Run or Die

Iris POV

The darkness lasted exactly three seconds.

When emergency lighting flickered on, everything had changed. Rodriguez—the man who'd been holding a gun to my head—was on the floor, unconscious. Alessandro Torrino stood over him like a shadow come to life.

"Move," he said to me. Not mean, but urgent. Like my life depended on it.

Which it probably did.

I started toward him, but FBI Agent voices echoed from the hallway. "Secure all exits! Don't let anyone leave!"

Alessandro grabbed my wrist. His hand was warm and strong, but he wasn't rough. "Trust me or die. Your choice."

Before I could answer, he pulled me toward the broken window. Glass crunched under our feet.

"I can't jump from here," I said, looking down at the concrete below. "It's too high."

"We're not jumping down," he said. "We're going up."

Up?

He pointed to a ladder attached to the building's side. It led to the roof. I'd never noticed it before, but then again, I'd never needed an escape route from my art history class.

"Ladies first," Alessandro said, but his eyes kept watching the classroom door.

I climbed out the window and grabbed the cold metal ladder. My hands were shaking so bad I almost slipped. Below me, I could hear more shouting, more running. The whole campus sounded like a war zone.

"Hurry," Alessandro whispered behind me.

I climbed faster. My backpack felt heavy, and my heart hammered against my ribs. When I reached the roof, Alessandro was right behind me, moving like climbing buildings was something he did every day.

"This way," he said, jogging toward the other side of the roof.

"Wait!" I grabbed his arm. "I don't even know who you are. How do I know you're not one of the bad guys?"

He stopped and looked at me. Up close, his eyes weren't just dark—they were tired. Like he'd seen too much and slept too little.

"Because the bad guys would have let Rodriguez shoot you," he said simply.

That made sense. Sort of.

"Who is Rodriguez? Why does he want me?"

"Questions later. Running now."

We reached the edge of the roof. Below us was the campus parking lot, full of cars and... oh no.

Men in black suits everywhere. At least ten of them, maybe more. They were checking every car, looking under things, talking into their phone devices. Some had guns out.

"Find the Kane girl!" one of them shouted. "She's here somewhere!"

My stomach dropped. They really were hunting me. Like I was some kind of criminal.

"There," Alessandro pointed to a fire escape on the building next to us. "We jump across."

I looked at the gap between buildings. It was maybe six feet, but it looked like six miles.

"I can't make that jump," I said.

"Yes, you can. Fear makes you stronger than you think."

"What if I fall?"

"Then you fall. But if you stay here, you die for sure."

The roof door burst open behind us. Three men with guns came through, scanning the area.

"There!" one pointed at us.

Alessandro didn't wait. He ran toward the edge of the roof and jumped. For a second, he was flying through the air like some kind of superhero. Then he landed hard on the other building's fire escape.

"Come on!" he called.

Gunshots cracked behind me. Bullets hit the roof near my feet, sending up tiny explosions of concrete dust.

I ran.

I didn't think about falling or dying or being afraid. I just ran as fast as I could and jumped into nothing.

For a moment, I was flying. The wind rushed past my face, and I could see the whole campus spread out below me. It was almost beautiful.

Then I crashed into Alessandro's arms on the fire escape. He caught me, but we both went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

"Not bad for a college girl," he said, helping me up.

More shots fired from the roof we'd just left. The men were trying to jump across too, but they were too scared or too heavy. They missed and had to go back.

"Down," Alessandro said, starting down the fire escape stairs.

We climbed down fast, our feet clanging on the metal steps. When we reached the bottom, Alessandro peered around the corner of the building.

"Clear," he said. "Your car nearby?"

"Yeah, but..." I stopped. Something felt wrong about telling him where my car was. I still didn't know if I could trust him.

"But what?"

"How do I know you're really trying to help me?"

He turned to face me completely. "Because if I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead. If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have saved you from Rodriguez. And if I was working with them, I'd just hand you over right now."

That logic made sense too. But something else was bothering me.

"You knew my name," I said. "Back in the classroom, Rodriguez called me Robert Kane's daughter, and you didn't look surprised."

Alessandro's jaw got tight. "It's complicated."

"Then make it simple."

"Your father has enemies. Powerful enemies. They want to use you to get to him."

"But my father is dead."

"No, he's not. Robert Kane is the Director of the FBI, and he's been hunting criminal families for twenty years. Including mine."

The world spun around me. "Your family?"

"Torrino family. We're... businesspeople."

Something in the way he said "businesspeople" told me they weren't the normal kind.

"You mean criminals."

"I mean survivors."

Before I could ask more questions, Alessandro's phone rang. He answered it quickly.

"Yeah? How many? Where?" His face got darker with each word. "Understood."

He hung up and looked at me seriously. "We need to go. Now. They've got the whole campus surrounded."

"They?"

"FBI, local police, and three other crime families. Everyone wants you."

"Why? What's so special about me?"

"You're Robert Kane's weakness. The one thing he loves more than his job."

We started moving through the campus, staying in shadows between buildings. Alessandro moved like he knew exactly where he was going, but I felt lost and confused.

"Where are we going?" I whispered.

"Your car. Then somewhere safe."

"How do you know I have a car?"

He gave me a look. "College student, lives off campus, works nights. Of course you have a car."

Smart guy. Scary, but smart.

We made it to the parking lot where my little red Honda sat between two bigger cars. It looked so normal and innocent compared to everything else happening.

"Keys?" Alessandro asked.

I dug them out of my backpack. My hands were still shaking, but not as much as before.

"Stay low," he said as we approached the car.

That's when I saw them.

Four men in black suits standing around my car. One was sitting on the hood. Another was looking through the windows. They were waiting.

"Trap," Alessandro whispered.

"Now what?"

"Now we get creative."

He pulled something from his jacket. It looked like a small remote control.

"What's that?"

"Insurance," he said, pressing a button.

Every car alarm in the parking lot went off at the same time. The sound was deafening—dozens of cars honking and beeping and screaming all at once.

The men around my car looked confused, covering their ears and trying to figure out what was happening.

"Run," Alessandro said.

We sprinted toward my car. The men saw us coming and reached for their guns, but the noise was so loud they couldn't hear each other or coordinate.

Alessandro reached them first. He moved so fast I could barely follow what happened. One second, four men were standing. The next second, four men were on the ground.

"Get in!" he shouted, jumping into the driver's seat.

I dove into the passenger side just as more men came running from across the parking lot. Alessandro started the engine and threw the car into reverse.

"Buckle up," he said.

We shot backward out of the parking space, tires squealing. Alessandro spun the wheel, and we turned in a perfect circle before racing toward the parking lot exit.

Behind us, men with guns were running after the car, shouting and shooting.

"Duck!" Alessandro yelled.

I ducked just as our back window exploded. Glass showered down on us like sharp rain.

We reached the street and Alessandro floored it. My little Honda wasn't built for high-speed chases, but it was doing its best.

"Are they following us?" I asked, afraid to look back.

Alessandro checked the mirrors. "Three black SUVs. Maybe more."

"What do we do?"

"We disappear."

He took a hard right turn that threw me against the door. Then a quick left. Then another right. I lost track of where we were, but Alessandro seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"Hold on," he said, turning into what looked like a dead-end alley.

"We're trapped!" I said.

But then I saw it. A gap between two buildings, barely wide enough for a car. Alessandro aimed for it without slowing down.

"We're not going to fit!" I screamed.

"Yes, we are."

We squeezed through the gap with maybe an inch to spare on each side. My mirrors got knocked off, but we made it.

On the other side was another street. Alessandro turned left and slowed down, driving normally like nothing had happened.

"I think we lost them," he said.

I looked back through the hole where our rear window used to be. No black SUVs. No men with guns. Just normal city traffic.

"How did you know about that gap?" I asked.

"I make it my business to know escape routes."

"You do this often?"

"More than I'd like."

We drove in silence for a few minutes. I was starting to feel safe when Alessandro suddenly cursed and hit the brakes.

"What?" I looked ahead and saw what made him stop.

At the end of the block, three black SUVs sat parked across the road, blocking our path. Men with guns stood beside them, waiting.

"How did they find us?" I whispered.

Alessandro looked grim. "They didn't find us. They were waiting."

"Waiting? How could they know where we'd go?"

"Only one way," he said, looking at me with suspicious eyes. "Someone told them."

"I didn't tell anyone anything!"

"Then how do you explain this?"

I stared at the roadblock ahead of us, my mind racing. How could they know we'd come this way? Unless...

My phone buzzed.

I looked down at it, and my blood turned to ice.

Unknown number: "Hello, Iris. Time to come home."