Chapter Four– Blood & Lies[Part 2]
1270 Words
“A weapon,” he says. “Backup comms. Safe words with your people outside?”
Another distant shout. The dull thud of running feet.
Ava stills. “No.”
His mouth hardens. “Then you’re not in my league. Until we’re above ground, you don’t argue with me. You listen.”
She hates that every word is both insulting and accurate.
He glances down the corridor, mind already mapping exits and blind spots.
He should leave her. Strategy says cut the liability loose and walk away with the prize.
He doesn’t.
“Your friend in your ear is barely punching through the jamming,” he says. “And whoever’s running that room now knows there’s a Moretti on their guest list. They’re not going to shrug and send you a fruit basket.”
“Then why help me?” she asks. It slips out rawer than she wants. “You just said you want my father dead.”
“Hate is inefficient,” he says. “I prefer profit.”
“And I’m… what? A profit stream?”
His gaze flicks briefly to her mouth, then back. “Right now you’re a liability. I haven’t decided what to do with.”
The honesty is a slap. It’s also, somehow, a relief.
“Come on.” His hand clamps around her wrist again, less rough this time but just as unyielding. “Service exit. Side alley. Then you can go back to pretending you’re invisible.”
She digs her heels in. “Don’t call me that.”
“What would you prefer?” he asks. “Little spy? Little traitor?”
His lips twitch at her glare.
They move. One turn, then another, the corridor opening into a wider maintenance passage lined with pipes and humming panels. A red EXIT sign glows at the far end.
They’re ten steps from it when the back door bursts inward.
Two men in dark clothes shove through, guns raised. One is bleeding from the temple. Both have the same dead-eyed look as the auction gunmen.
“Stop!” one barks. “Hands up!”
Damian doesn’t stop.
He shoves Ava sideways behind a stack of crates so hard her shoulder smacks the wood, then moves.
He’s fast.
He steps into the closer man’s space, slamming the barrel of the gun sideways with his forearm. The shot goes wild, smacking into concrete. Dust and chips spray the air.
The second man’s aim jerks toward Ava’s hiding place.
Damian swears, yanks the first man into the line of fire, and shoves Ava lower. The shot cracks past her ear, hot air kissing her cheek, then tears through a pipe behind her.
Water explodes from the rupture in a furious spray, soaking them in seconds.
Damian uses the chaos.
He drives his elbow into the first man’s throat, ducks under the flailing arm, and rips the gun from his hand in one smooth, terrifyingly practiced motion.
The second man lunges, boots skidding on the flooding floor.
Ava reacts before she can think.
She snatches the nearest object—a metal clipboard from a wall hook—and hurls it at his forearm with everything she has.
It connects with a sick crack.
He grunts, grip slipping. The shot goes into the ceiling instead of Damian’s chest.
Damian doesn’t hesitate.
Two shots, close and precise. One to the knee. One to the shoulder.
The man goes down screaming.
The first is on the floor, choking, clutching his throat.
Water pounds against Ava’s legs now, her dress plastered to her skin, hair dripping in her eyes.
Damian turns.
The polite, civilized mask is gone.
What’s left is cold, efficient violence.
He stills when he sees the clipboard at the downed man’s feet. His gaze lifts to her, lingering, recalculating.
“Nice throw,” he says.
Her fingers shake. She curls them into fists so he won’t see.
“What now?” she manages.
He jerks his chin toward the exit. “Now we leave before their friends come looking. And you forget my face.”
“Kind of hard after you’ve shoved your tongue down my throat,” she snaps before she can stop herself.
Heat flickers in his eyes. Quickly smothered.
“That,” he says evenly, stepping over the groaning man, “was for your own good. Don’t read into it.”
He reaches the door, checks the alley through the wired glass, and then cracks it open.
Wet night air rushes in. Rain. Overflowing dumpsters. A single flickering streetlight at the end of the lane.
He half-turns back to her.
“This is where we part ways,” he says. “Go home, Ms. Moretti. Stay home. Next time, no one will be motivated to keep you breathing.”
“What about you?” she asks, surprising herself.
“I have business,” he says simply. “And a drive to collect.”
Of course. Lot Seventeen.
“You’re really going to walk out with a list that can burn my family to the ground?” she asks.
“You walked in here trying to steal it first,” he points out. “Don’t get sentimental now.”
He opens the door wider.
“Wait,” she blurts.
He pauses.
A thousand questions jam behind her teeth. Why did you help me? What are you going to do to Vince? What are you going to do with *me*?
None of them are safe.
“If you go after Vince,” she says instead, voice low, “don’t pretend you’re any different from him.”
His jaw tightens.
“I don’t pretend anything, Ava,” he says. “That’s your family’s specialty.”
Then he steps back, leaving her framed in the doorway.
“Run along,” he adds. “Try not to die on the way home. I’d hate to see all that potential go to waste.”
She should walk away.
Instead, she throws one last shot over her shoulder.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” she says. “I’m not his princess.”
Their eyes lock, rain hissing in the alley behind her.
“You keep telling yourself that,” he replies. “Maybe one day it’ll be true.”
Then he pulls the door shut between them.
The lock clicks.
Ava stands alone in the alley, rain needling her skin, sirens faint somewhere distant.
“Ava—Ava, talk to me.” Cass’s voice slams back to life in her ear, frantic. “What happened? Are you out? Did you get the drive? Are you shot? Blink twice if you’re dying—”
“I’m fine,” Ava says, though she feels anything but. “I’m out.”
She peels the mask off, sucking in air that tastes like wet asphalt and garbage instead of panic and gunpowder. Her lips still tingle where Damian’s had been.
“Any trouble?” Cass presses.
Ava looks at the back door. At the building towering above it. At the city, that suddenly feels less like home and more like a hunting ground.
She thinks of a ruthless man with storm-grey eyes, a stolen kiss, and a drive capable of burning her bloodline to ash.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she lies.
She turns her collar up against the rain and starts walking, heels clicking on slick pavement.
She doesn’t look back.
If she does, she’s not sure she’ll be able to leave.
Behind her, underground, a new enemy walks out with everything she wanted—
the drive that can destroy her father.
And something worse:
a reason to come looking for her again.
- Writer
