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The waitress handed us menus. Adriana let me order for her; fear had settled visibly beneath her ribs, leaving no room for hunger. I barely looked at the menu before ordering coffee, water, and food neither of us was likely to eat. The waitress brought bread, olives, and two plates of pasta.

A scooter rattled down the street. The couple finished their wine and left money beneath one of the glasses. The old man turned a page of his newspaper. Somewhere nearby, someone opened a window, and the scent of basil and garlic drifted into the warm air.

I ate only a few bites. My attention kept leaving the table and returning to the street.

“How long is the drive?” Adriana asked softly.

I looked at her. For one strange second, I remembered the man she believed me to be. The controlled voice. The dark clothes. The priest who had hidden her inside a church and lied calmly to dangerous men.

Before I could answer, I noticed movement over her shoulder. A shape where there should not have been one. A man beside a parked car, his arm lifting.

The priest vanished. I stood so fast that my chair scraped harshly across the cobblestones.

“Adriana, down!”

She barely had time to draw breath. I seized the edge of the table and flipped it as the world split open. The small round table struck her and knocked her sideways. Her shoulder hit the stone. Food scattered across the ground. A glass shattered near her face.

She disappeared between the overturned table and the cobblestones an instant before the first bullets tore through the air.

The sound ripped through the narrow street in brutal bursts. Ceramic exploded above her. Metal screamed. Someone inside the café shrieked.

The window behind us blew inward, throwing glass across the floor like ice.

Adriana clamped her hands over her head. Uselessly. Instinctively.

As if flesh and bone could negotiate with bullets.

Another volley came from farther down the street.

I drew the gun from beneath my sweater and shot back. I moved away from the overturned table, drawing their fire with me. For a fraction of a second, Adriana lifted her head and looked beneath its edge. She saw the weapon in my hand. She saw me. Not Father Demitri. Someone else entirely. Still. Focused. Terrifyingly calm.

I aimed down the street and fired. Once. Twice. I moved before the echo faded, shifting behind the stone planter. I fired again, then looked back at Adriana.

“Stay down.”

Fear had frozen her against the cobblestones. She wanted to obey. I saw it in the way she tried to make herself smaller behind the table, as though she could sink into the stone and vanish.

Another shot struck the table hard enough to drive it against her body. She screamed. Something inside me went cold. The world had made a mistake by placing her in its crosshairs.

I fired twice more. The street answered with silence, followed by the squeal of tyres somewhere beyond the corner. Then I was beside her. I caught her by the upper arm and hauled her upright as though she weighed nothing.

“Run,” I hissed.

Her legs almost collapsed beneath her.

My hand found hers, and we moved past the shattered glass and the remnants of our uneaten lunch.

The street blurred around us.

Adriana’s breath tore from her in broken pieces. I kept her low, one arm half around her, my body between hers and the open street.

The car waited ahead. The only promise available to us. The only way out.

I shoved her into the passenger seat. She was not fully inside before I rounded the bonnet and threw myself behind the wheel. The engine roared to life. Her hand fumbled for the open door. I reached across her, caught it, and slammed it shut as the car lurched forward.

I drove through the streets like the devil had reached for us and I intended to break its fingers.

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