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The boss didn't blink. He reached out, his ink-stained fingers brushing the loose strands of hair away from my forehead, his touch terrifyingly gentle yet completely immovable. "A ghost doesn't know her own reflection, maybe," he murmured, his breath hot against my temple. "Look at the corner of your left eye. The faint crescent scar. My wife got it falling off a horse in Sicily when she was twelve. You have it, too. Down to the millimeter." / Chapter 18 / 39

Chapter 19 - The Final Stand"On my count," Dante whispered to me, his voice dangerously calm, his eyes locked on the balcony above. "Drop and roll to the marble pillars on the left."

"I'm not leaving you," I whispered back.

"I'm not asking you to leave me," Dante replied, a fierce, desperate grin touching his lips. "I'm telling you we're taking him down together."

"Three..." Dante counted down.

The laser sights tightened on our chests.

"Two..."

Upstairs, Vincent raised his hand for the final order.

"One! Move!"

We dove to the left just as a hail of sniper fire chewed through the floor where we had been standing a fraction of a second before. Shrapnel and wood splinters exploded into the air.

At the exact same moment, the heavy oak doors of the ballroom blew open behind us.

"Boss! We've secured the perimeter! The main reinforcement team is here!" Marco roared, charging into the room with an LMG, opening fire directly at the balcony snipers.

Bullets rained upward in a deafening torrent of suppressive fire, forcing Vincent's snipers to duck for cover.

"Cover me!" Dante yelled to Marco.

Without hesitation, Dante sprinted toward the private spiral staircase built into the side of the ballroom wall—the old architectural shortcut Vincent thought only he knew about.

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Ignoring Dante's shouted protests, I grabbed a dropped assault rifle from the floor, checked the magazine, and scrambled up the spiral stairs right behind him, my heart hammering a furious, unstoppable rhythm against my ribs.

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