Katarina POV inside a shipping container, held hostage
"What’s this?" Giordano asked, picking up the red bracelet off the floor. It looked so small in his large, greedy hands. Like a thread barely holding my world together.
Cherie grinned like a cat who’d eaten the whole cage. "Fell off one of Vittorio’s shooters during the scuffle. Looked pretty, so I took it."
I froze. My heart thudded like thunder in my ears. No.
Giordano lifted it to the light. "Looks cheap. Why do you care so much, sweetheart?"
He looked right at me. That same cruel smirk. Then—snap.
He tore it. “No!” I lunged forward — too slow. The rope yanked me back. Snap. The sound of the bracelet breaking was louder than a gunshot in my chest.
Red beads were scattered across the dirty floor like spilled blood. One bounc
