“Dominic, you can’t seriously be asking me this when our life is in danger?” I said, faking my expression of surprise as he took my hand.
Gunfire still cracked through the trees, echoing like war drums. Smoke choked the air behind us. Flames from the wrecked SUV flickered in the distance.
But his eyes were locked on me, not the danger.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he growled, low and controlled.
I could feel his fingers tightening around mine. The tension in his jaw. The suspicion bleeding into something worse.
I opened my mouth-
CRACK!
A shot rang out from the right.
A flash of steel And I saw it.
A sniper. Hidden in the trees. Muzzle flash. The bullet fired-
Straight at Dominic.
I didn’t think, my body moved on its own not thinking one best as I moved.
My body acted before my brain caught up. I threw myself into him hard.
The air punched out of my lungs-
Then pain.
Bright. White. Pain.
It hit me just below the ribs. Deep.
Burning.
I staggered. My knees buckled.
Then everything tilted.
I collapsed against Dominic, the weight of my body pulling us both to the ground.
His arms caught me before I hit the forest floor.
“Aria-”
His voice cracked like the sky had split.
I blinked slowly, warmth spreading beneath my sweater. Thick. Sticky.
Red.
So much red.
“No. No, no, no-” His hands were everywhere. Trying to stop the blood. Trying to hold me together. “Fuck!”
I tried to speak, but my throat was dry. My chest was tight. The world was shrinking into shadows.
He cradled me tighter, his body wrapped around mine. I felt the tremble in his grip. The sheer panic radiating off him.
He screamed something at Rossi in the distance–about a medic, a chopper, backup-
But all I could hear was the rasp of my own breath.
And Dominic’s voice, breaking, begging.
“Stay with me. Stay with me, Aria.”
I blinked up at him, blood soaking the front of my dress, seeping between his fingers.
“I didn’t mean to-” I whispered. “I just… I didn’t want you to die.”
His face crumpled.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength. You’re not dying on me.”
I smiled faintly. “I think I already did.”
“Don’t you dare,” he choked out, pressing his for
Successfully unlocked!
dare leave me.”
My fingers reached for his, weak, slick with my own blood.
“You’re shaking,” I whispered.
“You jumped in front of a fucking bullet for me, Aria,” he growled. “Of course I’m shaking.”
1/4
Chapter 127
I laughed, a cracked, bloody sound. “Guess I do care… huh?”
He kissed my temple, frantic, desperate.
“You’re not allowed to prove a point by dying, baby. Don’t you fucking dg this?
The world around us blurred
Gunfire faded-
Only Dominic’s voice kept me here.
“Hold on. Please.”
Dominic’s POV
Smoke thick in the air. Rubber and metal screaming behind us.
‘this?
Rossi yelling over comms. Bullets carving through bark like whispers of death.
And then her body-
Slamming into me.
i could still remember her heat, the this. The fear I swallowed.
All I saw was red as blood splashed on my face.
I caught her before she hit the dirt.
“Aria?”
No.
She was too still.
I looked down. Saw my hands drenched in her. Sticky, warm, soaking through her shirt like ink bleeding across silk.
“No.“.
Not her. Not now. Not again.
“RETREAT!” I roared into the comms. My voice cracked. “Rossi, fall back! FALL BACK!”
No waiting. No counting casualties.
She was all that mattered.
I scooped her up, fingers slipping through blood. Her head lolled back. Eyes fluttering.
“Stay with me,” I breathed.
I ran. Through mud, branches whipping my arms. A second SUV waited, back doors open, engine humming like it knew time was dying.
I laid her across the seat, slammed the door, climbed in.
“Drive-”
No. The driver wasn’t here. He laid outside dead, bleeding as a bullet had gown through his head.
I grabbed the wheel.
I would drive.
I tore down the road like the devil was behind me. Gravel sprayed. Trees blurred.
Aria whimpered. I jerked the wheel.
She was still breathing.
That’s all I needed.
I took corners too fast. Nearly clipped a ditch. Didn’t care. My hand never left her chest. Pressure. Blood. Her heartbeat? I
wasn’t sure.
My lips moved without sound. Prayers I hadn’t said since I was a child.
She couldn’t die.
Not for me.
Not because of me. Her breath hitched. A wet, choking sound.
“Baby, no don’t do that. Don’t you fade. Don’t you fucking fade on me.”
The hospital appeared like a mirage. Concrete and light. A promise of mercy.
I screeched to a stop.
Doors flew open. Nurses poured out. Scrubs. Gloves. Stretchers.
2/4
Chapter 127
I carried her in.
“Help her!” I shouted. “She’s been shot–lung, I think–left side!”
They pulled her from me. I didn’t let go until hands peeled me back.
Blood smeared my shirt, my jaw, my fingers.
I stood frozen.
Empty.
Until a voice broke through the noise. A woman–gray coat, clipboard clutched like a weapon.
“Mr. De Luca?”
My eyes locked on hers.
“She’s alive,” she said quickly. “But the bullet ruptured something… critical.”
My stomach dropped.
“She’s already a high–risk patient,” she continued, flipping through notes like they mattered more than breath. “The cancer it had compromised tissue around the diaphragm and lower left lung. The impact triggered a rupture.”
“Fix it,” I said.
She looked up. Grim. Tired. Real.
“We can stop the bleeding. We can operate. But we’ll have to remove part of her lung. Possibly more.”
I couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t breathe.
“She’ll live,” she added. “But she won’t be the same.”
The fluorescent light above her head caught the blood crusted under my fingernails. Hers. Still warm. Still clinging.
I nodded once.
The doctor gave one last glance, then turned, barking orders down the corridor. A team disappeared behind pale blue doors, rolling her body into a place where I couldn’t follow.
I stood in the hallway, soaked in her, every heartbeat screaming the same question: Why wasn’t it me?
Rossi came through the double doors twenty minutes later. Matteo behind him, face stone–cold, clothes stained.
“Secured perimeter,” Matteo said. “We lost two men.”
I didn’t answer.
“She took that bullet for you.” Rossi’s voice was quieter. “Dominic-”
“I know,” I growled.
Rossi nodded and stepped away. The air was too heavy for words.
Hours bled into one another. I didn’t move from the chair. Didn’t eat. Didn’t blink.
Just watched the door.
The one that had swallowed her.
And then it opened.
A nurse. Blonde. Tight expression. “She’s out of surgery. Stable.”
I stood so fast the world spun. “Can I see her?”
“She’s sedated. But yes.”
The room was cold.
Machines hummed around her like vultures.
She looked small. Pale. Tubes winding from her arm, an oxygen mask hiding half her face.
But she was breathing.
I sat beside her bed and took her hand.
It didn’t squeeze back.
I stayed anyway.
For an hour. Then two.
And sometime after three a.m., her fingers twitched.
She stirred, lips parting slightly.
Chatner 177
I leaned closer “Ans”
She didn’t open her eyes.
Just murmured something too eoff to catch
And then again-
Clearer
A name
“Nico
The room spun
Everything in me froze
My pulse, my breath, my soul.
1 pulled back slowly, her hand slipping from mine.
She she called Nico?
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