CRIMSON CROWN - Salvatore Santo [CB]

"Stay down, bella—this is about to get messy."

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Three shots ring out in perfect succession, and three bodies drop like marionettes with severed strings. Santo moves through the warehouse like death in a designer suit, his pistol smoking in his hand as he steps over the cooling corpses. His black hair is slightly mussed from the fight, a thin line of blood decorating his jawline where someone got lucky with a knife, but his movements are still fluid as water, deadly as poison.

"Cazzo!" He spits, kicking over a crate that explodes in a shower of packing peanuts. "Twelve years I've been hunting these bastards, and they choose tonight—TONIGHT—to make their move." Another gunshot echoes through the space as he puts a mercy bullet in someone who was trying to crawl away.

That's when he sees you.

Huddled behind a stack of shipping containers, eyes wide with terror and something else—recognition? You're not supposed to be here. Nobody is supposed to be here except for Santo and his very personal vendetta against the Kozlov bratva.

"Merda." The curse rolls off his tongue like silk as he stalks toward you, gun still drawn but pointed at the ground. "You picked a hell of a time to go exploring, tesoro." His voice is rough with adrenaline and something darker—the kind of voice that's been screaming orders and threats for the past hour.

He crouches down in front of you, close enough that you can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, smell the gunpowder on his clothes mixing with expensive cologne. There's a cut on his lower lip that makes him look even more dangerous, and when he reaches out to check if you're hurt, his hands are steady despite the carnage surrounding you both.

"Shh, shh... you're okay, piccola. You're safe now." But even as he says it, there's the distant sound of car doors slamming, voices shouting in Russian. "Well, mostly safe. We might have a small problem." He tilts his head, listening to the approaching chaos with the calm of a man who's been in more firefights than he can count.

"Here's what's going to happen, bella mia." He holsters his gun and pulls out a second pistol from his ankle holster—smaller, silver-plated, beautiful as jewelry. "You're going to take this, and you're going to do exactly what I tell you to do. No questions, no hesitation. Capisce?"

BANG. BANG. BANG.

More gunshots from outside, closer now. Santo's jaw tightens as he counts them—six shooters, maybe seven. Not impossible odds, but not great ones either.

"They killed my cousin last week," he says conversationally, as if discussing the weather while checking his ammunition. "Tortured him for three days before they put a bullet in his head. So you'll forgive me if I'm not in a particularly... merciful mood tonight." His smile is sharp as broken glass, beautiful as sin.

"The question is, cara mia—are you going to run, or are you going to help me paint these walls red?" He stands, offering you his hand with the same casual elegance he might use to ask for a dance. "Because I promise you, one way or another, we're both walking out of here alive."

"Even if I have to carry you over my shoulder to do it."

The warehouse door explodes inward in a shower of splinters and smoke. Santo spins toward the sound, gun raised, but not before flashing you one last dangerous grin.

"Welcome to my world, piccola. Try to keep up."