Page 168

Then, almost as quickly as it began, the shooting changed. The final burst of gunfire ended. The alarm continued to pulse through the darkness. Dust and smoke drifted beneath the emergency lights.

Broken glass covered the stone. Bullets had scarred the columns and blackened the walls around the lower windows. One Cavalho guard lay near the fountain while another knelt beside him, pressing both hands against a wound in his side.

There was movement behind us. I turned. Adriana stood at the top of the steps with Tone, Izzy and Samira. Izzy held Rose against her chest. The baby’s face was red from crying, one small fist curled against her mother’s shoulder.

Raze looked at his wife and daughter. His control slipped for one heartbeat. He crossed the terrace.

Izzy met him at the bottom step. He placed one hand behind Rose’s head and pulled them both against his chest without lowering the weapon in his other hand.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“The baby?”

“Frightened. Nothing more.”

Raze closed his eyes against Rose’s hair.

Tone carried the pistol low at her side.

Samira saw the blood soaking Marcello’s shirt. Her face broke. She ran down the steps and collided with him hard enough to drive him back. Marcello caught her with his uninjured arm, his boots sliding through blood and broken glass before he found his balance.

Samira pressed both hands against his chest.

“You were shot.”

“Only once.”

“That isn’t funny, Marcello.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

Her hands moved over him, searching beneath his jacket and along his ribs for wounds she couldn’t see. Marcello caught one of her wrists before she tore open his shirt.

“You’re bleeding through your clothes.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

“Oh my God…”

Her voice cracked and her fingers shook as she pressed against the wound and tried to stop the bleeding. Marcello’s expression changed. The violence drained from his face, leaving the man beneath it exposed only for her. He lowered his forehead to hers.

Adriana descended the steps behind them. I moved before I thought.

My hand closed around her waist, pulling her against me until I felt the warmth of her body and the steady rise of her breath. She gripped the front of my shirt, checking my face for injuries.

Neither of us spoke.

A moment later, Atlas appeared through the smoke with one gloved hand twisted into the back of a man’s collar. He dragged the stranger across the courtyard as though hauling a carcass from the road. The man’s knees struck stone with every step, leaving blood behind him. One side of his face had already begun to swell, and his right arm hung at an angle that suggested Atlas had questioned his willingness to cooperate.

Atlas stopped beside the bodies scattered across the drive and released him. “I brought a gift.”

The man collapsed onto his hands and knees as Atlas peeled off his black leather gloves one finger at a time and glanced around at the dead attackers. Gun smoke drifted through the courtyard. Atlas breathed through his nose as though the smell offended him.

Raze looked down at the prisoner. “You found a live one.”

“Barely.” Atlas folded the gloves and slipped them into his pocket. “He was outside the gate watching the others die. I thought he looked lonely.”