"Anneliese, I said I was sorry!" she sobbed, her voice carrying through the marble corridor with theatrical precision. "I even knelt to you, but you're still being so cruel—do you really want me dead that badly?!"
Employees—soldiers in expensive suits, associates who knew better than to interfere in Family business—turned to stare.
"If you want me dead so bad, then fine!" Piper staggered to her feet, swaying dramatically. "I'll die for your mother! I'll pay the blood debt myself!"
She lurched toward the wall as if to crack her own skull against the marble.
"Piper!"
A figure rushed forward from the corner of my vision—broad shoulders, expensive cologne, the familiar silhouette that had once meant safety and love.
Colino.
He caught her in his arms, pulling her against his chest like she was something precious. Something worth protecting.
Then he turned, and his shoulder slammed into me with the force of a man who'd learned violence at his father's knee.
I wasn't prepared.
My head whipped back, cracking against the elevator's brass railing with a sickening thud that echoed through my skull.
The world tilted on its axis.