{Nico’s POV}
The gunshot rang out like a hammer cracking stone. I drove. The bullet missed me by inches, shattering the antique mirror behind my head. Elena screamed, sharp, raw. I pulled her down, shielding her with my body as fragments rained across the floor.
“Matteo!” I shouted.
Footsteps pounded from the hallway, but the man in the red scarf was already gone, vanished like smoke. A warning, not a kill. He could’ve aimed for my heart. He didn’t.
That meant something.
“Elena,” I murmured, grabbing her face, checking for blood. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, wide-eyed, lips trembling. “Who was that? Nico, what the hell is going on?”
I stood slowly, jaw clenched, heart thudding. My eyes scanned the hallway, but there was nothing. Just cold silence and the echo of my past cat
