CHAPTER 5: A BULLET FOR THE DEVIL

"Boss! Sniper!"

The shout tore through the quiet morning before I even understood what it meant. One second we were crossing the courtyard toward the training yard, Dante a few steps ahead discussing something with Luca, and the next, the entire world had shifted into motion. Guards materialized from doorways I hadn't noticed, weapons drawn. Marco's eyes swept the rooftops in sharp, practiced arcs. Luca stepped in front of Dante, angling his body like a shield.

The shot hadn't come yet. Somewhere above us, a sniper was waiting for the perfect angle, and nobody could tell where.

I saw it before anyone else did. A flicker of sunlight, brief and precise, glinting off glass three rooftops over.

A scope.

My whole body went cold with recognition. I knew exactly what that flash meant, had grown up around enough of my father's men to understand the geometry of danger. My eyes tracked the angle down from the rooftop, through the courtyard, and landed directly on Dante's chest.

Why should I save him?

The thought arrived uninvited, sharp and honest. He was the man who'd bought me like property, the head of a crime syndicate feared across the continent. If that bullet found its mark, I could walk away. Chaos would swallow the estate, and in chaos, there was opportunity. Nobody would notice one girl slipping through an open gate.

Then my father's voice rose out of memory, steady as it had always been. Never ignore danger, even if it threatens your enemy. The moment you stop valuing life, you lose yourself.

I closed my eyes for half a second. When I opened them, the decision had already made itself.

I ran.

Everything happened faster than thought.

I crossed the distance between us in three strides, my shoulder slamming into Dante's chest with everything I had. He staggered sideways, off balance, a half second of confusion crossing his face as the world tilted beneath him.

The gunshot cracked through the courtyard like thunder.

Fabric tore. Dante hit the ground hard, and I went down with him, pain lancing up my arm as we struck the stone together. For one terrible heartbeat, I didn't know whose blood I was seeing, his or mine.

Guards swarmed the courtyard, shouting orders, sweeping weapons toward the rooftops. Someone screamed. Marco was on his radio, barking coordinates, and Luca had already hauled Dante upright, checking him with rough, urgent hands.

"He's hit—"

"It grazed the jacket," Luca said, voice tight. "He's fine. Get eyes on that rooftop, now."

Before I could catch my breath, the barrel of a gun swung toward me.

"Don't move!" Marco's voice, sharp with adrenaline, cutting through the chaos. Two more guards leveled their weapons at my chest, and Luca's hand closed around my arm, wrenching me back from Dante with brutal force.

"She's the distraction," someone shouted. "She pushed him right into the line of fire!"

"She led the sniper to him!"

The accusations came fast, tangled together, and I understood in an instant how it looked. A girl bought at auction, thrown into the middle of an assassination attempt, shoving the target at the exact moment a bullet found the air. I could see the story writing itself in their eyes, and there was nothing I could say that would sound like anything other than a lie born out of panic.

I didn't beg. I didn't struggle against Luca's grip. I stood perfectly still, my heart hammering, and waited.

Silence spread through the courtyard like water finding its level.

Dante straightened slowly, one hand pressed to his side where the bullet had torn through fabric instead of flesh. He looked down at the ruined jacket, then at me, something working behind his eyes that I couldn't name.

He remembered. I could see it settle into his expression, the exact moment I'd thrown myself against him, the exact fraction of a second that had separated a graze from a killing shot.

"Lower your weapons," he said.

Nobody moved. Marco hesitated, gun still raised, uncertainty flickering across his face for the first time since I'd met him.

"That's an order."

The guns dropped, one by one, reluctant obedience rippling through the courtyard.

"She just saved my life."

The words landed like a stone thrown into still water. I saw the shock ripple through every face around me, Marco's brow furrowing, Luca's grip on my arm loosening in disbelief. I felt it too, the strange, dizzying weight of hearing him say it out loud, as if some part of me hadn't fully understood what I'd done until he named it.

The estate went into lockdown within minutes.

Luca organized teams to sweep the rooftops and surrounding streets. Marco moved through the courtyard questioning guards, staff, anyone who might have seen something before the shot was fired. Dante stood at the center of it all, giving orders in that same unshaken voice, as though a bullet tearing through his jacket had been little more than an inconvenience.

He didn't thank me.

I stood off to the side, arms wrapped around myself, waiting for some acknowledgment that never came. Instead, his eyes moved over me, once, assessing, and stopped at my forearm.

"You're injured."

I looked down. A shallow cut ran along my arm, blood welling steadily from where I must have struck the stone. I hadn't even felt it until he pointed it out.

"Sofia," he called, without raising his voice more than necessary. "Treat her."

Then he turned and walked away, already speaking to Luca about perimeter security, leaving me standing there with my arm bleeding and my chest tight with something I couldn't quite name. Not gratitude. Not quite disappointment either. Something in between, unfamiliar and unwelcome.

Marco found us twenty minutes later, while Sofia was still winding a bandage around my arm in the small infirmary off the east wing.

He carried something wrapped in cloth, his expression carved from stone. He set it on the table between us and unfolded the fabric carefully, revealing a single brass shell casing.

Dante, who had followed him in without a word, picked it up and turned it slowly beneath the light.

His expression changed.

He held it out for Marco, who studied the engraving on its base and went very still.

"Boss," Marco said slowly. "This doesn't make sense."

Dante's eyes lifted from the casing and found mine. Not accusing. Thinking, calculating, the way he seemed to process everything, without heat, without haste.

He held the casing out to me.

I took it with trembling fingers and turned it toward the light the way he had.

The crest was small, easy to miss if you didn't know exactly what you were looking for. A wolf's head circled by a ring of laurel leaves, etched into the base of the shell with the kind of precision that only came from a custom order. I had seen that crest my entire life, stamped into the hilt of my father's ceremonial blade, embroidered into the lining of his jackets, carved into the gates of the estate that no longer existed.

The Moretti crest.

My breath caught somewhere in my throat.

Every custom round bearing that mark had been destroyed after the massacre, my father's private armory burned along with everything else that night. I had watched the smoke rise over what remained of our home. There should be nothing left in the world carrying that symbol.

And yet here it was, resting in my palm, pulled from the scene of an attempt on Dante's life.

Someone wanted the world to believe the Morettis had done this. Someone wanted my family's name attached to a bullet meant for the Devil King, my father's legacy weaponized against a man he'd never even threatened.

"Who are you?" I whispered, though I didn't know if I was asking the shooter, or whoever had planted that casing, or the ghost of a family name being used against its will.

No one answered.