Under Fire

Isabella Hart POV

The first gunshot explodes through the library window in a shower of crystalline death.

I throw myself over the wounded soldier before conscious thought kicks in, my body moving on pure instinct. Glass shards rain down on my back, some embedding in the fabric of my shirt. The man beneath me is solid, real, his chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of someone no longer dying.

"Stay down," he whispers, but his voice is stronger now, alert.

The library transforms into a war zone in seconds. More windows shatter under automatic gunfire, the sound so loud it seems to live inside my bones. My ears ring, and the smell of gunpowder fills the air, acrid and choking.

Vincent has taken cover behind his massive desk, speaking rapidly into a phone that materialized from nowhere. Even under fire, he's coordinating, commanding. "All units to the main house. Lock down the secondary exits."

Luca moves with lethal grace, already positioned by the door with a weapon I didn't see him draw. "Twenty, maybe twenty-five hostiles. Military formation. This isn't street thugs."

"Torrino colors," Dante reports from beside the eastern window, his voice clinical despite the bullets whining past his head. "Black tactical gear, green armbands."

The reality hits me like a physical blow. "They're here for me."

"Welcome to the life, princess." Nico appears beside me in a crouch, his usual manic energy replaced by deadly focus. His eyes are bright with something that might be excitement. "Time to see what you're really made of."

An explosion rocks the mansion's east wing. The chandelier above us sways violently, crystal teardrops chiming like funeral bells. Plaster dust cascades from the ceiling, coating everything in white powder that tastes like chalk and fear.

"They're inside," Luca announces.

That's when the library doors explode inward.

Men in tactical gear flood through the entrance like a black tide. Their faces are hidden behind military masks, movements coordinated with precision that speaks of serious training. Not hired thugs—soldiers.

Luca's first shot drops the lead attacker before the man can fully clear the doorframe. But there are too many, and they keep coming.

The gunfight erupts into chaos. Dante fires from his window position while Nico uses the heavy furniture as mobile cover. Marco wheels his chair behind a bookshelf with surprising speed, a pistol appearing in his hand like magic.

Then I hear the wet sound of a bullet finding flesh.

Luca staggers, dark blood spreading across his left shoulder. He keeps fighting, but I can see the pain in the rigid line of his back, the way his left arm hangs useless at his side.

Something primal and fierce ignites in my chest. These men are bleeding to protect me, and I'm cowering behind a stretcher like a helpless victim.

"Isabella, stay down!" Marco's command cracks through the gunfire, but there's something underneath it I've never heard before—raw terror. Not the calculated concern of someone protecting an asset. The desperate fear of a man watching someone he cares about in danger.

But I'm already moving.

I stay low, using the overturned furniture as cover while I crawl toward Luca's position. Bullets whine overhead, splintering wood and embedding in leather-bound books. The air smells like cordite and blood and the particular metallic taste of fear.

"Isabella, no!" Dante's voice joins Marco's, both brothers calling my name with identical panic.

Luca sees me coming and shakes his head frantically, never taking his eyes off the attackers. "Get back to cover—"

I reach him and press my hands against his wounded shoulder without warning.

The connection slams into me like lightning, and suddenly I'm drowning in sensation that isn't mine.

His pain floods through me first—sharp, burning agony where the bullet tore through muscle. But underneath the physical trauma, something else bleeds through the psychic link. Images. Memories that make my world tilt sideways.

A little girl with dark curls, maybe five years old, kneeling in a garden while four boys watch from the terrace steps. She's laughing as she touches wilted flowers, her small hands glowing with soft golden light as the blooms lift their heads and burst with renewed color.

The oldest boy sits in a wheelchair—not from injury but from some kind of birth defect. His legs are thin, weak, but his eyes are bright with intelligence. The girl runs to him, places her tiny palms on his knees, and for just a moment, his legs twitch with sensation.

"Did you feel that, Marco?" the girl asks, and her voice is mine, years younger but unmistakably mine.

"I felt it, Isabella," he whispers back, and wonder fills his young face.

The vision fractures as Luca's shoulder heals under my touch, flesh knitting together with impossible speed. The psychic connection fades, but not before I catch one more image—the four boys standing at a window, watching a black car drive away with the little girl inside, all of them crying.

"You remember," I breathe, staring into Luca's eyes.

His nod is barely perceptible, but it confirms everything. "You called me Luke back then."

The gunfire continues around us, but it feels distant, muffled. My entire world has narrowed to this revelation that changes everything I thought I knew about my captivity.

"I was here before. As a child."

"For two years," Luca confirms quietly, flexing his newly healed shoulder. "Your father brought you for treatments. You were like our little sister until—"

"Until Vincent had him killed." The pieces click together with sickening clarity. "You all knew who I was. From the beginning."

The guilt in his eyes tells me everything.

"Contact from the east wing!" one of the Romano soldiers shouts from the corridor. "They're pushing through the main hallway!"

"We're about to be overrun," Dante calls out, his voice tight with concern.

That's when something inside me snaps.

I've spent weeks being protected, hidden, treated like fragile goods that might break if handled roughly. But these men—these brothers who apparently loved me once as children—are bleeding to keep me safe. And I'm crouched behind furniture like a victim.

No more.

I stand up.

"Isabella!" Marco's scream tears from his throat, raw and desperate and so full of anguish that it strips away every carefully constructed mask he wears. That sound tells me everything about how he really feels. This isn't about losing a valuable healer.

It's about losing me.

A bullet grazes my shoulder, tearing through flesh like a hot knife. Blood wells up, soaks into my shirt—but even as I register the pain, I can feel the wound sealing itself, skin knitting back together with supernatural speed.

The gunfire stutters to a confused halt as both sides process what they're seeing.

I walk toward the shattered window where most of the attackers are concentrated, glass crunching under my feet. My shoulder throbs but heals, and I can feel power humming through my veins like electricity.

"Enough!" I call out to the darkness beyond the estate grounds, my voice carrying in the sudden silence. "Sophia Torrino! If you want me, come take me yourself instead of hiding behind hired soldiers!"

Laughter drifts through the night air—cultured, elegant, and sharp as broken crystal.

"Oh, Isabella." The voice that answers makes my blood chill. "You have no idea what you're offering."

A figure emerges from the shadows beyond the breached perimeter. Tall, graceful, with the kind of dangerous beauty that could topple kingdoms. Dark hair frames a face that belongs in Renaissance paintings, and green eyes catch the light from the mansion's windows.

Sophia Torrino steps into the pool of illumination, and when those predatory eyes lock onto mine, she smiles.

"Hello, little sister," she purrs, and the endearment hits me like a physical blow. "Did you really think I wouldn't come for you eventually?"