Chapter 9 Chapter 8 – Mother of Monsters

The armored SUV tore through the underground garage like a bullet through bone, tires screaming against concrete slick with Luca Moretti’s blood and Elena’s own. Alessandro cradled her against his chest, one massive hand clamped over the knife wound in her side, the other fisted in her hair as if sheer willpower could keep her heart beating. Blood pulsed hot and steady between his fingers, soaking through the torn fabric of her black dress and pooling on the leather seat in thick, glossy puddles that smelled of copper and the faint metallic edge of impending death. Every jolt of the vehicle drove the pain deeper—white-hot, jagged, carving through muscle and scraping rib until her vision fractured into black stars and