Darkness covered the empty road like a cold, hard metal sheet. The moon was low, sharp, and thin like a knife. Luca felt danger before he heard it, the metal-like taste in the wind, the tingle at the bottom of his head, the feeling that had saved him many times.
"Something's not right," he quietly said to the driver.
Before he finished saying the words, everything changed.
Hell opened.
Guns fired from the high cliffs, breaking the darkness with loud, fast bullets. Sparks flew as metal ripped apart. Luca's group of cars turned fast, tires sliding, and engines made loud, scared noises. A truck blew up ahead, and the blast filled the night with bright orange.
"Ambush! Move!" Luca yelled, quickly hiding behind a turned-over car as flames went up toward the sky.
His men spread out, shooting upward, but shadows moved perfectly across the high rock. Skilled. Exact. These weren't just street criminals.
They were Hank's men.
Luca shot, each shot sharp and controlled, but there were too many attackers, and they were too ready. He moved without thinking, rolling, ducking, reloading, hitting from angles that kept him alive just in time.
A boot hit his back hard.
He twisted around, but the knife was already at his neck. Sharp. Dangerous. Familiar.
Hank.
The man's smile was twisted, his teeth shining in the firelight. "You really thought you could take her from me?" he said with anger. "She belongs to Valerio. Not to you. Never to you."
Luca didn't move, even as the knife cut into his neck and warm blood went down his collar. He looked up, his eyes dark with a promise.
"Touch her," he said in a deep voice, "and you will die very slowly."
Hank lifted the knife.
A gunshot broke the night open.
Hank moved suddenly, dropping the knife as a bullet went through his shoulder. He wobbled, his eyes wide in shock.
And there, standing in the open, her feet on the bloody road, her face lit by the fire, was Catalina.
She was breathing hard. Her hair was stuck to her face. Her blue eyes were like cold fire.
Her gun was steady.
"Step away from him," she said, her voice quiet and like death.
Hank blinked, his face showing pain. "Catalina? You? Valerio's blade? You betrayed, "
Another shot fired. This one went through his leg.
"I said step away."
Luca looked at her like she was a dream he had come up with, scary, impossible, beautiful. His sunshine. His killer. His savior.
Then everything went crazy again.
Hank's men pointed their guns at Catalina, yelling, reloading, and fighting. But she was already moving. Fast. Quiet. Dangerous. A quick flash of blonde hair and exact violence.
A knife flashed, one man fell with a cut on his neck.
A bullet fired, another fell screaming, his knee broken.
She turned, kicked, took weapons, and hit with careful force.
Luca forced himself up, pain going through his ribs, and his vision blurred. He didn't stay down. Not while she fought for him. He shot the attacker behind her, stepped into the spot she couldn't see, and together they moved like a two-person army made in war.
Back-to-back.
Breath-to-breath.
Death-to-death.
But numbers don't lie. And there were too many.
A shot ripped through Luca's side. He made a noise and stumbled.
Catalina turned right away, her eyes wide open. She caught him as he fell to his knees, her arm going under his, pulling him up with amazing strength.
"Stay awake," she said quietly but firmly. "I'm getting you away from here."
He wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her that he didn't need her to save him.
But the world started to spin.
"Cat…" he said softly, her shirt getting covered in blood. "You picked me."
Her eyes got softer, showing something she had never said out loud.
"I pick you every time."
With a final burst of speed and force, she made a path through the people still attacking. People fell to the ground. Hank tried to crawl toward a gun that had fallen, shaking and growling.
Catalina kicked it far away.
"Come after me again, Hank," she said, her voice sounding like broken glass, "and I won't miss."
Then she dragged Luca into a car that had been stolen, slammed the door shut, and drove off fast with the tires screeching. Behind them, the flames ate up the night.
She didn't stop driving until the city lights were gone and the mountains hid them completely.
---
The safe house was on the edge of a town with no name, one of those forgotten places where nobody asked questions and nobody cared enough to look.
Catalina helped Luca inside, almost carrying him. The air smelled like old wood and dust; the walls echoed with a silence that was older than both of them.
"Lie down," she said, helping him onto the bed. Her voice only shook one time.
Luca smiled weakly. "Bossy."
"Be quiet before you pass out."
He passed out anyway, still smiling, still breathing, falling onto the mattress.
Catalina sewed him up with shaky hands, blood on her hands, sweat on her face, saying quiet prayers in Portuguese that she hadn't said since she was a kid. She worked until she couldn't see clearly, until her arms shook, until she knew that he would live.
For days, she stayed right next to him.
She made food for him.
Changed his bandages.
Forced water between his teeth.
Yelled at him when he tried to stand up too soon.
Held his hand when bad dreams woke him up.
And slowly, amazingly, Luca got better.
The safe house changed with him. The dusty walls felt softer. The quiet felt warmer. It became something that neither of them had felt in years.
A home.
She made fun of him for his overdone groans. He made fun of her for watching over him like a hawk. They kissed between arguments and laughed when they were scared.
Some nights, Catalina fell asleep with her head on his chest, his hand in her hair like he didn't know how to let go.
One night, as she touched the new scar along his ribs, he said softly,
"You saved my life, Catalina."
She swallowed, her voice just a whisper. "You gave me something worth saving."
They fell asleep curled up together, the mountain wind shaking t
he window like a warning.
Because outside that quiet place, people were hunting them to hurt them.
Valerio now knew the truth.
Catalina's betrayal wasn't just a rumor anymore.
It was a statement.
Written with gunshots and wounds and dead people and fire.