Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The gunshot cracked through the dark like a body splitting in half.

Damon flinched instinctively, the sound ricocheting off concrete and steel until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Then silence.

Thick. Heavy. Breathing silence.

Not dead silence.

Not yet.

“Luca”

“Down!”

Luca’s voice tore through the black a split second before Damon dropped hard to the concrete floor.

Another shot rang out.

Closer this time.

The bullet slammed into the wall above where Damon had been standing a second earlier.

Concrete dust rained down over his shoulders.

His pulse exploded.

He couldn’t see anything.

Not Matteo.

Not Luca.

Not where the hell the gunfire was coming from.

Only darkness and the sound of his own breathing going too fast.

“Damon,” Luca snapped from somewhere to his left. “Crawl.”

“What?”

“Now!”

Damon obeyed without thinking.

Hands and knees scraping across cold concrete, he moved toward the sound of Luca’s voice while trying not to imagine how easy it would be for another bullet to find him.

The room smelled like metal and old damp stone.

Then

A body moved somewhere in the dark.

Fast.

A rush of air.

A grunt.

The sharp, brutal sound of impact.

Luca had gotten out of the chair.

Damon froze.

Then heard the crash of steel against the floor and Matteo curse for the first time since Damon had known him.

Not polished now.

Not composed.

Just angry.

Human.

And somehow that made him more dangerous.

Another struggle.

Another violent thud.

Then Luca shouted:

“Damon, left side door!”

Damon spun blindly in that direction, palms skidding over the floor until they hit cold metal.

A secondary door.

He found the handle.

Locked.

“Luca, it’s locked!”

“Keypad!”

Damon’s flashlight still clutched in his hand flickered weakly as he aimed it toward the wall.

A keypad glinted beside the frame.

His hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped the phone-light entirely.

“What’s the code?” he hissed.

No answer.

Inside the darkness behind him, the fight turned uglier.

A choke of breath.

A hard slam.

Luca swore viciously.

Matteo’s voice came strained but still eerily calm.

“You really are determined to die for him.”

Then a sound Damon would never forget.

The sickening crack of something bone, maybe meeting force.

“Luca!”

“I’m fine,” Luca bit out immediately, which meant he absolutely was not fine.

Damon stared at the keypad.

Think.

Think.

Matteo would choose something narcissistic. Something symbolic.

Company dates?

No.

Family dates?

Maybe.

But this room

This room wasn’t built for the company.

It was built for control.

For secrets.

For Lucius.

Damon’s mind flashed backward.

A childhood dinner.

His father drunk enough to talk too much.

Matteo beside him, younger, smoother, already learning how to become indispensable.

Lucius laughing into his glass and saying:

“If I ever build a bunker, I’ll lock it with the only number I trust my first acquisition.”

Damon’s eyes widened.

He entered the date of Lucius Moretti’s first hostile takeover.

The keypad flashed red.

“Damn it.”

Behind him, another body hit the floor hard.

This time Luca groaned.

Damon’s blood turned to ice.

Then another memory surfaced.

His mother once saying bitterly at breakfast:

“Lucius never remembers the date. Matteo always does.”

Damon froze.

Not Lucius’s obsession.

Matteo’s.

Because of course Matteo would have updated the code after taking control of the estate.

Not the founding date.

Not the acquisition.

Something Matteo considered the beginning.

Damon’s pulse spiked.

The day Lucius died.

The day Matteo stepped closer to power.

He entered it.

Green.

The lock clicked open.

The door swung inward.

A narrow emergency corridor.

Dark.

Concrete.

Real.

“Luca!” Damon shouted. “This way!”

A shape lunged out of the dark and slammed into Damon hard enough to drive him into the wall.

He almost cried out before realizing

Luca.

Warm.

Solid.

Breathing hard.

His wrist was still half-bound with one broken cuff.

Blood slicked one side of his shirt.

“Move,” Luca snarled.

Damon grabbed him by the arm.

“What about”

A shot exploded from the darkness behind them.

Luca shoved Damon into the corridor and slammed the steel door shut.

The bullet hit the outside of it with a deafening metallic crack.

Luca found the internal lock and twisted it down just as something heavy struck the other side.

Matteo.

Or one of his men.

Damon backed up, chest heaving.

Luca braced one hand against the door and bowed his head once, breathing hard.

In the weak flashlight beam, Damon could finally see him properly.

And his stomach dropped.

Blood.

Too much of it.

A dark line along Luca’s ribs, soaked through his shirt and jacket.

Not just the split lip.

Not just bruises.

He had been shot.

“Luca.”

“I know.”

“You’ve been shot.”

“I noticed.”

Damon moved toward him instantly.

Luca caught his wrist.

“Not now.”

“Are you insane?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Usually it is.”

Another violent bang rattled the steel door.

Damon’s pulse kicked again.

Luca forced himself upright.

“We need to move.”

“You can barely stand.”

“Then I’ll do it badly.”

Against every survival instinct Damon had, he almost laughed.

Almost.

Because this infuriating, bleeding, stubborn man was somehow still trying to make sure Damon didn’t panic.

The thought hit him with painful force.

Luca had been tortured.

Framed.

Dragged into hell.

And his first instinct was still Damon.

Damon swallowed hard and slid under Luca’s arm.

“Lean on me.”

Luca gave him a look.

“This is humiliating.”

“You’re bleeding on my shoes. You’ve lost the right to dignity.”

A breath of something that almost resembled a laugh escaped Luca.

Then the steel door behind them shook again.

And the moment was over.

They ran.

Or rather

Damon ran and Luca staggered beside him, refusing to admit how much pain he was in.

The corridor sloped upward, narrow and unfinished in places, lined with old conduit pipes and emergency lights that flickered weakly red every few seconds.

The air smelled stale.

Unused.

Claustrophobic.

Damon’s lungs burned by the time they hit the first junction.

Two tunnels.

Left or right.

“Which way?” he asked.

Luca’s breathing was rough now.

“Left.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.”

Damon stared at him.

“You guessed?”

“It was a confident guess.”

“Luca.”

“Move, Damon.”

So they moved.

The tunnel twisted once, then opened into a larger underground chamber that looked like an old service bay generator panels, storage crates, rusting shelves.

And waiting in the middle of it

A man with a gun.

Damon froze.

The man’s weapon came up instantly.

“Stop.”

Luca’s body shifted in front of Damon automatically despite the fact he was currently half-conscious and bleeding through his shirt.

“Don’t,” Damon hissed.

The man frowned.

Then his expression changed.

Recognition.

Not of Damon.

Of Luca.

“Well,” he said slowly.

“Didn’t think you’d still be alive.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“Viktor.”

Damon’s pulse spiked.

“You know him?”

“Unfortunately.”

Viktor smiled thinly.

He was broad-shouldered, military in the way private violence often was. Hard eyes. Scarred knuckles. Expensive watch.

One of Adrian’s men, Damon guessed.

Or had been.

“Adrian’s dead,” Viktor said conversationally, as if discussing weather.

Luca went still.

Damon felt it instantly.

The smallest shift.

The smallest fracture.

“What?” Luca said.

Viktor tilted his head.

“Didn’t they tell you?”

Luca’s voice turned to stone.

“Tell me what.”

Viktor smiled.

“Your old boss bled out three nights ago in Marseille.”

Silence.

Damon looked sharply at Luca.

Because for one dangerous second, Luca looked like he’d been punched somewhere far deeper than the body.

Adrian Kessler.

Dead.

The man who made him.

Used him.

Ruined him.

And maybe

In some twisted, broken way

Still tethered part of Luca to the person he used to be.

Viktor kept talking.

“Whole network’s eating itself now. Contracts collapsing. Territory being carved up.”

His eyes flicked to Damon.

“Your boyfriend here is expensive, by the way.”

Damon’s jaw tightened.

Luca’s voice went deadly quiet.

“Try it.”

Viktor laughed.

“You always did make things personal.”

Then he lifted the gun properly.

“Which is why you never belonged in this line of work.”

Damon’s mind raced.

No cover.

No weapon.

Luca injured.

One gun between them and the exit.

Viktor’s finger tightened on the trigger.

And then

Luca did something insane.

He shoved Damon sideways and launched himself forward.

The gun fired.

The sound ripped through the chamber.

Damon hit the concrete shoulder-first, pain flashing down his arm.

Then bodies collided.

Luca and Viktor crashed into a storage rack, metal screaming as it toppled.

The gun skidded across the floor.

Damon lunged for it

But Matteo’s voice echoed from the corridor behind them.

“Don’t bother.”

Damon spun.

Matteo stood at the tunnel entrance.

Gun in hand.

Three armed men behind him.

Perfect suit ruined only slightly now.

A smear of blood along one cuff.

His expression was unreadable.

But his eyes

His eyes were terrifyingly calm.

Luca had Viktor pinned on the floor, but even he went still.

For a second, no one moved.

Then Matteo smiled.

Slowly.

And Damon understood something all at once.

This had never been about one confrontation.

Never about one room.

Never even about Luca alone.

Matteo had wanted this from the moment Damon entered the estate.

Not just control.

A choice.

A staged, cruel, deliberate choice.

His voice was soft when he spoke.

“Now,” Matteo said, lifting the gun toward Luca.

“Let’s see what you’re willing to lose.”

Damon’s blood ran cold.

Because Luca was kneeling on the floor.

Wounded.

Cornered.

And Matteo had aimed the gun directly at his heart.

Damon stepped forward instinctively.

“No.”

Matteo’s gaze shifted to him.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

Then he tilted the gun slightly.

Not away from Luca.

Toward Damon.

“You can save one thing tonight,” Matteo said calmly.

“The company…”

His eyes flicked to Luca.

“…or him.”

Damon stared.

“What?”

Matteo nodded toward one of his men, who tossed a thick folder onto the concrete between them.

It burst open on impact.

Documents spilled across the floor.

Share transfer authorizations.

Emergency board resolutions.

Asset seizure clauses.

Damon’s stomach dropped.

“If you sign,” Matteo said, “Luca

walks out alive.”

Luca’s voice came like a blade through the room.

“Don’t you dare.”

Matteo smiled faintly.

“If you don’t…”

He cocked the gun.

“…I kill him in front of you.”

Damon’s heart stopped.

Because suddenly the war was no longer about survival.

It was about which part of his life Matteo wanted to rip out first.