Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Matteo’s second gun gleamed black in the rain.

Damon’s heart dropped so fast it felt physical.

“Luca!”

The warning tore out of him too late.

Matteo raised the weapon with unnerving calm, one hand steady despite the blood soaking through his shoulder. No panic. No desperation. Just that same old, terrifying composure as if shooting the man Damon loved was no more emotionally significant than signing a contract.

Luca saw the movement a split second later.

He pivoted

And the world exploded again.

Two shots cracked almost at once.

Viktor fired from one knee.

Matteo fired from the tree line.

Luca twisted mid-step, his body moving with that impossible, brutal precision Damon had seen before the kind forged by training and trauma and too many years of surviving by fractions of seconds.

One bullet tore through Luca’s jacket sleeve.

The other

Missed.

Barely.

So close Damon heard it split bark behind him.

Then Luca fired back.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The clearing erupted into movement.

Viktor shouted and dropped fully into the mud, his gun skidding from numb fingers as Luca’s shot punched through his upper thigh.

Matteo ducked behind the SUV, cursing low and vicious for the first time in a long while.

And Damon

Damon stopped being afraid.

Not because the danger had lessened.

Not because this was suddenly manageable.

But because something inside him had finally snapped past fear into certainty.

He was done surviving Matteo.

Done reacting.

Done being maneuvered into corners and cages and grief.

Done letting other men decide what he got to keep.

The realization came with a cold, almost shocking clarity.

He was not leaving this hillside as prey.

Damon looked down at the black case still half-crushed in the mud beside him.

The medical kit.

The files.

The syringe packaging.

And tucked beneath the foam lining

A small metal device.

Rectangular.

Industrial.

He frowned.

Pulled it free.

A keycard.

No.

Not a keycard.

A portable drive.

Encrypted storage.

His pulse kicked.

He flipped it over in his hand.

No label.

No company branding.

Just matte black steel and a tiny stamped code.

The kind of thing men like Matteo used for information too dangerous to leave on servers.

Damon’s breath shortened.

This.

This was what Matteo had really come back for.

Not just them.

This.

Which meant one thing.

Whatever was on this drive could bury him.

Or worse

Could expose people even bigger than Matteo.

The thought made Damon go still.

And then Matteo’s voice cut through the rain from behind the SUV.

“Careful with that, Damon.”

Damon looked up sharply.

Matteo had shifted enough to see him now.

Enough to see the drive in his hand.

And for the first time tonight

Real fear flickered across Matteo’s face.

Tiny.

Gone almost instantly.

But Damon saw it.

And smiled.

Slowly.

Matteo’s expression hardened.

“Put it down.”

Damon rose from behind the fallen tree.

Mud soaked his trousers.

Rain slicked his hair to his forehead.

His heart hammered hard enough to bruise.

But his voice came out terrifyingly calm.

“No.”

Luca turned sharply at the sound of him standing.

“Damon”

Too late.

Damon stepped fully into the clearing, drive in one hand, soaked papers in the other.

“Come and get it.”

Luca looked like he might actually murder him if Matteo didn’t get there first.

Good.

That meant he was still alive enough to be furious.

Viktor, bleeding heavily in the mud, tried to reach for his fallen weapon.

Luca kicked it out of reach without looking.

His entire focus had shifted to Damon now.

Pure disbelief.

Pure rage.

Pure terror.

Damon knew that look.

Knew exactly what it meant.

What the hell are you doing?

The answer was simple.

Something reckless.

Something stupid.

Something necessary.

Matteo straightened slowly from behind the SUV.

Gun still in hand.

Rain streaking blood down the side of his shirt.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked.

Damon tilted the drive between his fingers.

“I’m guessing the reason you’re not dead in a ditch yet.”

Matteo’s eyes darkened.

“That doesn’t belong to you.”

Damon laughed softly.

“Funny. You’ve said that about a lot of things.”

A muscle jumped in Matteo’s jaw.

Luca took one careful step toward Damon.

“Stop talking.”

“No.”

“Damon.”

“No.”

The word came sharper this time.

Enough to stop him.

Not because Luca agreed.

Because he understood Damon had crossed into some terrifying place where being careful was no longer the priority.

Matteo’s gaze flicked between them.

And Damon saw it instantly.

The hatred.

Not just for Luca’s presence.

But for what it represented.

A bond Matteo hadn’t engineered.

Hadn’t controlled.

Hadn’t bought.

He despised that more than betrayal.

Because it proved Damon had become reachable by something Matteo couldn’t manipulate.

Matteo’s voice lowered.

“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

Damon’s smile vanished.

“You murdered my mother.”

The rain seemed to soften around the sentence.

The whole hillside holding its breath.

Matteo didn’t deny it.

Didn’t even try.

Instead he said quietly:

“She chose the wrong side.”

Damon’s blood turned to acid.

Luca moved before Damon could.

Three brutal strides and he had Viktor by the front of his coat, dragging him half-upright despite the man’s cry of pain.

Luca jammed the pistol against Viktor’s temple.

The movement was so fast, so cold, so viciously efficient it almost didn’t look human.

The hillside went still.

Even Matteo froze.

Luca’s voice came out low and lethal.

“Try that sentence again.”

Damon stared.

Because there he was.

That side of Luca.

The side made in violence and sharpened by years of being used as a weapon.

The side Damon should have feared.

But didn’t.

Not now.

Not when Luca was shaking from blood loss and fury and still choosing Damon over every survival instinct he had ever been taught.

Matteo looked at Viktor.

Then at Luca.

Then at Damon.

And smiled faintly.

It was such an inappropriate reaction that Damon’s skin crawled.

“There,” Matteo said softly.

“Do you see it now?”

Damon frowned.

“See what?”

“The man you’ve chosen.”

His gaze lingered on Luca like he was presenting evidence.

“A killer. A liability. A man who will always bleed disaster into every room he enters.”

Luca’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

That silence hurt Damon more than the accusation.

Because Luca had heard versions of that all his life.

Probably believed some of them.

Matteo kept going.

“Men like him do not change, Damon. They only redirect their damage.”

Damon’s pulse thudded once.

Hard.

And then something in him settled.

Not emotionally.

Not peacefully.

But with total, dangerous certainty.

He took one step forward into the rain.

And said, very clearly:

“Then he can redirect it at you.”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Even Luca looked at him.

Matteo’s expression went unreadable.

Damon’s voice stayed steady.

“You know what’s funny?”

He held up the drive slightly.

“You keep acting like Luca is the thing that corrupted my life.”

His eyes locked onto Matteo’s.

“But every nightmare I’ve ever had started with you.”

That one landed.

Hard.

Because Matteo’s face changed.

Not much.

But enough.

Enough for Damon to see the wound.

And suddenly he understood something ugly and important.

Matteo did not just want Damon obedient.

He wanted Damon grateful.

Wanted all his manipulation and grooming and strategic “protection” to be remembered as care.

And Damon had just denied him that permanently.

Good.

Let it rot.

Matteo’s voice cooled.

“Give me the drive.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking again.”

“Then shoot me.”

Luca swore under his breath.

Viktor made a weak, pained sound as Luca’s grip tightened reflexively.

Matteo’s eyes narrowed.

“You think he’d survive that?”

Damon’s throat tightened painfully.

Because there it was.

The real target.

Not Damon.

Never Damon.

Luca.

Always Luca.

Matteo wanted Damon alive enough to witness the cost.

To be shaped by it.

To be hollowed out and manageable again.

Damon’s fingers closed harder around the drive.

He looked at Luca.

Really looked.

Rain streaming down his face.

Gun at Viktor’s temple.

Blood still soaking through his side.

Eyes fixed on Damon with that unbearable mix of warning and trust and something far deeper neither of them had been brave enough to name properly.

And all at once Damon knew.

Not as theory.

Not as possibility.

As fact.

This was the man he chose.

Not because Luca was safe.

Not because he was easy.

Not because he came without blood on his hands or ghosts in his past.

But because even after everything, Luca had still kept trying to become better than what was done to him.

Still kept choosing Damon when it cost him everything.

Still stood here now between Damon and death with half his blood in the mud.

Damon’s chest hurt with the force of it.

He looked back at Matteo and said quietly:

“You lost.”

Something in Matteo finally snapped.

Not loudly.

Not theatrically.

But completely.

The smile disappeared.

The calm drained out.

And what was left beneath it all was so much uglier than rage.

It was need.

Raw and furious and humiliated.

“No,” Matteo said.

Then louder:

“No.”

He stepped away from the SUV fully now, gun raised again despite the shaking in his injured arm.

“This does not end with you walking away from me.”

Damon’s blood ran cold.

Because Matteo meant that sentence in every possible way.

Luca saw it too.

Viktor did too, judging by the way he went very still in Luca’s grip.

And then, with horrifying suddenness, everything happened at once.

Viktor elbowed Luca hard in the ribs.

Luca’s injured side gave.

His grip loosened.

Viktor tore free and lunged for Damon.

Matteo fired.

Damon twisted sideways instinctively

The shot missed him by inches.

The drive flew from his hand.

Landed in the mud.

Skidded downhill.

“No!”

Damon moved.

So did everyone else.

Viktor tackled him before he could reach it.

They hit the ground hard, sliding in wet mud and dead leaves.

Damon drove his elbow into Viktor’s jaw with a desperate, ugly crack.

Viktor grunted but didn’t let go.

The man smelled like blood, rain, and expensive cologne.

Damon hated him for that.

They grappled in the mud, vicious and graceless.

Somewhere behind them, another shot rang out.

Then another.

Luca and Matteo.

Damon didn’t dare look.

Couldn’t.

Not while Viktor had one hand around his throat and the other reaching for the drive half-buried in the slope.

Damon grabbed a fistful of wet dirt and slammed it straight into Viktor’s eyes.

The man cursed and recoiled.

Damon shoved hard and scrambled forward, fingers stretching desperately through the mud

And closed around the drive.

Relief flashed for exactly one second.

Then Viktor grabbed his ankle and yanked.

Damon hit the ground face-first so hard stars burst behind his eyes.

The drive nearly slipped free again.

No.

No no no

He rolled onto his back just in time to see Viktor lunge on top of him with murder written plainly across his face.

And then Viktor’s body jerked.

Once.

Violently.

His eyes widened.

His mouth opened in shock.

Then blood spilled from between his lips.

He collapsed sideways off Damon into the mud.

Damon stared.

A knife protruded from Viktor’s back.

Handle slick with rain.

Luca stood two feet away, chest heaving, pistol still in his other hand.

And behind him

Matteo raised his gun one final time.

Straight at Luca.

Damon’s whole body went cold.

Because Luca didn’t see it.

He was looking at Damon.

Only Damon.

Making sure he was alive.

Still alive.

And Matteo

Matteo was about to use that exact instinct to kill him.

“LUCA!”

Damon’s scream tore through the rain.

Luca turned

Too late.

Matteo pulled the trigger.

The gunshot cracked across the hillside

And Luca’s body snapped backward.