He finally turned his head. His eyes were cold slate. Not a trace of give in them. "For you."

Blood was hammering behind my teeth. I’d lifted his master keycard off his coat three nights ago in the penthouse elevator while he argued with his lieutenant. I'd waited. I'd mapped the guard shifts from that high suite window until my vision blurred.

Katia swore she'd come.