Adriana's POV
Three SUVs. No plates. No mercy.
"Drive like you stole it, principessa."
Alessio's voice was steel wrapped in silk. Blood soaked the passenger seat beneath him, turning the leather black. His left hand pressed hard against his side where the stitches had aggressively torn open, while his right hand smoothly slapped a fresh clip into the Moretti's gun.
I slammed my foot down.
The engine screamed. We fishtailed wildly out of the hospital parking lot, tires smoking against the asphalt. Red and blue lights still flashed behind us near the ER doors from the Code Silver alarm. Cops everywhere. Not our problem.
The SUVs were.
"Faster," he said. It wasn't a request.
Ninety. Ninety-five. The speedometer needle shook violently. My hands were locked onto the wheel at a strict ten-and-two position, exactly like my dad had taught me when I was sixteen.
Dad.
Don't think about him. Just drive.
The first SUV surged up on our left, its tinted windows matching our speed. The rear passenger window rolled down.
"Down!" Alessio roared.
I ducked.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Silenced shots punched cleanly through the driver's side window. Glass exploded, raining a sharp shower over my hair and my shoulders. One stray shard sliced across my cheek. I felt the hot sting of blood, and then nothing. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
Alessio didn't duck. He twisted completely in his seat, hung halfway out of the shattered passenger window, and fired back. One-handed. Weak. Dying. But still the Don.
Boom.
The SUV's front tire blew out. The massive vehicle swerved violently, clipped a parked sedan, and spun completely out of control in a heavy shower of sparks.
"One," Alessio said. Dark blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away with his thumb. "Two to go."
I couldn't answer. My throat was entirely locked. I had killed a man twenty minutes ago, and now I was in a high-speed car chase with two more vehicles actively trying to run us off the road. My hands weren't shaking anymore, and that realization scared me far more than the guns.
The GPS was dead. The phones were off. We were flying completely blind through empty city streets at midnight.
"Where?" I choked out, navigating another tight turn. "Where do we go?"
He closed his eyes. For a terrifying second, I thought he'd finally passed out from blood loss. Then he muttered, "Home."
"The compound? Alessio, they found us at the hospital. They'll have men waiting at the—"
"Not the compound." His eyes snapped open—black, bottomless pools. "Home, principessa. And then we end this."
Suddenly, the second SUV rammed us hard from behind.
My head snapped forward violently, the seatbelt cutting deep into my chest. The steering wheel jerked completely out of my hands.
We spun.
Metal screamed against metal. The world outside turned into a blinding blur of streetlights, blaring horns, and the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
We hit the concrete curb hard. The airbag didn't deploy—an old car, but stupidly lucky for us.
We came to a halt, facing the wrong way on a dark one-way street. Thick white smoke curled slowly from beneath the crumpled hood.
Silence.
Then Alessio let out a wet, ragged laugh. "Good. They think we are dead."
He was right. The two remaining SUVs blew right past our wrecked vehicle, chasing a ghost into the dark. Their red taillights disappeared around the far corner.
I turned to him immediately. His head was resting back against the seat, his eyes closed. There was far too much blood on his shirt now, and it wasn't stopping.
"Alessio?" My voice broke. "Alessio, look at me."
He didn't.
"Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare die after I—after I killed for you. After I kissed you. After you said 'we'."
I fumbled blindly for the door handle. "I'm calling emergency services—"
His hand shot out. Fast. Even while dying, he was terrifyingly fast. His fingers clamped around my wrist like absolute iron. "No cops. No hospitals. We run."
"You will bleed out!" "Then I bleed." His thumb brushed gently over my pulse point. "But not in a cage."
I understood exactly what he meant. Cops meant questions. Questions meant the authorities would take me away from him, and the Morettis would easily find him vulnerable in a hospital bed. Helpless. Again.
"Fine. We run."
I reached down and ripped off the entire bottom hem of my shirt. The white cotton was the cleanest fabric we had left. I pressed it firmly against his side, right beneath his ribs where the blood was actively pumping. He hissed through his teeth but didn't flinch away.
"Hold this," I instructed him. "Press hard."
He did. His jaw locked tight as a muscle feathered in his cheek. God, he was beautiful like this—completely broken, yet still a king.
I looked around the environment. A dark alley. A dumpster. A fire escape. No security cameras.
A rusted car was parked near the far end—an old Buick with its driver's side window cracked open. I ran straight to it, praying silently.
Keys. They were sitting right in the visor. Stupidly lucky.
"Alessio!" I yanked the passenger door open. "Can you walk?"
He was already moving toward me, forcing himself forward. He stood, swayed dangerously, but stayed up. Each agonizing step looked like it cost him a year of his life. He finally collapsed heavily into the passenger seat, his head tipping back with his eyes closed. But he wasn't asleep. Never asleep.
I drove. I had no idea where I was going, just away from the crash site.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty. The cityscape slowly blurred into a wasteland of abandoned warehouses and industrial docks.
He made a sudden, wet coughing sound.
I pulled the car over immediately. "Alessio?"
His eyes opened, glassy with fever. "Basement. 12th and Mercer. The door code is 1947. My... my mother's birth year."
I found the address—a bleak brick building with no windows and a heavy steel door.
I practically half-carried his weight inside, dragging him through the threshold and laying him down on the cold concrete floor. The only illumination came from a single, bare bulb swinging overhead.
He was burning up. The fever was setting in, signaling an infection.
"Stay with me," I begged, my tears finally slipping. "Please!"
I held his hand tight. He caught my fingers, brought them slowly to his cracked lips, and kissed my knuckles. They were still bloody.
"You shouldn't have shot," he said, his voice a gravelly whisper. "You have never killed before tonight."
"For you," I said.
"Wrong answer." His hand came up, wrapping around my throat. He wasn't choking me; he was claiming me. His thumb pressed firmly against my jaw, tilting my face up so I had to look into his dark eyes.
"Say it again. Truth this time."
I leaned down until my forehead touched his. "Because I wanted to. Because they would have taken you from me. Because I am yours and you are mine."
He pulled me down.
His mouth crashed into mine. Blood. Sweat. Gunpowder. Him.
He kissed me as if he were branding me right then and there. His teeth cut my bottom lip, drawing fresh copper. His or mine—it didn't matter anymore.
"Mine," he growled against my mouth. "Now you're really mine, principessa."
A phone rang.
Not mine. Not his.
A sharp, digital chirp from the floor. A burner phone must have been hidden here in the room beforehand.
It rang again.
I reached down and grabbed it off the cold concrete. Unknown number.
I answered.
"Put him on," a voice demanded. It was Moretti Sr. I'd know that raspy voice in hell. "Or the old man dies."
My blood went cold. "My father?"
"Sunset. The docks. The girl for the old man. Come alone."
Click.
Alessio heard. Of course he did.
He desperately tried to stand up, but his legs gave out completely beneath him. He hit the floor hard. A fresh, bright red stain bloomed aggressively through the white shirt fabric I'd used as a temporary bandage.
He looked up at me, his eyes black with pure fury and fear. For me. "You don't go."
I stood up straight. I picked his gun up off the floor and checked the ammunition clip. Full. Seventeen rounds.
"Watch me."
I turned and walked straight toward the heavy steel door.
"Sunset's in two hours," I said. Not to him. To myself. To the innocent girl I was before I met him. And I'm completely done running.