If I refuse?
My father’s men returned fire instantly, the alley erupting into chaos. I ducked low, heart hammering, until a shadow lunged in close.
A blade slid into my ribs and hot pain burned through me, stealing my breath before I could scream. My knees buckled and for a terrifying second I couldn’t tell if I was falling or floating. I felt something wet and warm gushed beneath my palm when I pressed against the wound.
“Consider this my resignation from your father’s business,” Russo hissed into my ear before shoving me aside.
The ground tilted and my vision swam. Gunfire and rain blurred together until Matteo’s shout ripped through the haze. He slammed Russo against the wall, fist crunching bone. Another of my father’s soldiers gunned down two of Russo’s men before they could escape.
“Move!” Matteo barked, yanking me up. My feet skidded on wet pavement as he dragged me toward the car. Rain blurred my sight, smoke choked my throat, and the copper tang of blood coated my tongue. The world had shrunk to pain and the desperate beat of survival.
By the time we reached the safehouse, I was barely upright. I gripped a chair, blood and rain dripping onto the tiles. My hands shook as I pulled out my phone.
My first call was to my father.
He answered on the first ring.
“Is it done?”
“Russo betrayed you,” I rasped. “We have the case, but..”
“Good. Bring it to me,” he interrupted, voice like ice. “Don’t waste time calling me for anything unnecessary. Hurry up and return immediately.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my blood-covered hand, the dial tone buzzing in my ear, wondering if I’d ever been anything more to him than a courier with his blood in her veins.
By the time I got home, the rain had already soaked through my coat, and every step up the stairs left a faint trail of red on the carpet. My ribs throbbed where the blade had gone in, but I didn’t slow down.
I headed straight for his study. The door was ajar, light spilling into the hallway, the faint scratch of a fountain pen against paper filling the air. He was behind a massive oak desk, ledger open, a decanter of whiskey untouched at his elbow.
“Perfect timing,” he said without looking up, flipping a page. “I have a new assignment ready for you. You’ll need to—”
“Mr. Vincent.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He stilled for a moment and glanced up. I never interrupted him. Not once. Not in all the years I’d been killing and lying and following orders.
“I am injured. Isn’t it something that can wait?”
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t slam anything or snap. But I was shaking. My voice came out hoarse and tight.
I stood there in the middle of the room, water still drying on my shoulders, blood stiff in the fabric near my waist, exhaustion sinking into my bones like cold.
His gaze swept over me, lingering on the way I was standing slightly bent, a hand pressed just under my ribs. For a flicker of a moment, his eyes softened, just barely.
“Lana…” he said, his voice quieter now. “I didn’t notice you were injured.”
“Well I am,” I replied, feeling tired and frustrated. “But it’s no big deal. You can tell me now.”
He hesitated, for just a moment and said. “What I wanted to tell you is that you’ll be marrying Luca Donnell next week.”
I thought I’d misheard him. Or maybe I’d finally snapped and was hallucinating.
“Luca... what?” I said.
He didn’t waver in his words. “Luca Donnell.”
“Luca’s parents are pleased with you,” he said without preamble. “They were the ones who proposed the match.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
He sipped his drink. “Luca has agreed to it. The engagement banquet will happen tomorrow.”
That made even less sense. I knew that Luca hated me a lot.
We’d been at each other’s throats since the day we met both gunning for the same position in the Westbrook high university chapter. Both trying to outdo the other. Everyone knew us as rivals in fact they nicknamed us twin blades in the same box.
“What do you want to achieve with this marriage?” I asked because I knew there was a deeper reason for his agreement.
He didn’t bother hiding it. “I want you to become my spy. You’ll be my eyes on the inside.”
He rose from behind the desk, slow, deliberate, each step echoing in the quiet room. The temperature seemed to get colder as he closed the distance between us, his eyes locked on mine. When he reached me, his hand came down hard on my shoulder, pressure coiling low in my stomach, tightening like a vice.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
“And if I refuse?”
He paused, just for a heartbeat, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.