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My phone starts ringing, but I’m driving with both hands so I don’t pick it up.

“What do you think they’ve done?” Marco grabs my phone.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think if Ethan gets back in that fucking car, he’s dead,” I tell him.

Marco answers the phone and puts it on speaker.

“What the hell are you two doing?” one of the guards, Lenard, asks.

“There’s been a threat to a civilian with ties to Dante. He thinks they’ve planted a car bomb. We’re heading there now,” Marco explains.

“A civilian? Car bomb? Don’t you think this is something we should bring up to Nicholas first?” Lenard asks.

“I’m not about to get my ass blown up for one of your boy toys, Dante,” the other guard, Kelly, tells me.

“Then get off my fucking ass and run home, but I’m going!” I shout, then grab the phone from Marco and hang up.

“Do you have any problems with this? Cause you’re gonna have to tuck and roll if you wanna leave.” I shoot a glare at Marco as I run a red light and several cars honk at me.

He puts his hands up. “Not my circus, not my monkeys, but I’m comin’ with you. Now…going near the car, that’s another story.”

I growl under my breath and look back at the road. “I swear if somethin’ happens to him, I’ll kill every single one of them.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, let’s just get there, brother,” Marco insists, trying to calm me down, but it’s not working very well.

The pizza in my stomach suddenly feels like a lead brick.

Somehow, I make it to the café parking lot without getting pulled over by any cops or hitting anyone. The café just closed a few minutes ago.

If Ethan has kept up his usual routine, he’s been there most of the day and evening.

I spot him in the dim lighting of the parking lot, carrying a coffee cup and his messenger bag. He’s just a few feet from his car.

“Fuck, fuck!”

My car comes to a screeching halt as I stop right in the middle of the parking lot, rip off my seatbelt, and bolt out of the car.

“Dante!” Marco shouts after me, but I don’t listen.

“Ethan!” I call to him as I run.

His hand is on the door handle, and his head swivels in my direction.

“Don’t!” I try to tell him. “Don’t open the door!”

It’s too late. Ethan’s hand is already pulling at the handle.

Suddenly, it’s like everything around me disappears. I can see nothing but Ethan and feel nothing but my heart pounding. The ground underneath my feet doesn’t exist anymore.

I hear a singular beep.

I collide with Ethan’s body, causing whatever’s in his cup to spill everywhere as it’s crushed between us. I force both of our bodies away from the car as fast and as hard as I can, practically dragging him with me.

Just as the second beep rings in my ears, I tackle Ethan to the ground, sliding my arms and hands around his body and behind his head.

“Dante!” Ethan gasps.

At the same moment there’s a third beep, and then the roar of exploding metal behind us. Heat flares behind my back and pain stings at the back of my legs and neck.