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Her outrage hit me like icy water, making it painfully clear that I hadn’t fully grasped the gravity of my injuries until now.

I gazed down at the dark crimson blotches spreading across the material of my dress, each pulse of pain sending the room into dizzying spins at a faster pace.

That motherfucker Markos had shot me. Shot me!

A low, trembling growl escaped my lips as I vowed, “I’m going to kill him.”

My vision blurred, and my mind clouded. The energy in my body seemed to seep away with every breath.

“I believe Niko will surely take care of that for you,” Cali interjected, leaving little room for debate. “If he doesn’t, I certainly damn well will.”

The fire in her eyes was unmistakable, reflecting the defiant spark I had seen in Avra’s and my own reflection. No one escaped unharmed when a Vitalis was involved, regardless of family or name.

Then, voices began to rise in the background as if on cue. I craned my neck, straining through blurred vision to catch a glimpse behind Cali.

The shattered window of the bookstore revealed a scene of utter chaos. Stefano and Markos lay sprawled on the sidewalk outside, my men holding them down with guns drawn, while the two brothers engaged in a chaotic, heated argument.

“You stupid motherfucker, what were you thinking?” Stefano roared, trying to keep his face from digging into the broken glass.

“She pissed me off!” Markos insisted, with a mix of anger and panic. “They can’t prove it was me!”

“Everything pisses you off! Didn’t you think, for once? We were supposed to take her somewhere safe, not shoot her in fucking public, in plain view of every goddamned camera in that shop! You’re such a fucking dumb idiot! I can’t believe I’m related to you!” Stefano’s outrage cut through the air like a whip.

“Fuck the cameras!” Markos barked back, desperate. “We can wipe the evidence clean. The cops, if you think about it, are already on the Galanis payroll.”

“God, you’re even stupider than I thought!” Stefano bellowed back. “They’re not on our payroll; they’re on Niko’s! They owe us nothing. Are you insane? How many more disasters will you cause, Markos? Wasn’t your last mistake enough to teach you a lesson?”

“Don’t you dare bring that up!” Markos shouted, his anguish evident as rage twisted his speech into incoherent fury.

“I’ll say whatever I want, you asshole! Because of you, we lost Mama and Cora. The target was Niko, not them. They were innocent, Markos! I forgave you once, but that was a mistake. You’re never going to learn!” Stefano spat out as if his mouth was filled with something heavy and bitter. “You’re the reason I don’t have a mother and sister.”

“You bastard! You know that was a mistake, and now you’re blaming me? How was I supposed to know that Niko would change his routines that morning? This wasn’t my fault! It simply wasn’t!” Markos’s bravado faltered, shifting from anger to despair, but I felt no compassion for him.

As he broke down, all I could think about was the consequences of his actions. The weight of the momenthung heavily in the air between us, an unbridgeable gap of misunderstanding and resentment. I stood firm, unmoved by his turmoil, aware that he needed to confront the reality of his choices.

That man was responsible for shattering so many lives.

“Mama and Cora were the only good things this family ever had,” Stefano seethed through gritted teeth.

“All you needed to do was make a call and confirm. If you had done that, they would still be alive. Their deaths are on you, Markos. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change that. I hope the memory of what happened haunts you every single day for the rest of your life.”

My eyes flicked over to Cali, who absorbed everything said with grim concentration.

In a low, almost inaudible whisper, I murmured, “Oh, poor Niko,” even as the room began to swirl again, darkness crept in, and the world faded to black.

Twenty-Three

NIKOLAS

A deafening gunshot shattered the calm of the afternoon, reverberating off brick walls and sending a jolt of terror racing through every fiber of my being. In that split second of chaos, my gut screamed that Laya was in mortal danger.

Without hesitation, my men and I sprinted toward the source of the desperate screams, skillfully dodging a tidal wave of panicked pedestrians flowing in the opposite direction.

Each pounding step on the cracked pavement matched the frantic racing of my thoughts, as fleeting, brutal images of what lay ahead flashed before my eyes.

I saw fragments of my past: my mother’s gentle smile, my sister’s comforting embrace, even my father’s steady hand.

All of them were gone.