Anastasia woke up, her eyes fluttered open slowly. She reached out to the other side of the bed, but the space was cold and empty. Matteo was gone. She knew he had been gone for hours when she couldn't find him at night. She could feel the lack of his oppressive, burning heat in the room.
A pang of unwanted curiosity hit her... where had he gone in the dead of night, wounded and bleeding, and why?
She forced herself upright, her back screaming in protest. As she sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes caught the matte black handgun resting on the nightstand. It looked like a gleaming predator.
She picked it up. It felt impossibly heavy in her hands. She inhaled, she could smell the steel, the old blood, and the death wrapped around it.
If Matteo was right about her mother's killers being back to finish the job, she couldn't afford to be weak anymore.
