Chapter Five Echoes in the Rain
409 Words
The electricity cut out with a brittle snap.
Darkness swallowed the room, broken only by the thin blue glow of the city bleeding through a cracked window.
Nico moved with practiced calm, sliding a small pistol from beneath the leather chair and checking the chamber.
“Stay behind me.”
Leila’s pulse roared in her ears. “I can’t just”
“Leila.” His voice was firm but low. “Breathe. Follow my lead.”
He eased the door open and led her down a narrow hall toward the back exit.
Outside, the rain had returned soft, relentless, masking their footsteps.
They reached the alley just as a figure rounded the corner: tall, broad-shouldered, a silhouette haloed by streetlight.
“Don’t run,” Nico murmured.
The man stepped forward, hood falling back to reveal a sharp jaw and eyes the same storm-grey as Nico’s.
Leila gasped. “You”
“Dominic,” Nico said flatly.
His cousin’s smile was cold. “Little Nico. Always running.”
Dominic’s gaze slid to Leila. “And who is this? The law student who plays hero?”
Leila fought the urge to step back. “You don’t scare me.”
Dominic chuckled, a sound like broken glass. “Brave. I like that.”
Nico shifted, keeping himself between them. “This ends tonight.”
“It never ends,” Dominic replied. “You know the rules: family is forever. Walk away again and she pays the price.”
The rain quickened, drumming on the pavement, a tense percussion to the silence that followed.
Nico’s jaw tightened. “Not this time.”
Before Dominic could answer, the wail of police sirens cut through the night close, insistent. Blue lights washed over the alley walls.
Dominic’s smirk faded. “Another time, little cousin.”
He melted into the shadows as quickly as he’d appeared.
Nico exhaled, tension rippling off him. “They’ll keep coming.”
Leila’s fingers trembled around the photograph. “Then tell me everything. No more half-truths. Why is my grandmother in this picture? What do you know about her?”
He met her eyes, the storm inside them matching the downpour above.
“She wasn’t just a friend of my father,” he said. “She was his partner his strategist. The Romano empire wouldn’t exist without her.”
The words struck harder than the rain.
Leila felt the ground tilt beneath her, the London night suddenly stranger than any dream.
- Writer
