BLOOD ON ANCIENT STONES

BLOOD ON ANCIENT STONES
Isabella POV

My blood pools on Sicily's ancient stones, dark red against weathered marble that has witnessed two thousand years of violence and love and death. Marco's hands shake as he tears strips from his shirt, but not from fear—from something deeper, something that makes his breathing ragged and his eyes bright with unshed tears.

"Stay with me," he whispers, his voice rough as Mediterranean wind through olive groves. "Isabella, stay with me."

The bullet grazed bone, sending fire through my shoulder every time I move. But it's Marco's expression that steals my breath—overwhelming love threatening to crack his chest open right here on these clifftop ruins.

"I'm not going anywhere." The words taste of copper and determination. "We're getting out of this together."

Above us, Elena's voice echoes off ancient stone, directing her soldiers with the precision of someone who's orchestrated death across three continents. Her network is closing in like a net designed to catch specific prey.

Marco helps me to my feet, his touch gentle despite the urgency pounding in our veins. "There's a safe house in Taormina. Someone who owes me a favor."

We stumble across broken columns and fallen archways, Sicily's history crumbling beneath our desperate flight. My shoulder screams with each step, but Elena's approaching footsteps hurt worse than any bullet wound.

The motorcycle hidden beneath olive branches is older than both of us, but Marco's hands move over its controls like muscle memory. I wrap my good arm around his waist, pressing my face against his back as he kicks the engine to life.

Sicily blurs past in Mediterranean sunlight—vineyards and ancient towns and roads that have carried lovers and killers since Rome ruled the world. But Elena's black sedans follow like hunting wolves, closing distance with professional precision.

"Who owes you a favor?" I shout over wind and engine noise.

Marco's shoulders tense beneath my arms. "Someone from before. Before you. Before I understood the difference between survival and living."

The safe house sits in Taormina's old quarter, stone walls thick enough to stop bullets and secrets alike. But when Marco pounds on the wooden door, the man who answers looks at us like ghosts he never expected to see again.

"Diavolo," the man breathes, using Marco's old street name. "Elena said you were dead."

"Elena says many things." Marco's voice carries warning that makes the man step back. "Salvatore, we need help."

Salvatore's eyes flick to me, taking in my bloodied shoulder and the way I lean against Marco for support. Recognition dawns in his weathered features—not of my face, but of what I represent.

"The Torrino princess." His voice holds mixture of awe and fear. "Madonna mia, Marco. What have you done?"

"What I had to do." Marco pushes past Salvatore into the safe house, supporting my weight as we cross the threshold. "Isabella needs medical attention."

The interior smells of wine and old sins, furnished with pieces that belong in museums rather than hideouts. Salvatore follows us, his footsteps heavy with implications I don't understand yet.

"Elena's been looking for you both," Salvatore says as Marco helps me onto a leather couch that probably cost more than most people's cars. "Her people are everywhere. Airports, train stations, even the old smuggling routes."

Marco's jaw clenches as he examines my shoulder wound. "How many people does she have in Sicily?"

"More than you can fight." Salvatore moves to an antique liquor cabinet, pouring amber liquid into crystal glasses with hands that shake slightly. "She's calling in markers from twenty years of careful cultivation. Half of Palermo's underworld owes her favors."

I watch Marco's face as this information sinks in. He's calculating odds and escape routes and the mathematics of keeping me alive when the entire island wants us dead.

"There's something else," Salvatore continues, his voice dropping to confessional whispers. "She's not just hunting you. She's mobilizing for something bigger. Ships leaving Palermo tonight. Enough firepower to level city blocks."

Marco's hands still against my wounded shoulder. "Chicago."

"She's moving against Vittorio." Salvatore nods grimly. "Full-scale war. The kind that leaves nothing standing."

The realization hits like physical blows. While we've been running through ancient ruins and bleeding on sacred stones, Elena's been orchestrating Papa's destruction. She never intended to kill us quietly—she wanted us to watch Chicago burn before we died.

"We have to warn him," I say, struggling to sit up despite the fire in my shoulder. "Papa doesn't know what's coming."

Marco's expression turns grim. "He won't believe us. Not after everything that's happened."

"Then we go back." The words taste like desperation and necessary courage. "We go back and fight beside him."

Salvatore's laugh is bitter as winter wine. "You're not going anywhere, princess. Not unless Marco proves he's still Elena's weapon instead of your lapdog."

The temperature in the room drops twenty degrees. Marco's voice carries warning that makes hardened criminals step back. "What did you say?"

"Elena's orders." Salvatore's hand moves toward his concealed weapon with practiced casualness. "Bring the girl. Kill Marco if he resists. Prove loyalty through blood."

More men emerge from shadowed doorways—professional killers with dead eyes and automatic weapons. Marco was right to trust Salvatore's loyalty, but wrong about where that loyalty pointed.

"She said you'd gone soft," Salvatore continues, his weapon now openly displayed. "Said love had made you weak. Made you forget who saved you from Naples' gutters."

Marco positions himself between the guns and me, his body language shifting into something predatory and dangerous. But there are too many of them, and I'm wounded, and the mathematics of violence don't favor desperate love over professional planning.

"Last chance, Diavolo." Salvatore's voice carries the weight of old friendship and newer betrayals. "Prove you're still Elena's weapon. Put a bullet in the Torrino bitch, and we'll pretend this never happened."

Marco's hand moves to his concealed pistol, muscle memory from years of necessary killing. But his eyes meet mine across the room, and I see the war happening in his soul—between the boy Elena saved and the man I made him become.

"Choose wisely," Salvatore adds, his smile cold as Sicilian winters. "Elena's already lost one weapon to sentiment. She won't lose another."

The gun appears in Marco's grip like deadly magic, its weight familiar as breathing. But instead of pointing it at me, he holds it steady at his side—not aimed at anyone, not yet committed to any choice.

"Isabella," he says quietly, his voice carrying love and regret in equal measure. "Close your eyes."