You'll die.

You'll die.
Isla 's POV

The rotors grew louder, a mechanical heartbeat slicing through the morning mist like the wings of some predatory insect from a nightmare I couldn’t wake from. Two minutes, Silvio had said. Maybe less now—thirty seconds, if the wind- Stretch the exfil sequence with Luca’s quiet confession about the vial and a final, shared glance with Angelo as the chopper lifts off.

My pulse hammered in my ears, louder than the approaching drones, louder than the fading echoes of the bunker battle below, louder even than the ragged breaths I tried to steady. The empty vial still clutched in my left hand felt like a lifeline and a curse all at once—cool glass against my fever-hot palm, the last drops of suppressant glistening faintly inside. Luca’s breathing had finally evened out against my chest—slow, even, almost peaceful for the first time since the tunnel. His tiny chest rose and fell in rhythm with mine, the fever’s flush fading from his cheeks like a receding tide. Enzo’s small fingers curled into my shirt, trusting, exhausted, his little body heavy with the weight of a night that should never have touched babies this young. They were alive. They were still mine. And no one—not Maria with her rebuilt bones and stolen voice, not the Nest with their sterile labs and god-complex syringes, not even Silvio with his half-truths and blood debts—was going to rip that away from me.

Angelo’s voice cracked through the trees again, closer this time, raw with fury and fear that I felt in my marrow:
“Isla! Ridge line—give me a goddamn signal! Amore, if you can hear me—”

He was coming. He always came. Through fire, through betrayal, through the kind of hell that broke lesser men. But right now, every second felt like a blade pressed to my throat.

I met Silvio’s gaze, searching those shadowed eyes for the lie I expected to find—the twitch of a traitor’s mouth, the flicker of Nest programming. Instead I saw only tired resignation, the look of a man who’d already burned every bridge behind him and was standing in the ashes with nothing left but regret. The fresh cut on his cheek still oozed, and the scar along his temple looked raw, like he’d taken a bullet meant for someone else hours ago.

“You really think I’d walk into Maria’s arms with my sons?” My voice came out low, dangerous, the tremble gone now that the suppressant had bought us breathing room. “After what she did to Luca? After what she’s still doing—turning him into her little puppet with that voice in his head? I’d rather die here in the dirt than hand them over.”

Silvio’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping under the stubble. He glanced once toward the west, where the drone hum was sharpening into a whine. “I think you’re smart enough to know you can’t outrun a hunter drone with two infants on foot, Isla. Not on this ridge. Not with the suppressant only good for twenty-four hours. And I think you’re fierce enough—mama-bear fierce—to use any weapon you’re handed, even a flawed one like me, if it keeps them breathing past sunrise.”

Another shout ripped through the pines—Marco this time, hoarse but unmistakable, voice carrying like a rifle crack: “Boss! Fresh tracks—northeast, heading upslope! Blood on the ferns, small footprints—has to be her!”

They were so close. Close enough that I could almost taste the gun oil and sweat on the wind.

The decision tore through me like shrapnel, hot and jagged. Trust the man who’d once stood at Angelo’s right hand and now smelled like betrayal and gunpowder? Or run blind with the twins screaming in my arms while drones painted us red?

I lowered the pistol completely, but didn’t holster it. The weight stayed heavy in my grip, a promise. Instead I stepped forward—slow, deliberate—until I was within arm’s reach of Silvio. Close enough to smell the gun oil and dried blood on his coat, close enough to see the way his eyes flicked to Luca with something almost like pain. Close enough to kill him if he blinked wrong.

“If this is a trap,” I said, each word carved from ice and maternal fury, “I will empty every round I have left into you before they take me. And if Luca so much as twitches wrong again because of you—if I hear Maria’s voice in his head even once—I’ll make sure she hears your screams before I let her have mine. I swear it on every Romano grave.”

Silvio gave the smallest nod, the ghost of a smile touching his mouth—not triumph, just acknowledgment. “Understood. Fair price. I’ve earned worse.”

He reached slowly into his coat—telegraphing every movement like a man who knew how fast a mother’s trigger finger could move—and pulled out a compact emergency beacon, matte black, no bigger than a lighter, edges worn from constant handling. He pressed it into my palm, his fingers brushing mine for the briefest second—calloused, steady, surprisingly warm.

“Secondary frequency. Angelo’s private channel. I cloned it months ago, before… before everything went to hell with Elena. Activate it the second we’re clear of the first ridgeline. It’ll scream your position to him—and only him. No Nest intercept.”

I closed my fingers around it, the plastic warm from his body heat. “And you? What’s your exit?”

“I take the long way. Draw the drones west, give you and Angelo a clean window.” He glanced toward the sound of the rotors—now distinct, predatory, circling like vultures. “They’re vectoring on my last known transponder. I left it bleeding false heat signatures two klicks that way—decoy flares, thermal dummies, the works. Bought us maybe four minutes.”

My throat tightened, a sudden lump I hadn’t expected. “You’ll die.”

“Probably.” He shrugged, the motion almost casual, like we were discussing coffee instead of his obituary. “Been dead inside since Maria came back wearing someone else’s skin—those cold eyes, that smile that isn’t hers anymore. This is just catching up. At least it’ll mean something.”

Luca stirred against my neck, a soft, sleepy sound that broke something in my chest. I pressed my lips to his damp curls, breathing him in—milk and lingering fever and stubborn, unbreakable life. “Then go,” I said quietly, voice cracking for the first time. “Buy us the time. And Silvio…”

He paused, already turning, coat flaring like a cape in the mist.

“If you survive this,” I finished, forcing the words out, “find a way to tell Angelo you tried to make it right. He’ll want to know. He… he never forgets a debt.”

Silvio looked at me for a long beat—really looked, like he was memorizing the moment. Then he dipped his chin once, sharp and final. “Tell him yourself, Isla. He’s earned hearing it from you. Not some ghost.”

He melted back into the trees without another word, coat blending with the shadows like smoke. Seconds later I heard branches snap deliberately to the west—loud, obvious, reckless. A lure. The man was painting a target on his own back.

The drones banked hard, engines whining as they followed the bait, red lights flashing through the canopy like demonic eyes.

I didn’t wait for goodbyes or second thoughts.

I turned east, legs screaming from the crawl and the climb, lungs raw from dust and terror, and ran.

The forest swallowed me whole—pine needles muffling my footsteps into soft crunches, low branches whipping my face and drawing thin lines of blood I didn’t feel. The twins jostled against me in the makeshift sling, but neither cried; they seemed to understand, in that wordless infant way babies sometimes do, that silence was safety now. Enzo’s head lolled against Luca’s, their combined warmth a small furnace against the chill dawn air. Luca’s breathing stayed steady—thank God, thank Silvio, thank whatever cruel god was listening—but every twig snap behind us made my heart lurch.

I thumbed the beacon’s switch with my thumb.

A faint chirp answered—once, twice—then steady pulsing. A lifeline thrown into the green. Come on, Angelo. Hear me.

Behind me, a sharp crack split the air. Not gunfire. Something bigger. A drone detonating against Silvio’s decoy? A trap sprung? A man’s final stand?

I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. Not if I wanted to keep moving.

Angelo’s roar reached me next—not through comms, but raw and close, tearing through the underbrush like a blade forged in hell itself.

“Isla! Goddamn it, amore—sound off!”

I broke through a final screen of ferns and nearly collided with him head-on.

He was a storm of blood and soot and unspent violence—jacket torn at the shoulder, left sleeve soaked crimson from a wound I couldn’t see yet, pistol still smoking in his fist like an extension of his rage. His dark eyes—those eyes that had promised me forever in a monastery chapel—found me, found us, and something inside him cracked open, raw and desperate and beautifully human. The cold king of the Romano empire vanished; the man who’d once carried me through flames appeared.

He crossed the distance in two strides, arms banding around me so hard the air left my lungs in a rush. One massive hand cradled the back of my head, fingers threading through my tangled, dirt-crusted hair, the other pressed between the twins, shielding them against his chest like they were the only fragile things left in his world. His heartbeat thundered against my cheek, wild and alive and frantic.

“Amore,” he rasped, voice wrecked, lips brushing my temple. “You’re here. You’re here. I thought—I heard the tunnel collapse and I thought—”

I buried my face in his neck, breathing in gunpowder and sweat and the faint trace of his cologne that somehow survived the apocalypse. Tears burned tracks through the grime on my cheeks. “Luca—the trigger—Silvio gave us a suppressant. It’s holding. The fever broke, the spasms stopped. But Maria… she’s alive, Angelo. Rebuilt. Leading them. She wants the boys—wants Alessandro too. To rebuild the bloodline her way. She’s in his head already, or will be.”

His grip tightened until it hurt—in the best way, the way that said mine, safe, never again. “I know,” he growled, the words vibrating through his chest. “We’ll end her. Together. No more running. No more ghosts wearing her face. I swear on every drop of Romano blood.”

Marco burst through the trees behind him, rifle up and scanning, Sofia limping at his side with her knife still dripping red, emerald eyes sharp despite the bandage peeking from under her jacket. They took one look at us—at the twins safe and breathing, at me still standing—and something like relief flickered across their battle-hard faces, softening the hard lines of exhaustion.

“Exfil’s two minutes west,” Marco said, already scanning the ridgeline with that sniper’s precision. “Chopper’s inbound—Vito’s flying it himself. Nest is regrouping, but Silvio’s drawing half their air assets away. Crazy bastard’s lighting up the whole western slope like a Fourth of July show.”

Sofia sheathed her knife with a wince, stepping closer to brush a stray curl from Enzo’s forehead. “You look like hell, Mama Bear,” she said softly, voice thick with that familiar sarcasm edged in worry. “But damn if you didn’t drag two babies through a grave and come out swinging. Luca’s color’s back—thank God. What’d Silvio give you? And why the hell did he suddenly grow a conscience?”

I swallowed, still pressed against Angelo’s chest. “Suppressant. Twenty-four hours. He… he said he owed Angelo ten lifetimes. That Maria twisted him too. He’s buying us time—maybe dying for it.”

Angelo’s jaw flexed against my hair. He looked down at me, dark eyes burning with a thousand unspoken things—love, vengeance, the weight of every promise he’d ever made. “Silvio?”

I met his gaze. “He bought us the window. Said he owed you. Said… tell you he tried to make it right. That he’s been dead inside since she came back.”

For a heartbeat Angelo said nothing. Then he pressed his forehead to mine, breath ragged and warm. “We move. Now. And when this is over, if he’s still breathing… we’ll decide what debts get paid.”

He scooped me up—twins and all—like I weighed nothing, cradling us against his chest as he started running, powerful legs eating the ground. Marco and Sofia fell in on either side like wings—Marco’s rifle sweeping the treeline, Sofia’s knife ready again, her limp barely slowing her.

The forest blurred past in a green haze—branches snapping, leaves whipping, the distant chatter of Nest comms fading behind us. Luca stirred once, a tiny whimper, and Angelo murmured against his head, “Easy, figlio. Papa’s got you. No voices but mine now.” Enzo blinked up at him with those wide, trusting eyes, and something in my chest unclenched.

Behind us, another explosion rolled across the valley—brighter, angrier, shaking the pines. Silvio’s last gift, maybe. Or his last stand. A plume of black smoke rose above the western ridge, drones scattering like startled crows.

We broke into the clearing just as the chopper’s rotors thundered overhead, Vito’s voice crackling over the comms: “Boss! Wheels down in thirty—Nest birds incoming from the south! Move your asses!”

Angelo didn’t slow. He leaped the last stretch of ferns, set me gently inside the open door, then climbed in after, shielding us with his body while Marco and Sofia piled in. The chopper lifted in a roar of wind and engine, the ground falling away beneath us—forest, valley, the smoking bunker—all shrinking into a war-torn painting.

I leaned into Angelo’s side, the twins nestled between us, and for the first time in hours allowed myself to breathe. His hand found mine, fingers intertwining, the beacon still pulsing faintly in my palm.

“We’re going home,” he whispered against my hair, voice rough with promise. “And then we burn every trace of Maria’s name from this earth. Together.”

Sofia grinned from across the cabin, wiping blood from her cheek. “About damn time. I could use a shower and a decent espresso before the next apocalypse.”

Marco chuckled low. “Speak for yourself. I’m just glad the little ones are quiet. Means I don’t have to explain to Vito why I’m covered in baby spit and enemy blood.”

Luca sighed in his sleep, a peaceful sound that made Angelo’s eyes soften in a way I’d never seen during battle. Enzo’s tiny hand reached out and gripped his father’s finger, holding on like he’d never let go.

The chopper banked east, toward safety, toward whatever came next. But for this moment—bloodied, exhausted, alive—we were whole.

Silvio’s sacrifice echoed in the distance, another explosion lighting the horizon like a funeral pyre.

I closed my eyes against Angelo’s chest and whispered the only prayer that mattered now: “We’re going home.”

And for the first time since the safe room door groaned open, I believed it.