The floor of the guest cottage was cold, covered in a jagged carpet of shattered glass and drywall dust. Aria lay flat on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the rough wood, breathing in the sll of ozone and copper.
Above her, Damien was a heavy, protective weight. He had thrown himself over her the second the window exploded, shielding her body with his own. She could feel his heart hamring against her back—not erratic with panic, but steady and furious, like a war drum.
"Stay down," Damien breathed into her ear, his voice a low vibration that traveled through her spine. "He’s adjusting for wind. The next shot will be lower."
Aria didn’t argue. In her past life, she had learned to survive by being invisible. In this life, she was learning to survive by trusting the wolf on top of her.
"The Ghost," she whispered, looking toward the center of the room.
The hacker lay in a crumpled heap near the server racks. The single bullet hole in his chest was precise, a dark bloom on his grey hoodie. His burner phone lay just inches from his lifeless hand, the screen still glowing faintly in the dusty air.
[Run. They found you.]
"He’s dead," Damien confird, glancing up. "Clean shot. Heart. Whoever is on that ridge isn’t a amateur."
"The phone," Aria hissed. "We need the phone, Damien. It’s the only link we have to the Vipers. If we leave it, the police—or Lydia’s cleaners—will wipe it."
Damien looked at the phone. It was five feet away. Five feet of open space directly in the line of sight of the shattered window.
"Too risky," Damien growled. "Kai needs to suppress the shooter first."
He tapped his earpiece. "Kai. Status."
"Pinned down by the generator!" Kai’s voice crackled back, sounding breathless but strangely exhilarated. "This guy is good, Damien. He’s using high-velocity rounds. He just turned my side-mirror into confetti. I can’t get a clear shot at the ridge."
"We need an exit," Damien said calmly. "Create a diversion."
"A diversion? I’m fresh out of smoke grenades, brother. I packed light for a ’simple interrogation’."
"Improvise," Damien ordered.
Aria looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the server racks against the wall. The ones she had unplugged earlier.
"The generator," she whispered.
Damien looked down at her. "What?"
"The cottage runs on an external generator," Aria said, her mind racing. "The Ghost was running high-power servers. That generator isn’t a standard model. It’s industrial. It has a reserve fuel tank."
She pointed to the thick black cables running through the wall.
"If Kai shoots the external tank," Aria said, "it won’t just make noise. It will create a wall of black smoke."
Damien’s golden eyes widened slightly. He relayed the order instantly. "Kai. The generator unit on the east wall. Put a round in the fuel tank."
"You want to blow up the power source while you’re still inside?" Kai asked. "Bold strategy."
"Just do it."
"On your mark."
Damien shifted his weight, preparing to move. He looked at Aria. "When it blows, I grab the phone. You head for the back door. Do not wait for ."
"No," Aria said, her hand gripping his forearm. "You’re the bigger target. He’s aiming for you. I’m smaller. I’m faster."
She didn’t wait for him to agree.
"Now, Kai!" Damien shouted.
BOOM.
Outside, a deafening explosion rocked the ground. A split second later, the room went dark as the power cut, followed imdiately by billowing clouds of thick, acrid black smoke pouring in through the shattered window.
Aria moved.
She scrambled across the floor on her hands and knees, staying below the smoke layer. She ignored the glass slicing into her palms. She reached the body of the Ghost.
Her fingers closed around the burner phone. It was warm.
Crack.
A bullet tore through the floorboards inches from her hand. The sniper was firing blind into the smoke.
"Aria!" Damien roared.
He didn’t head for the door. He lunged for her, grabbing her by the back of her jacket and hauling her backward just as another bullet shredded the wood where her head had been.
He pulled her to her feet, keeping her low, and shoved her toward the rear exit.
"Go!"
They burst out the back door into the cool morning air. The smoke from the burning generator was creating a massive black curtain between them and the north ridge.
"Car! Now!" Kai scread, waving from the driver’s seat of the SUV, which he had idled around the corner of the building.
They sprinted. Aria’s lungs burned. Her boots slamd against the gravel. She threw herself into the back seat, Damien diving in right behind her.
"Drive!"
Kai slamd on the gas. The SUV fish-tailed, gravel spraying, before gripping the dirt road and rocketing away into the forest cover.
Aria slumped against the leather seat, gasping for air. Her hands were shaking violently. She looked down. She was clutching the burner phone so hard her knuckles were white.
"We got it," she wheezed, holding it up.
Damien was leaning back, staring at the ceiling of the car. He looked over at her. His gaze dropped to her hands. There was blood on her palms from the glass.
He reached out, taking her hands in his. He didn’t care about the blood staining his clothes. He just inspected the cuts, his expression dark.
"You have a bad habit of bleeding for ," he murmured.
"I have a habit of winning," Aria corrected, her voice shaky but defiant. "We have the phone. We have the text. We have the na."
"The Vipers," Kai said from the front seat, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. "I’ve heard rumors. They’re not a local gang, Damien. They’re international. Arms dealing, corporate espionage, assassinations. If Lydia is on their payroll... she’s not just a socialite with a grudge. She’s an asset."
Aria looked at the phone in her hand. The screen had gone dark.
"She killed my mother," Aria whispered. "It wasn’t personal. It was business. My mother found out sothing, didn’t she? Sothing about the company. And the Vipers took her out to put Lydia in place."
"It seems Vale Entertainnt was being used for more than just movies," Damien said grimly. "Money laundering. Smuggling. Lydia needed control."
He looked at Aria.
"You realize what this ans?"
Aria nodded slowly. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a cold pit of dread in her stomach.
"It ans my face-slapping war with Bella just turned into a war with a cartel," she said.
"It ans," Damien corrected, pulling her into his side and wrapping his arm around her, "that you need to stop walking into rooms alone. From now on, you don’t move without a shadow."
Aria rested her head on his shoulder. She didn’t argue. The bullet hole in the floorboard was still fresh in her mind.
"Fine," she agreed softly. "But only if my shadow is you."
Damien kissed the top of her head.
"Always."
Kai glanced in the rearview mirror. He let out a long breath.
"Well," Kai muttered to himself. "At least the wedding won’t be boring."
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