Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Would Not Panic
Darkness swallowed the chapel.
This time, Mia did not move immediately.
Panic made people loud. Panic made people predictable.
She waited.
Carlo expected them to run. Expected Matteo to reach for his father. Expected Lorenzo’s men to rush the altar.
Instead, Mia put one hand over Matteo’s mouth and pressed him down against the pew.
His breath was hot against her palm.
Across the chapel, wood creaked.
Carlo moving.
Mia counted.
One step. Two. Pause. Three.
He was circling left.
She leaned close to Matteo’s ear. “When I move, stay.”
He nodded once.
She removed her hand.
Then she threw her empty magazine across the chapel.
It clattered against stone on the right.
Carlo fired toward the sound.
Mia launched herself left.
She collided with him at knee level. Both of them crashed into the altar steps. Pain shot through her shoulder. Carlo was stronger, heavier, trained. He slammed his elbow into her ribs. She gasped but hooked two fingers inside his collar and drove her forehead into his chin.
Stars burst behind her eyes.
Carlo cursed.
Mia grabbed his gun hand. He twisted, nearly breaking her wrist. She bit him.
He shouted.
“Did you bite me?” he snarled.
“Different skill sets,” she hissed.
Matteo tackled Carlo from the side.
The two men crashed into the altar. The silver drive flew from Carlo’s hand and skittered across the floor.
Mia scrambled after it.
A shoe came down on her fingers.
Enzo.
He stood over her, pale and bleeding, holding his dropped gun in his good hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Mia looked up at him. “No, you’re not.”
He pointed the gun at Matteo.
Mia did the only thing she could.
She grabbed the hem of Enzo’s pants and yanked.
He fell backward with a shriek, fired into the ceiling, and knocked himself unconscious against a pew.
Mia lay there for half a second, breathing hard.
Matteo stared at her.
“You tripped him,” he said.
“I am evolving.”
Carlo shoved Matteo off and staggered toward the sacristy door. He no longer had the drive, but he was smiling.
That smile froze Mia’s blood.
Because Carlo did not look like a man losing.
He looked like a man who had already won.
The chapel speakers crackled.
A recorded voice began to play.
Lorenzo’s voice.
Not present-day Lorenzo. Younger. Harder. Colder.
A confession.
Names. Payments. Orders. Favors. Enough to bring down the Duca empire and everyone connected to it.
Bianca swore.
Lorenzo looked as if he had been struck.
Carlo paused at the door and turned back. “You thought the drives were the only way? I have been copying your sins for years.”
The recording continued, echoing through the chapel and, Mia realized with horror, through the estate’s emergency broadcast system.
Maybe beyond it.
Maybe online.
May you like
Carlo smiled at Matteo. “Before sunrise, your family name will be ash.”
Then he vanished into the dark.
