Chapter 4: Let Her Run
1157 Words
Adrian stood at the window of his study, the Amalfi sun bleeding gold across the sea far below. The glass was cool against his palm, but it did nothing to dull the heat crawling under his skin.
Forty-eight hours since he’d taken her.
Forty-eight hours since Serena Valente had looked at him with those eyes, his sister’s eyes, and spat in his face.
Lucia entered without knocking. She never did. The click of her heels was the only warning. She carried a tablet and a thick manila folder full of surveillance reports. Her suit was midnight black, hair twisted into a tight knot.
“Report,” he said, not turning.
Lucia laid the folder on the desk. “Marco’s men are circling Naples like sharks. They hit two of our warehouses last night. Lost three soldiers. They’re looking for her, but they’re sloppy. Marco’s not committing real numbers. Yet.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed. “He thinks she’s dead.”
“He hopes she is.” Lucia’s voice was flat. “The girl’s a liability. Always was. You saw the file.”
He turned then. The light carved shadows under his cheekbones, making the scar on his face gleam white. “I saw what he did to Elena.”
The name dropped between them like a blade. Lucia’s composure changed, just for a second. Her fingers tightened on the tablet, knuckles whitening before she forced them still again.
Elena was twelve when Marco ordered the hit. Thought she’d seen too much. Thought she’d talk. He sent a message with a car bomb meant for you. She was collateral.” She paused. “You were supposed to be in that car.”
Adrian’s hand curled into a fist. The glass groaned under the pressure. “I was late. She waited for me. She waited.”
Lucia stepped closer, close enough to smell the bergamot on his skin, the gun oil on his cuffs.
“You’ve waited fifteen years for this. Serena’s the key. Marco’s blind spot. His blood.”
A tiny pulse fluttered in Lucia’s throat. Jealousy, sharp and acidic but she pushed it down before he could see.
Adrian’s laugh was a rasp. “She’s not a key, Lucia. She’s a f*****g landmine.”
Lucia set the tablet down. Her voice dropped. “Then let me disarm her.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. Lucia had been beside him since they were children. Two orphans of the syndicate, forged in the same fire.
She’d killed her first man at fourteen to protect him. Had stood over Elena’s casket in a black dress too big for her, eyes red from crying even though tears were forbidden. They were trained to see it as a weakness.
She loved him. Had always loved him. Not with flowers or poetry, but with bullets and silence. With the way she memorized his moods, and anticipated his rage. With the way she’d kneel when the memories clawed too deep.
Adrian’s shoulders sagged, just enough. “I can’t think when I’m near her.”
Lucia’s hand rose, slow, to the knot of his belt. “Then don’t think.”
She sank to her knees as her fingers worked his belt with practiced speed. But this time the motions carried a tremor she hid beneath discipline. Duty, she told herself. Always duty.
But a hot pulse of longing beat through her ribs unspoken and raw. Just once, she wished he would touch her not out of rage or memory…but want.
Just once, she wished she weren’t an escape from the ghosts eating at him.
His hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back hard enough to sting. A growl tore from his throat raw, animal. He thrust into her mouth without warning, hips snapping forward, forcing past her lips until she gagged.
Her breath hitched not just from the force, but from the ache she hated admitting. Her eyes burned, not from the tears alone, but from wanting him in ways she had no right to want.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she took it. Took him. The salt of him, the rage, the grief. He f****d her throat like punishment, knuckles white in her scalp, dragging her closer with every brutal thrust.
“Elena” he snarled, voice cracking open, the wound bleeding fresh. “She waited, she f*****g waited”.
Lucia swallowed another sob. Her nails dug into his thighs, urging him as he lost control. For a heartbeat, her heart clenched because he wasn’t looking at her. He never looked at her. Not really.
His groans built low, guttural, then louder, feral, echoing off the glass. He slammed deep, held her there, her throat convulsing around him until his entire body seized.
A roar ripped from his chest as he came, hot and violent, flooding her mouth while his free hand slammed the window.
Lucia swallowed every drop, throat working, eyes blurry. When he pulled out, gasping, she stayed on her knees a second longer wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, steadying her breath, burying the bruise of longing beneath steel.
“Better?” she asked, voice steady.
He didn’t answer. Just stared at the sea like it might give him answers.
Lucia smoothed her suit. “We hit Marco’s docks at dawn. Viktor’s supplying the RPGs. Serena stays locked down until—”
A sound of glass exploding, and shouts from the hall cut her sentence mid-air
Maria burst in, face white and breathless. “Signore she broke the balcony door, blood everywhere she’s gone.”
Adrian was already moving. Lucia followed, gun drawn, rage sharpening her steps.
The suite was chaos, the French doors to the balcony shattered outward, ripped teeth of glass framing the cliff drop. Blood stained the marble showing her trail. A chair lay broken near the railing, where she’d smashed it through the door.
Bare footprints in crimson led over the railing and down the path. She’d climbed fast, slipping twice. Smears of blood dragged across the stone showed where she’d caught herself.
Adrian leaned out. Far below, a flash of her white slip darted between the garden cypress.
Adrain’s voice was ice. “She’s still on the grounds. Seal the gates.”
Adrian’s smile was all teeth. “Let her run.”
Now the real hunt begins.
Lucia stepped beside him, holstering her gun. Her eyes followed the same fading bloody trail with a quiet calculating stillness, a slight tightening of her jaw, and the faintest curl at one corner of her mouth.
She wish she could get to her first. No she must get to her first.
Adrian was already moving, already tasting the chase, Elena’s memory burning behind his ribs.
Lucia lingered half a heartbeat longer, gaze fixed on the darkness Serena had fled into then turned and followe
d another path. If she hurried fast enough, she could get to her before Adrian and the guards.
- Writer
