Midnight Between Us

The apartment smelled like whiskey, rain, and gunpowder.Ava stood frozen just inside the doorway while Luca locked three separate bolts behind them. His movements were calm, practiced. Like this wasn’t the first time armed men had chased him through Manhattan at three in the morning.Which terrified her even more.The loft itself was massive—dark walls, expensive furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering skyline. Modern. Cold. Beautiful.Just like him.Ava wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop shaking.“I want answers.”Luca removed his soaked coat slowly and tossed it onto a chair. Underneath, his black shirt clung tightly to his body, revealing tattooed arms and the outline of bruises near his ribs.He was injured.“You should sit down,” he said.“I’m not sitting down until you tell me why people were shooting at us!”His jaw tightened.“At me,” he corrected quietly. “They were shooting at me.”“That doesn’t make me feel better!”For a second, silence

The apartment felt colder after Damien left.Not physically.Emotionally.Like his presence had poisoned the air itself.Ava stood motionless near the kitchen counter, staring at the photograph of her apartment building while rain battered the broken doorway. Somewhere below, New York continued moving like nothing had happened.Cars honked.Sirens wailed.People laughed.Meanwhile her entire life had just been ripped apart in four hours.“You should’ve told me,” she whispered.Luca stayed silent.That silence hurt more than she expected.Ava turned toward him sharply.“You’re in the mafia.”“It’s complicated.”“No,” she snapped. “Complicated is cheating on someone or forgetting anniversaries. This is criminal empire level insanity.”Luca rubbed a hand over his face, exhausted.“I was trying to keep you out of it.”“You dragged me into gunfire!”“And I kept you alive.”The words hit hard because they were true.Ava hated that.She hated the way part of her still felt safer standing nea

The staircase spiraled endlessly beneath the city.Dark concrete walls.Dim emergency lights.The sound of footsteps hunting them from above.Ava could barely breathe as Luca pulled her downward two steps at a time. Her heels were useless now, one already broken from running across shattered glass.Behind them, Damien’s voice echoed calmly through the stairwell.“You know Father hates games.”Luca ignored him.Another gunshot exploded overhead.Concrete cracked beside Ava’s shoulder.She screamed.“Keep moving!” Luca barked.The lower they descended, the colder the air became. Somewhere below them, engines hummed faintly. Underground parking.Almost there.Luca finally shoved open a heavy steel door at the bottom of the staircase.A private garage waited beyond it.Luxury cars lined the walls beneath fluorescent lights, but Luca headed straight for a black motorcycle near the exit gate.Ava stared at him in disbelief.“You’re kidding.”“No.”“You want me to get on that while people ar

The car tore through Brooklyn at terrifying speed.Rain blurred the city outside into streaks of red brake lights and neon signs while Ava sat frozen in the passenger seat, trying to process everything at once.Luca was captured.Vittorio had him.And somehow she was trapped in a car with Luca’s wife racing toward a mafia compound in the middle of the night.Her life officially made no sense anymore.Sofia kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other near the gun resting beside her thigh.Calm.Focused.Deadly.Ava hated how naturally all of this seemed to come to her.“Where are they taking him?” Ava asked quietly.Sofia’s eyes stayed on the road.“Vittorio owns a private estate outside the city.”“A mansion?”“A fortress.”That sounded worse.Ava wrapped her arms around herself tightly.“What will they do to him?”Sofia didn’t answer immediately.And that silence was enough.Fear crawled slowly through Ava’s chest.“You said they wouldn’t kill him.”“I said not yet.”Ava looked

Gunfire tore through the cabin relentlessly, Wood splintered, and glass exploded across the floor. Ava covered her head instinctively while her father shielded her body with his own. “Move!” Sofia shouted. She fired twice through the shattered window before grabbing Ava’s arm violently.“We have to go now!”Another bullet ripped through the wall inches from Ava’s face. Her father pulled a second gun from inside his coat with practiced ease. “You two take the back exit,” he ordered.Sofia glared at him. “And let Damien kill you?” A grim smile crossed his face.“He’ll be disappointed if he tries.”The confidence in his voice made Ava pause. This man, this stranger Was nothing like the father she remembered Outside, car doors slammed, Heavy footsteps approached through the rain Damien’s men. Sofia cursed under her breath. “They’re surrounding us.”Ava’s pulse hammered painfullyEverything was happening too fast. Questions. Lies. Gunfire. Her father is alive. Luca missing. None of it felt real.