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"Concentrate on the music," he instructs, his voice gentler than I've ever heard it. "Feel how it rises and falls. Breathe with it."
I try to focus on the familiar melody, letting it wash over me. My breathing gradually slows to match the tempo of the piece.
"It was self-defense," Alessio repeats, eyes flicking between me and the road ahead. "You did what you had to do. You need to focus now. Stay with me."
The lights of the highway blur through my tears as Alessio steers with one hand, the other pressing his phone to his ear. His voice cuts through the classical music, sharp and urgent, but the words sound garbled to my ears, like he's speaking underwater.
"...immediate extraction... no, compromised... two down, possibly three..."
I can't focus on his conversation. My mind keeps replaying the moment in vivid detail—the weight of the gun, the resistance of the trigger, the man's expression as the bullet struck him. Did I kill him? Is he dead or just wounded? My stomach twists violently at the thought.
This isn't me. I'm Melania Lombardi, who cried for a week when I accidentally stepped on a mouse in our summer villa. Who donated to animal shelters instead of buying clothes. Who couldn't even watch horror movies without covering my eyes.
Now I've shot someone. Actually pulled a trigger and watched a human being fall.
CHAPTER 19
The car glides to a stop in an abandoned construction site, concrete pillars rising like sentinels into the night sky. I kill the engine but leave the music playing. Melania hasn't spoken in twenty minutes, her breathing finally steady but her eyes vacant, staring at nothing.
I scan our surroundings through the windshield. No movement. No lights except distant city glow. We're alone for now, exactly where Damiano directed us to wait.
My mind replays the call I made after we fled the convenience store.
"They found us," I'd told Damiano, voice tight with controlled urgency. "We need immediate extraction."
"How?" Damiano's response was sharp.
"They must have another way to trace us that we didn't catch." The admission burned—a failure on my part. "Moving in the same car is too dangerous now."
"Same as yesterday. I'm sending Matteo with a vehicle." Damiano's voice had been clipped, practical. "Where are you?"
After I gave him our location, I'd added something unexpected: "Melania saved my life tonight."
The silence that followed stretched long enough that I thought we'd lost connection.
"She what?" Damiano finally asked.
"Third attacker came up behind me. She shot him." The image of turning to see Melania standing there, gun in hand, her face pale with shock, is burned into my mind. "Would have taken a bullet to the back of my head otherwise."
Another pause. "Then you owe her."
"Yes." The word tasted strange in my mouth. Simple but weighted.
"Be careful, Alessio." Damiano's tone shifted, carrying a warning I couldn't quite decipher. "We need those files, even if it's not all the evidence. Don't let anything compromise the mission."
Now, sitting in darkness with only the soft piano notes filling the space between us, I turn to study Melania's profile. The moonlight catches on her cheekbones, the delicate curve of her nose, the tear tracks still visible on her skin.
She killed for me. The thought circles in my mind, refusing to settle. Antonio Lombardi's sheltered daughter pulled a trigger to save my life.
I reach across the console, my hand hovering over hers where it rests in her lap, still twisting around her mother's ring. I hesitate, then withdraw without touching her.
"Matteo will be here soon," I say instead, hoarse. "We'll switch vehicles and move to the next location."
Melania turns to face me, her beautiful face enveloped in pain. Her lips part slightly, trembling with words I can already tell I won't like. Something about what she did. About killing a man. My fault.
Without thinking—without fucking planning—I move. One hand slides behind her neck, fingers threading through her hair, and I pull her to me. Our mouths crash together with a raw urgency that burns through my veins like wildfire.
I kiss her like we were supposed to be doing this for a whole fucking eternity. Like every moment until now has been wasted. Her taste—sweet despite everything—floods my senses, drowning out the lingering smell of gunpowder and blood.