Because if she ends it, she’s shattered.
That thought trailed Elena like a shadow as Damiano forced her back into his car. The Maserati’s leather seat swallowed her, but there was no comfort in its luxury. The smell of gunpowder still clung to her clothes, the phantom echo of the gunshot bouncing in her head until she thought she’d go mad.
The man’s body was gone, but the image of his collapse would never leave her. She hadn’t just seen it—she had felt it. The sharp drop in the air when life had been snuffed out. The silence that followed, heavier than any scream.
Damiano slid in beside her. The door shut with a final, decisive sound, sealing her fate in a cocoon of leather and steel. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just sat there, his hand on the steering wheel, his
