Chapter 6 Isla

Isla

“Don't make a sound. They found us."

My breath stopped in my lungs. Enrico's grip on my wrist was tight, pulling me down behind the kitchen island. The darkness was absolute, suffocating.

I opened my mouth to ask how they'd found us, but Enrico's hand clamped over it instantly. His palm was warm, calloused, covering the lower half of my face as his body pressed against mine from behind.

"Not a word," he breathed directly into my ear, so quiet it was barely sound at all. "Not a breath louder than you need to survive."

My heart was hammering so hard I was sure whoever was out there could hear it. Surely they could hear it. The frantic drum-beat of pure terror echoing through the dark.

Glass shattered somewhere upstairs. A window, maybe. Or a door. Footsteps creaked across floorboards. heavy boots, multiple sets. At least three. Maybe more.

Enrico's hand left my mouth, trailing down to my shoulder, squeezing once. A message: stay.

Then his warmth disappeared.

I wanted to grab him, to beg him not to leave me alone in this darkness, but I bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste copper. My back pressed against the kitchen cabinet, my knees pulled tight to my chest, making myself as small as possible.

The footsteps moved methodically through the upper floor. I heard furniture being overturned, drawers being yanked open. They were searching. Looking for us. Looking for me.

A floorboard creaked directly above my head.

I pressed my fist against my mouth, stifling the whimper trying to claw its way out. My whole body was shaking, tremors I couldn't control running through every muscle.

Then I heard it, a sound so soft I almost missed it. The whisper of fabric against skin. Enrico moving through the dark like a ghost.

A wet gurgle cut through the silence. A body hit the floor upstairs with a heavy thump.

"Enrico?" A voice called out in accented English. "Enrico, that you?"

Silence.

"Check downstairs," another voice ordered. "And find the girl. She's here somewhere."

Footsteps on the stairs. Coming down. Getting closer.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. My vision had adjusted enough to make out shapes in the darkness, the edge of the counter, the darker shadow that was the doorway to the living room. And there, at the base of the stairs, a silhouette with a gun.

The man moved into the kitchen, his weapon raised, sweeping the space. He was three feet away. Two feet.

Then Enrico rose up behind him.

It happened so fast I barely tracked it. Enrico's arm around the man's throat. The gun clattering to the floor. A brief, desperate struggle that ended with another wet sound and the man going limp.

Enrico lowered the body silently, then his hand found mine in the darkness.

"Can you be quiet?" he whispered, his lips against my ear again.

I nodded, realized he couldn't see me, and managed a breathless, "Yes."

"Then move. Exactly where I put you."

He pulled me up, his hand sliding from my wrist to lace his fingers through mine. The touch was intimate, almost tender, completely at odds with the violence I'd just witnessed. He guided me through the dark, his steps sure and confident like he'd memorized every inch of this space.

We moved toward what I thought was the living room, but instead of continuing forward, Enrico pushed on what felt like a bookshelf. It swung inward with a soft click.

A hidden room.

He pulled me inside, and the space was tiny, barely big enough for both of us to stand. The door clicked shut, and suddenly we were pressed together in absolute darkness, his chest against mine, his breath on my face.

"There's a panic room," he murmured, so quiet I felt the words more than heard them. "But we'd be trapped. This is better. They'll search and leave."

"How many?" I whispered back.

"Started with five. Three left."

He'd killed two men in less than a minute. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, all I could focus on was the heat of his body, the solid reassurance of him between me and whatever was out there.

Footsteps thundered through the cabin. More glass breaking. Someone shouted something in Italian, angry, frustrated.

"She's not here!"

"She has to be. The tracker showed this location."

My blood turned to ice. "Tracker?" I breathed.

Enrico's hand found the back of my neck, tilting my face up toward his in the darkness. "Your necklace. Your mother's cross."

No. No, no, no.

The one piece of Mom I had left.

"When?" The word barely made it past my lips.

The voices outside were getting closer to our hiding spot. I could hear them right outside the wall, so close I could smell cigarette smoke seeping through the cracks.

Enrico's other hand came up, cupping my face. In the darkness, the touch felt magnified—every point of contact sending electricity through my skin.

"Listen to me very carefully," he whispered, his forehead resting against mine now. "If they find us, you run. There's a release panel at the back. It leads to the tunnels. You run and you don't stop until you reach the road. There'll be a car with keys under the mat. You drive until you hit the interstate, then you call the number I'm going to give you."

"No." My hands fisted in his shirt as I grabbed his shirt "I'm not leaving you."

"Isla…”

"I'm not leaving you," I repeated, fiercer this time. "I can't…I don't know how to…” My voice cracked. "Please don't make me run alone."

His hands tightened on my face. "Brave girl," he murmured, and something in his voice made my chest ache. "Stupid, but brave."

"I'm not stupid."

"You're standing in the dark with a killer instead of running for your life. That's pretty stupid, cara."

Despite everything, the terror, the violence, the men hunting us, I  almost laughed. "You said you'd protect me."

"I did. I am." His thumb traced my cheekbone. "That's why you should run if I tell you to."

"No."

"Stubborn."

"Runs in the family, apparently."

The moment stretched between us, charged with something I couldn't name. Or maybe I could name it, and that was worse. Because standing here in the dark, pressed against a man who'd killed five people in the last twelve hours, I felt safer than I had in years.

What did that say about me?

The voices outside moved away, heading back upstairs. I heard more crashing, more shouting. Then, finally, blessed silence.

We stood frozen, barely breathing, for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Enrico's hands never left my face, his forehead still resting against mine like we were sharing breath, sharing space, sharing this impossible moment.

"I think they're gone," I whispered finally.

"Wait."

We waited. Five minutes. Ten. My legs were cramping from standing so still, but I didn't dare move.

Then Enrico's hands slid from my face, and I felt the loss like a physical thing. He pushed the panel open slowly, gun raised, checking the space beyond.

"Clear."

We stepped out into the cabin. Emergency lights had kicked in somewhere, casting everything in a dim red glow that turned the destruction into something from a horror film. Furniture overturned. Books scattered. And two bodies—one at the base of the stairs, one in the upstairs hallway visible from below.

I looked away.

Enrico moved through the space with lethal efficiency, checking windows, securing doors. I watched him work, this man who could kill without hesitation and touch me with unexpected gentleness, and wondered who he really was beneath the violence.

"We need to move," he said, returning to the kitchen. "They'll send reinforcements when this team doesn't report back."

"The necklace." My hand went to my throat again. "I have to…”

"Leave it. We'll use it to our advantage." He was already moving, grabbing supplies from hidden compartments I hadn't known existed. "Get your bag. We leave in three minutes."

I was halfway to my room when I heard it, a phone ringing in the kitchen. Enrico's phone.

I froze on the stairs as his voice carried up. "What? When?"

A pause.

"Cristo." The word was a curse, vicious and sharp. "How bad?"

Another pause, longer this time.

"No. No, absolutely not. I don't care what he…”He stopped abruptly. When he spoke again, his voice had gone flat. Dead. "I understand. We'll be there."

He ended the call.

The silence that followed made my skin crawl.

"Enrico?" I called down. "What happened?"

He appeared at the base of the stairs, and the look on his face made my knees weak.

"Marco's been moved up. They're not waiting until tomorrow." His hands clenched into fists. "They're executing him in three hours."