Page 119 of Veil of Obsession

“No, you ran off,” he snaps, voice rising. “You vanished with her while we were still sweeping glass out of Ma’s fucking dining room!”

“I wasn’t gonna let her die,” I shoot back. “You think they wouldn’t try again? You think if they got a second chance, they wouldn’t put a bullet in her head just to prove they could?”

“She opened the goddamn gates, Lucio!”

“She didn’t know they were tracking her!”

“She didn’t know?” he snarls, advancing. “That’s your defense? Shedidn’t know. My mother’s bleeding out three rooms down because your little girlfriend didn’t know she was a fucking liability?”

My chest heaves. My fists curl. “She didn’t pull the trigger.”

“She didn’t have to,” he spits. “She left the door wide open and handed them the fucking blueprints.”

Silence burns between us. He breathes like a man trying not to tear down the whole building. Then…

“Ma was setting the table, Lucio,” he says, quieter now. “Mara was just pouring the wine.”

I close my eyes.

“She went down before she even saw the first muzzle flash.”

I feel it. That icy punch to the gut. The one that never stops coming.

“She’s in surgery,” he continues. “We don’t know if she’s gonna make it.”

“I know.” My voice breaks. “You think I don’t know?”

He walks past me, shoulders rigid. “I’m trying to hold this family together, and you’re out playing house with the enemy.”

I whip around. “She’s not the enemy!”

“You sure about that?” he growls. “You willing to bet Ma’s life on it?”

My throat goes dry.

“Hand her over,” he says, and his voice is final. “You want to keep her safe? Let us handle it. Let us do it the Camorra way.”

“No.”

His eyes flash. “No?”

“She’s mine, Eli. You want her, you come through me.”

We stare at each other, years of blood and loyalty stretched thin like a wire between us.

Finally, he turns away. “You better pray to God she’s worth it.”

“I’m not praying,” I say. “I’m protecting what’s mine.”

The door opens, and Matteo steps in, face pale, his phone still clutched in his hand.

“She’s out of surgery,” he says. “They don’t know if she’ll wake up.”

Mara’s still in the chair when I step back into the hall. I sit beside her. She leans her head against my shoulder, still not saying a word. But I feel it: her silent scream. And I swear to God, someone will bleed for it.

The first alarm is soft.A single, shrill tone that cuts through the hallway like a scalpel.

At first, I think it’s another machine. Another fucking beeping thing in a building full of them.