Chapter 30

Chapter 30

“LUCA!”

Damon didn’t remember getting to his feet.

One second he was in the mud, Viktor’s blood soaking into the ground beside him.

The next he was moving.

Running.

Slipping downhill and then up again, heart beating so hard it felt like it might tear itself apart inside his chest.

Luca staggered backward from the impact.

For one horrifying, endless second Damon thought

That’s it.

That’s the end.

Then Luca remained standing.

Barely.

His body pitched sideways, one hand flying to his upper shoulder.

Not center mass.

Not the heart.

Not dead.

Not dead.

Relief hit so hard it almost made Damon black out.

Then Luca’s knees buckled.

Damon caught him just before he hit the ground.

The force of it drove them both down into the mud anyway.

Rain poured over them in cold sheets.

Luca’s breath came out ragged and sharp through clenched teeth.

Damon’s hands were already there, frantic and shaking, trying to find the wound through blood and wet fabric and panic.

“Oh God”

“Not dead,” Luca rasped.

Damon looked up at him in disbelief.

“You are not allowed to joke right now.”

Luca gave the ghost of a grimace.

“Wasn’t joking.”

Behind them, footsteps crunched through mud.

Matteo.

Still coming.

Still not finished.

Damon’s fear transformed instantly into something harder and uglier.

He lowered Luca carefully against the base of the fallen pine and snatched Luca’s dropped pistol from the mud.

His hand shook.

He hated that.

Hated how badly it shook.

Matteo stopped a few feet away.

Gun still raised.

Rain dripping from the barrel.

His face looked wrong now.

Less human somehow.

The careful polish had fully stripped away, leaving behind something feverish and unraveling.

Viktor’s body lay crumpled behind him.

The drive was gone from the ground.

Safe.

For now.

That should have mattered most.

But all Damon could see was Matteo standing there with a gun and Luca bleeding again because this man simply refused to let anything beautiful survive him.

Matteo’s gaze flicked to the pistol in Damon’s hand.

Then to Luca at his feet.

Then back to Damon.

And unbelievably

He smiled.

“You’re shaking.”

Damon’s jaw locked.

“Back away.”

Matteo took another step instead.

“No.”

Damon raised the gun higher.

“Back away.”

Still Matteo kept coming.

Slow.

Measured.

Like he genuinely believed Damon wouldn’t pull the trigger.

And maybe once, a long time ago, he would have been right.

Maybe once Damon would have frozen under that calm, disappointed stare.

Maybe once he would have doubted himself long enough to be taken apart.

But that version of Damon had died in increments.

With Evelyn.

With every lie.

With every carefully engineered rescue.

With every time Luca bled trying to keep Damon alive.

What stood here now was not that man.

Matteo’s voice lowered.

“You don’t want to become him.”

Damon almost laughed.

Because even now, even after all this, Matteo still thought morality was just another leash.

Another way to control the terms.

Damon’s voice came out colder than he felt.

“You really don’t understand the difference between justice and possession.”

Something sharp flickered in Matteo’s expression.

“You think he’ll make you better?”

Damon tightened his grip on the pistol.

“I think he already did.”

That landed.

Hard.

So hard Matteo visibly stilled.

Rain slid down his face in thin silver lines, but he didn’t blink.

Didn’t move.

And Damon realized, with almost clinical clarity, that this might be the first time in Matteo’s life anyone had chosen another person over his influence without hesitation.

Good.

Let it wound him.

Matteo’s voice turned quiet.

Dangerously quiet.

“You are throwing away everything your family built.”

Damon’s chest tightened.

Not because the words hurt.

Because once, they would have.

Once they would have reached all the way into the deepest fear his father had left behind.

That Damon would fail.

That Damon would lose it all.

That Damon would become the weak point.

But now

Now Damon understood something his father never had.

An empire built on fear was just a prettier kind of prison.

And Matteo had spent years making sure Damon stayed inside it.

Damon shook his head once.

“No,” he said.

Then more clearly:

“I’m throwing away everything you built around me.”

Luca made a small sound behind him.

Not pain.

Not exactly.

Something softer.

Something that almost broke Damon’s heart all over again.

Matteo heard it too.

And his face changed.

There.

Again.

That ugly fracture beneath the polished mask.

Jealousy.

Raw and irrational and almost adolescent in its bitterness.

He looked at Luca with open contempt.

Then at Damon.

And said the cruelest thing he could think of:

“When he leaves you, you’ll deserve it.”

Silence.

Rain.

Blood.

Damon’s hand steadied.

Completely.

Because there it was.

The thing Matteo had never understood and never would.

Love was not leverage.

Not a transaction.

Not a cage.

Not a debt.

It was choice.

Messy.

Risky.

Human.

And the reason Matteo would always lose was because he couldn’t comprehend being chosen freely.

Damon looked him straight in the eye and said:

“Then I’ll survive it.”

Matteo went still.

And for the first time all night

He looked genuinely afraid.

Not of the gun.

Not even of the drive.

Of irrelevance.

Of no longer mattering.

Of being seen clearly and found small.

He recovered quickly, but not fast enough.

Damon had already seen the wound.

And once you saw the wound, you couldn’t be controlled by the performance anymore.

Matteo exhaled slowly.

Then lifted his own gun a fraction higher.

“If you shoot me,” he said softly, “you become exactly what he is.”

Damon almost smiled.

“No.”

Matteo frowned faintly.

Damon’s voice dropped.

“I become the man who stopped you.”

The hillside seemed to inhale.

Every nerve in Damon’s body screamed.

His finger tightened on the trigger.

And then

Sirens.

Faint at first.

Then louder.

Somewhere below the hill.

Approaching fast.

Matteo’s expression changed instantly.

There it was.

Practical fear.

Real fear.

Not moral panic.

Just calculation.

He turned his head slightly toward the road.

Toward the sound.

Toward the shrinking window.

And Damon knew.

He was about to run.

Again.

No.

No more disappearing into shadows.

No more surviving into another chapter.

No more unfinished endings.

Matteo moved first.

Not toward Damon.

Toward the SUV.

Damon fired.

The recoil punched through his wrist.

The shot tore into the rear side panel of the vehicle inches from Matteo’s arm.

A warning.

Deliberate.

Matteo stopped.

Slowly.

Turned back.

His expression had gone cold again.

But not calm.

Not really.

“You missed.”

Damon’s voice didn’t shake.

“No,” he said. “I gave you one last chance.”

Behind him, Luca tried to rise.

Failed.

Damon heard the movement anyway.

He didn’t look back.

Couldn’t.

Not yet.

Matteo’s gaze sharpened.

“You won’t do it.”

Damon tilted his head.

And in a voice so eerily steady it frightened even him, said:

“Would you like to test that theory?”

Sirens wailed louder now.

Closer.

Blue and red flashes beginning to bleed faintly through the lower tree line.

Matteo’s eyes flicked toward them.

Then back to Damon.

Then to the gun.

Then

To Luca.

And Damon saw it the exact second before it happened.

The decision.

If Matteo couldn’t own the ending, he would ruin it.

He pivoted violently, gun snapping toward Luca on the ground.

Damon didn’t think.

Didn’t calculate.

Didn’t even breathe.

He fired.

The shot cracked through the rain.

Matteo jerked.

His gun discharged wildly into the dark.

Then slipped from his fingers and vanished into the mud.

For one suspended second, nobody moved.

Matteo looked down.

At the blood spreading across his lower abdomen.

Then up at Damon.

Disbelief hollowed out his face.

Damon stared back, pulse pounding in his throat.

He had done it.

He had actually done it.

Shot him.

Not killed.

Not yet.

But ended him enough.

Matteo staggered backward one step.

Then another.

His hand pressed uselessly against the wound.

Rainwater washed the blood thin and pink over his knuckles.

When he spoke, his voice was almost curious.

“You chose him.”

Damon’s throat tightened painfully.

“Yes.”

Matteo looked at him for one long, terrible second.

Then laughed.

It was not a sane sound.

Not polished.

Not charming.

Not even fully human.

Just broken.

He swayed once.

Then collapsed to his knees in the mud.

Damon didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

His whole body had gone cold and electric at the same time.

Behind him, Luca’s voice came rough and low:

“Damon.”

That snapped him back.

He dropped the gun immediately and turned.

Luca had managed to push himself upright against the tree, one hand clamped over his new wound, his face pale beneath the rain and grime.

Damon was at his side in seconds.

Kneeling.

Hands shaking again.

“Hey.”

Luca looked at him.

Really looked.

Like he was checking for damage that had nothing to do with bullets.

“Did he touch you?”

The question hit Damon so hard he almost laughed.

Or cried.

Or both.

“Of course that’s what you ask.”

Luca’s jaw flexed.

“Answer.”

“No.”

The tension in Luca’s face eased by a fraction.

Good.

Damon pressed his hand harder over Luca’s shoulder wound.

Luca hissed sharply.

“Sorry.”

“You’re not.”

“No, actually, I’m not.”

Luca almost smiled.

Almost.

Then his eyes drifted past Damon’s shoulder toward where Matteo knelt in the mud.

Still conscious.

Still alive.

Still watching them.

And there was something so nakedly hateful in that look that Damon felt it like a cold blade down his spine.

Not because Matteo could still win.

Because he couldn’t.

Not anymore.

But because he still wanted to poison the final seconds.

Still wanted to leave damage behind.

Matteo coughed once.

Blood touched his lower lip.

Then he said, voice fraying now:

“You think this ends with me?”

Damon went still.

Luca’s expression hardened instantly.

No.

No no no.

Matteo smiled weakly through pain.

“There are names on that drive,” he said.

“People you’ve had dinner with. Men who signed your funding rounds. Ministers. directors. security contractors. Board members. Families.”

Rain slid down his face.

“You are not holding a victory, Damon.”

His smile widened.

“You are holding a contagion.”

Damon’s stomach dropped.

Because he knew Matteo wasn’t lying.

Of course he wasn’t.

Men like Matteo were never the top of the ladder.

Just one of the polished rungs.

And suddenly the weight of the drive in Damon’s pocket felt almost unbearable.

Matteo’s gaze shifted to Luca.

Then back to Damon.

And with his final cruelty, he said:

“He’ll kill for you again.”

Luca’s expression went dead.

Not blank.

Dead.

And Damon understood instantly why.

Because Matteo wasn’t threatening the future.

He was naming the deepest fear Luca carried.

That loving Damon would drag him back into becoming a weapon.

That every time Damon was in danger, Luca would have to cross lines he was desperate not to become comfortable crossing again.

Matteo had found the wound and pressed.

One last time.

Damon looked at him.

Then said quietly:

“No.”

Matteo frowned weakly.

Damon’s voice sharpened.

“He won’t kill for me.”

He glanced once at Luca.

Just once.

Then looked back at Matteo.

“He’ll live for me.”

Luca inhaled sharply.

And for the first time since Damon had met him

Actually had nothing to say.

The sirens were close now.

Very close.

Branches snapped somewhere below as people pushed through the tree line.

Voices.

Flashlights.

Orders.

Help.

Real help.

At last.

Matteo heard it too.

And whatever fight remained in him seemed to leak out all at once.

He sagged slightly in the mud, gaze dimming but not softening.

Not ever softening.

Damon almost pitied him.

Almost.

Then remembered Evelyn.

Remembered Luca strapped to a chair under fluorescent lights while men documented how much of him they could chemically erase.

Remembered every lie.

Every manipulation.

Every carefully measured cruelty.

And the pity died before it could fully form.

Boots thundered up the hillside.

Weapons drawn.

Medics behind them.

Seraphine’s voice somewhere in the chaos, sharp and commanding and furious.

Damon didn’t look away from Luca this time.

Didn’t let himself be pulled by the larger storm already gathering around them.

He just reached up with blood-wet fingers and touched Luca’s face.

Very gently.

As if confirming he was real.

Luca’s eyes closed for half a second at the contact.

Then opened again.

And in a voice so low Damon almost didn’t hear it, he said:

“You shot him.”

Damon exhaled shakily.

“Yes.”

Luca stared at him for a beat too long.

Then, despite the blood and pain and collapsing adrenaline, he let out the smallest, roughest laugh Damon had ever heard.

“God,” Luca murmured.

“You are a terrible influence.”

Damon’s mouth broke helplessly into something that wasn’t quite a smile and wasn’t quite grief.

“Shut up.”

Luca’s hand found his wrist.

Held.

And for one impossible second, the whole world narrowed to that.

Rain.

Breath.

Pulse.

Survival.

Choice.

Then a medic dropped to their knees beside them and said urgently:

“We need to move him now.”

Damon looked up.

Then back at Luca.

And Luca’s fingers tightened once around his wrist before slowly slipping free.

As medics lifted Luca onto the stretcher, his head turned weakly toward Damon.

Their eyes locked.

And Damon saw it immediately.

Something wrong.

Not emotional.

Physical.

Luca’s pupils had gone too wide.

Too slow.

His skin too pale.

His mouth parted like he was trying to say something, but no sound came out.

The stimulant.

Oh God.

The stimulant.

Seraphine saw it too.

Her face changed instantly.

“Wait,” she snapped, grabbing the medic’s arm.

Then she looked at Damon with real alarm and said

“What did you inject him with?”