Page 183 of Unholy Saint

Somewhere along the way, I had stopped imagining a future without him. Now, I could picture tomorrow. I could picture the day after that. And in every version, he was there.

His voice in the next room. His hand finding mine without thought. His dark eyes searching my face when he thought I wasn't looking. His presence beside me when the world became too loud. I couldn't remember when that had happened. I only knew that the idea of waking one morning and discovering he was gone had become unbearable.

Demitri wasn't a chapter in my life. He wasn't some dangerous detour I would eventually recover from. He was woven into everything. Into my thoughts. Into my fears. Into the future I had never dared to imagine.

He had become the first person I wanted to tell when something happened and the last person I wanted beside me when the world went dark.

I had spent my entire life believing I needed no one. Then Demitri came along and made a liar out of me. I needed his arms around me. I needed his voice. I needed him. Now there was no going back. And for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to give someone the power to destroy you and trust them not to.

Demitri had my heart. Not because he'd taken it or demanded it. Not because I had surrendered it in a moment of weakness. I had given it to him. Willingly. Completely. And if loving DeMarco Cavalho was going to be the death of me, then so be it.

At least I would die knowing what it felt like to be alive.

DEMITRI

The road cut between a wooded slope and an abandoned quarry before joining the motorway toward the port.

There were no houses for several miles. No workers arriving early. No civilians likely to drive into the middle of a gunfight.

Raze had chosen the location because the road narrowed beside the quarry entrance. Once the convoy entered that stretch, the trucks would have no room to turn and nowhere to pass.

Two construction vehicles waited beyond the northern bend. Cavalho men sat behind the wheels wearing reflective jackets over body armor.

At the southern approach, a maintenance van rested on the verge with its bonnet raised. Zeno and his right hand man Matteo stood beside it in work clothes, appearing more interested in the engine than the empty road.

Atlas watched from the ridge with a rifle, a drone feed and three men covering the tree line.

Gianni controlled the eastern access track.

Raze and I waited behind the remains of the quarry wall.

Marcello had insisted his wounded arm would not stop him from coming. Samira had threatened to sedate him herself. He was now coordinating communications from the estate, where he could complain without bleeding all over the operation.

Archie had remained with the women and children. After men fired into the rooms beneath his daughter’s bedroom, no one suggested he should be anywhere else.

I removed the magazine from my pistol, checked it and pushed it back into place. Raze glanced at me.