Valentina’s POV
The bullet punches a starburst into concrete, a white-hot blossom that smells like metal and cold rain. It lands inches from my head and scores the plaster with a spiderweb of cracks, and for a single stupid second I allow myself to notice the geometry of it—perfect, deadly, like everything in my life.
Then my training kicks in.
“Down!” I roar, reflex beating thought. I get down from the car, Dominic follows, shove a chair into Dominic’s hands, shove him behind it like he’s my man for the night, then hurl myself toward the steel case by the wall. The first gunshot drums so close it makes my teeth sing. A shard of glass lances my wrist and I taste the copper of it on my tongue, but I don’t stop. Pain is a detail. Survival is the plan.
The safe house erupts in sound—gunfi
