"I Handed My Ring to His Mistress. Sunrise Brought It Back Covered in Blood."

The gunshot shattered the enclosed space like thunder.

Pain didn't come.

Instead, Alessandro shoved me violently to the side, his body twisting in mid-air as he took the bullet meant for my heart.

The bullet struck him in the side, spinning him around. He hit the concrete floor with a heavy thud, gasping for air as blood began to bloom across his white linen shirt like a grotesque red flower.

"ALESSANDRO!" I screamed.

Vincenzo laughed hysterically, trying to re-cock the tiny Derringer for a second shot, but before he could raise his wrist, a shadow dropped from the darkness above.

Maso had arrived.

The massive bodyguard landed like a falling mountain, smashing his heavy boot onto Vincenzo’s wrist. The sound of snapping bone echoed through the warehouse, followed by Vincenzo’s shrill scream. Maso kicked the gun away, kicked the old man in the temple to render him unconscious, and immediately dropped to his knees beside Alessandro.

"Boss! Boss, stay with me!" Maso yelled, ripping open Alessandro’s shirt to apply pressure to the entry wound.

I scrambled on my hands and knees across the wet floor, pulling Alessandro’s head into my lap. His face had gone ghastly pale, his breathing short and shallow.

"Alessandro... no, no, no, look at me!" I cried, pressing my hands over Maso’s on the wound. Warm blood seeped through my fingers, terrifying and relentless. "You don't get to die now! Do you hear me?! You don't get to leave me after saying those words!"

Alessandro’s hand weakly reached up, his blood-stained fingers clutching my collar. His lips parted, coughing up a small fleck of crimson.

"The... the ring..." he choked out, his vision swimming. "Don't... let them... take..."

"Screw the ring!" I wept, tears raining down onto his face. "I don't care about the money! I care about you!"

Dr. Leah Ferraro crawled out from the drainage trench, clutching her medical bag. "Move! Let me see!" she commanded, pushing us aside. She quickly cut away his shirt, thrusting a sterilized gauze pad into the wound. Alessandro groaned in agony, his back arching off the floor before his head slumped back into my lap, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

"He's going into hemorrhagic shock!" Leah shouted. "The bullet hit the intercostal artery. We need to get him to the clinic NOW or he'll bleed out in ten minutes!"

"Maso, carry him!" I ordered, my voice snapping back into command authority. "Leah, bring Mia! We're using the armored SUV in the back!"

Within sixty seconds, we loaded Alessandro and Mia into the back of the heavy vehicle. Maso slammed his foot onto the accelerator, crashing straight through the warehouse's wooden rear doors into the torrential night rain.

I sat in the back of the speeding vehicle, Alessandro’s head resting on my thighs. I held a thick wad of towels firmly against his ribs, every jolt of the car sending a shockwave of terror through my core.

"Stay with me," I whispered, leaning down to press my lips against his forehead. "Please, Alessandro. I forgive you. I forgive everything. Just open your eyes."

His eyelids fluttered weakly. "Maya..."

"I'm here. I'm right here."

"In my pocket..." he murmured, his voice barely an audible breath. "The blue key..."

I reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, heavy brass key attached to a vintage leather fob. I recognized it instantly. It was the key to my father's old workshop safe—the one I thought had been emptied five years ago when my father passed away.

"Why do you have this?" I asked through my tears.

"Your father... didn't die of illness, Maya..." Alessandro rasped, his hand feebly grabbing mine. "Vincenzo... poisoned him... because your father refused to forge the ledger diamond..."

The world around me seemed to freeze. The roar of the rain, the screech of the tires, the siren-like hum of the engine—everything faded into an icy, ringing void.

My father hadn't died of a heart attack. He had been murdered by Don Vincenzo Romano.

"I found out two years ago..." Alessandro choked out, tears finally escaping the corners of his dark eyes. "I spent... two years... preparing to burn my family to the ground... to give you justice... Maya... I'm so... sorry..."