Chapter 23 Coming for is mine.

Chapter 23 Coming for is mine.
Aria’s POV.
The lab was tucked into an expensive building near the Arc de Triomphe, the kind of place where discretion was worth more than gold. We hit it at two in the morning, when security was lightest and most bored.
Marco disabled the cameras, Lucia picked the locks, Dahlia hacked the internal security system and Enzo and I walked through the front door like we owned the place, weapons concealed but ready.
"Second floor," Dahlia's voice crackled through our earpieces. "GeneTech Solutions, Suite 204. The security guard makes rounds every thirty minutes. You have seventeen minutes until the next pass."
We climbed the stairs while moving fast but quietly. The hallway was empty, lit by emergency lighting that cast everything in sickly green.
Suite 204's door was locked, but Enzo had that handled in under a minute. Inside, the lab was all chrome and glass, with expensive equipment humming softly.
"Files are digital," I said, moving to the nearest computer terminal. "Dahlia, can you..."
"Already in their system," she interrupted. "Give me a second... got it. Pulling records now." I watched the screen fill with data, with names and dates and case numbers scrolling past. Then one name jumped out: DE LUCA, ARIA.
"There," I breathed. Dahlia isolated the file, opening it. Medical history, blood work, DNA analysis and at the bottom, dated three days ago: PREGNANCY TEST - NEGATIVE.
The world tilted. "Negative," I whispered. "I'm not pregnant." "The test could be wrong," Enzo said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Or Luca lied," Dahlia said through the earpiece. "Made up the pregnancy to manipulate you exactly like you suspected."
I stared at the screen, feeling the news settle into my bones. Relief? Anger? I couldn't separate the emotions. "Check for tampering," Enzo ordered. "Make sure these results are legitimate."
"On it." More keystrokes. "Metadata looks clean. The test was run by Dr. Helena Rousseau, one of their senior technicians. Sample collected..." She paused. "Your sample was collected two months ago. During your first week at the fortress."
My stomach dropped. "Enzo?" His face had gone carefully blank. "I had the fortress doctor draw blood for a standard health screen. To ensure you weren't carrying any diseases from..." He stopped.
"From being traded like livestock," I finished coldly. "And you just happened to send that blood for pregnancy testing? Without my knowledge?"
"As a precaution," he said. "If you were pregnant before you came to me, I needed to know. For your safety."
"My safety." I laughed, a bitter sound. "Everything you do is for my safety, except actually treating me like a human being with bodily autonomy." "Aria..." "Download everything," I told Dahlia, cutting him off. "Every file, every test and everything. I want proof."
"Already done. But we need to move. Guard's one minute out." We ran, footsteps pounding down the stairs, out the back exit into the Paris night. My mind was reeling and trying to process what we'd learned. Not pregnant. Luca had lied. But why?
We regrouped in a safe house Dahlia had secured, another anonymous apartment, this one overlooking the Seine. The others dispersed to their assigned rooms, leaving Enzo and me alone in what passed for a living room.
"You tested me," I said, my voice shaking. "Without my consent. Just took my blood and..." "Yes." No apology. "Because if you'd been pregnant with your father's child or Luca's or anyone else's, that changed everything. Changed how I could protect you, what resources I'd need and what risks were acceptable."
"It wasn't your decision to make!" The fury I'd been holding back exploded. "My body, my choice and my right to know what medical tests are being run on me!" "In an ideal world, yes," he said coldly. "But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in one where knowledge is power and information is survival. I did what I had to do."
"You keep saying that." I moved closer while poking his chest. "You keep justifying every violation, every lie and every manipulation with 'I did what I had to do.' When does it end? When do I stop being a chess piece you move around the board?"
"When the game ends," he said. "When Luca's dead and your father's empire is ashes and we're not running for our lives every goddamn day. Then... maybe then, we can have normal conversations about consent and autonomy. But until then, I make the hard choices so you stay alive." "I didn't ask you to save me!"
"No, I know you didn't ask me to help you escape or to give you freedom, but you asked your friend Dahila to help you do that on your engagement night." His hands framed my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "But freedom's just another word for being hunted alone. At least with me, you have a chance."
I shoved him away. "I hate you." "I know." He didn't move and didn't flinch. "Hate me after we survive."
The door burst open. Marco, weapon drawn, breathing hard. "We've got a problem. Multiple vehicles approaching, armed men and a professional formation. Someone sold us out."
"How long?" Enzo demanded. "Three minutes, or maybe less." "Fuck." Enzo was already moving, grabbing weapons and tossing one to me. "Roof access?" "Blocked," Lucia reported from the window. "They've got spotters on surrounding buildings." "Sewer system?" Dahlia suggested.
"Too slow." Enzo checked his weapon. "We fight our way out. Marco, Lucia, you take your point, Dahlia, cover our extraction and Aria, you're with me."
We moved into defensive positions as footsteps thundered up the stairwell. This was it, another firefight, another desperate escape and another day of survival bought with violence.
The door exploded inward and men poured through. But I was ready this time, my weapon steady and my aim true. I'd killed before. This was just more of the same.
We fought, bullets and blood and the familiar chaos of combat. Marco went down with a shoulder wound. Lucia took out three men before catching a ricochet across her ribs. But we were holding on, barely.
Then Enzo grabbed my arm, dragging me toward a side room. "Now!"
We crashed through a window, landing on a fire escape, bullets whipping past. Down the metal stairs, into an alley and...
A figure stepped out of the shadows, blocking our path. Isabella Russo, looking worse for wear but very much alive and behind her were more armed men.
"Hello, Aria," she said, smiling that predator smile. "Luca sends his regards and a message." "What message?" Enzo growled.
"He still has your mother and if you want to see her alive, you'll come to his Paris estate tomorrow at noon." She pulled out a phone, showing us a video.
My mother, still bound, but now with visible injuries and fresh blood on her face. "He's losing patience," Isabella continued. "So here's the deal. Aria comes alone, unarmed and surrenders herself. Or he starts sending her back to you in pieces. Your choice and you have eighteen hours."
Then she was gone, melting back into the shadows with her soldiers, leaving us standing in the alley with our weapons and our impossible choices.
"We don't have eighteen hours," a new voice said. I spun. Dahlia stood at the alley entrance, phone in hand and her face pale.
"What?" I demanded. "Sofia," she said. "Enzo's ex-girlfriend. She's in Paris and she's looking for you both."
The name hit me like ice water. Enzo had mentioned her once, briefly, dismissing her as ancient history. But the way his entire body went rigid told me there was nothing ancient about it.
"How do you know?" he asked, his voice carefully controlled. "Because she just contacted me," Dahlia said, turning her phone around.
On the screen was a photo of Enzo and me, taken through a long lens and a message: Found them. Coming for what's mine. —Sofia.
"Who is she?" I asked, but I already knew I wasn't going to like the answer. Enzo's jaw was granite. "Someone I thought I'd left behind. Someone dangerous and someone who has very specific ideas about what belongs to her."
"Meaning what?" His eyes met mine and I saw something there I'd never seen before: actual fear.
"Meaning," he said slowly, "that between Luca, your father and now Sofia, Paris just became the most dangerous city in the world for both of us." And as sirens wailed in the distance and my mother's blood dripped on a screen somewhere in the city, I realized with crystal clarity that this nightmare was only getting started.