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Valentina and Luca tore through the facility walkways with only eight minutes remaining on the countdown. The figure resonated in their minds like a funeral bell. The building creaked in on them, little fires starting to burn at the walls. With each step they took, it seemed to them the shook up tremored under their feet.

Brutally efficient they bashed their way through Marco’s few remaining defenders. A man emerged around a corner, gun drawn and at the ready. Luca did not hesitate. He shot twice and the man fell. Out from a doorway stepped another, to prevent them from passing further. Valentina took the shot without pause, her hand not even shaking despite how fear flowed through her. They advanced as though they were machines, plowing through the madness and blood and smoke that was everywhere in the passageways.

Before their very eyes, the north wing loomed like deliverance. There were long hallways in both directions, but they knew which way to go. Elena had told them. Third floor. Two stairs at a time, their legs burning from the effort. Behind them, the compound still shook. The walls caught fire and spread like creatures. The thick smell of smoke was in the air.

There was no noise in the hallway on the third floor. Too quiet. After all that violence, the silence felt wrong. In the far wall there was a huge blast steel reinforced door with no way of opening it from their side. It looked impossible to open. Luca had no time for doubt. He shot at the lock over and over until it finally gave way to the precise aim of his shots. Sparks showered from the broken lock. And then with all his might, he booted the door, and his body crashed hard against it. The door burst open inward, off its hinges.

Inside the room, Valentina found her sister and friends sitting in chairs, bound and gagged; their eyes were wide with both terror and relief. Kennedy was sobbing silently, her face awash with tears. Liv was shaking so hard her whole body quivered. Alecia's green eyes so similar to her own pinned onto hers in desperate hope. They were alive. All of them were still alive.

And in a big, soft chair on the opposite side of the room was Marco.

He looked fragile now, nothing like the monster from the tales. A tank of oxygen stood next to his chair, tubing looping under his nostrils. His white hair was thin. His hands were age-stained. But he sat back with gleaming eyes of satisfaction as they filed in. He smiled down at them as if he was an old grandfather welcoming his children to one last visit in his home.

“Valentina,” he whispered, the sound of his voice rough but unmistakable. "Luca. Perfect timing for the final performance.”

Valentina went to Alecia and attempted to undo the ropes that were around her wrists. They were tight and complicated knots, but her fingers worked at them frantically. She fumbled with the knot of the gag in her sister’s mouth, yanking the cloth free. Alecia was breathing heavily, her jaw moving as she struggled to speak. Lucas held the gun on Marco with a loose, but steady hand to stun him still; his blue eyes at once frigid and steely. His finger was just in touch with the trigger.

“It’s six minutes before the compound will blow,” Marco went on pleasantly, as though he were talking about the weather or the taste of wine. "Everyone dies together. Unless you want to hear my last offer.”

Luca answered with absolutely no inflection in his voice. “You have zero to offer.”

Marco coughed, his lips speckled with blood. He wiped it away with the thin hand and studied the blood on his fingers as if it were something curious. "I know the master deactivation code by heart. I will give it to you freely. For nothing more than this.”

Valentina completed untying her sister and supported Alecia to shaky feet. Her hand was held tightly by her sister. She looked at her grandfather directly, green gaze meeting dark.

“We’re not bargaining with you any more,” Valentina replied, fear turning her blood into ice water despite the firmness in her voice.

Something very like pride lighted Marco's eyes. "Not a negotiation. A confession. I want you to confess it, Valentina. Confess that we are both alike. That you would protect what is yours no matter what. That you would murder for it without a second thought. That darkness is exists in you as it does in me.”

Valentina was looking at him and suddenly everything became clear. All of this. The rage and the schemes and the last-ditch plans. It was never really about the baby. It wasn’t like the intention had ever been to thwart her or Luca. It was to be proving something awful about Isabella’s daughters. It was about showing that they bore his corruption in their blood.

“This was never about the baby, not really,” Valentina said softly, realisation dawning on her. “This wasn’t about proving Isabella’s daughters are as dark you were.”

Marco grinned, a grin of no-mean victory and satisfaction. "I have the code memorized. Kill me, and there’s a body in this building for every one of us. If I may walk out free, then I'll give it to you."

Four minutes left on the clock. The structure swayed and quivered as several sharp pops of the smaller explosions popped off in the sand beneath them. Choking clouds of dust descended from the ceiling. The walls formed deep, lengthy cracks that traveled like spiderwebs. The earth shivered beneath them.

Kennedy, sobbing uncontrollably and her voice shaking. "Val, just do what he says! Please! We are going to die! Please!"
"No help for it." Alecia's voice sliced through her fear, strong and steady despite the quaking that shivered up and down her body. "Do not. Don’t let him win. Don’t let him turn you into a killer.”

Luca advanced and handed him his gun. The pain in his wound had tightened his jaw, but he spoke steadily enough. "I will kill him. Let me be the monster. It doesn't have to be on you or your conscience."

Valentina grabbed the gun out of Luca's hands. She strode purposefully across the room toward her grandfather. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The baby inside of her kicked, almost as if it could feel the danger. She began to lift the pistol and aimed it at his chest. The tip of her finger grazed the trigger. Marco stared at her in fascination, wondering if she was going to do it. His eyes sparkled with the hope that she would make good his prophecy.

Long seconds passed. The building shook again. Three minutes remained. In their heads, the countdown ticked on, like a bomb.

Valentina slowly lowered the gun.

“No,” she said softly and whispered something Marco would never comprehend. You don’t get to turn me into you. That one’s not the win you want. “We don’t get to prove your darkness lives in me.”

Marco’s face contorted with undiluted rage. He parted his lips, maybe to damn her, maybe to chuckle. And yet a second later he pounced out of his chair with an unexpected swiftness that contradicted his frail look. A knife was in his hand, unseen till this instant. He was as fast as a man half his age. His target was Valentina's pregnant belly where the baby lay kicking and growing.

Glavovic had no qualms in sacrificing himself for that. The knife buried deep into his side, passing through the gap between his ribs with a wet noise. Alecia screamed. Kennedy screamed. Liv screamed. It’s what filled up the room and the world.

Valentina reacted on pure instinct. She fired the gun. The bullet hit Marco directly in the chest. He fell backward, his body convulsing from the bullet wound, a red pool soon blooming on his white shirt. He stared at the blood in shock, as if he could not believe it.

Luca collapsed.

Valentina was at his side in an instant, on her knees. With desperate hands she pressed down upon the bleeding wound. Her hands were wet and red. So much blood. Too much blood.

“No, no, no, please,” she pleaded under broken voice. "Please, Luca. Stay with me."

Marco, bleeding out on the floor in front of them, chuckled wetly. The sound was awful and off. "See? You ARE like me. A killer. "I mean, same as ―” His eyes blurred. Lifeless. Empty. The laugh died in his throat.

Elena entered the room, flanked on both sides by guards, her expression urgent as hell. The sirens grew louder outside. Kennedy dropped beside Luca at once and set to work upon the wound in a nervous and trembling way. She had gotten some basic medical training years ago, and suddenly it all came back to her in a frenetic rush.

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Kennedy said, her voice hard with command even as she was filled with terror. "Right now. The bleeding is not stopping. We need emergency transport immediately."

Sirens were heard in the distance, then coming closer. Fire trucks. Ambulances. Police cars. The sound of salvation arriving too late and yet somehow just in time.

And the girl, Valentina, now fully coated in Luca's blood would not release his hand. That she held it as they hoisted him onto a stretcher. She gripped it as they transported him through the halls. She took it as Elena led her outside into the crisp night.

The compound erupted behind them as they sprinted toward the ambulance. Flares rocketed into the air in giant columns of fire. The structure collapsed in a pile of rubble. It was all fire and smoke and chaos and destruction.

But Valentina had held Luca’s hand, and she had not let go.