Page 137 of Knights Game

“Luca—” I look to the doorway, my heart racing.

“I need Luca to move him somewhere safe. If they still think he has it, they will continue to target him.” I run through the penthouse to his study.

I burst through the door, my breath ragged, only to be met with a sight that shocks me to my core. The ground beneath me feels as though it’s been torn away, and I fall into the door frame for support.

Time slows to a crawl.

Blood splatters across the bookcase behind him, ruining the beautifully bound leather books. My pulse rapid, my breathing shallow as pain rips through my chest so much that I’m convinced it’s cracked open.

My knees weaken, threatening to collapse as the weight of seeing Luca motionless, slumped over his desk.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

“No. No, no, no! Roman.”

I barely recognise the shrill panic of my voice.

A woman dressed in black, with a dangerous elegance about her stands with her phone raised snapping a picture as if it’s a normal day out at the park and she’s making a memory.

My heart pounds erratically, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I need a weapon. Something—anything—to defend myself. My fingers close around a heavy ornament, and I launch it as hard as I can at the woman who has just killed the person I love more than anything in this world.

Because I do.

I love that man.

Moving with a grace so fluid it’s almost inhuman, she ducks out the way, and the ornament smashes into the wall behind her, shattering into a storm of shards that rain down with my tears.

She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow, her piercing icy blue eyes fixate on me, studying me as if I’m a puzzle that she needs to solve.

“Really?”

My legs finally give way, and I crumple to the floor as a sob claws at my throat. My ears roar with the sound of my own blood pumping through me.

“You must be Layla Johnson.” Her voice seeps through the chaos of my mind, distorted and muted.

I blink through the unshed tears, and it’s as if I’m having a weird out of body experience, I’m looking down on myself, broken on the office floor. My heart breaking.

“Just shoot me already.” I hear myself say the words, but I don’t remember saying them, I clench my eyes shut, waiting for the darkness to erase the pain that makes it hard to breath.

“You better be fucking joking that you’re giving up that easily, sunshine.”

The familiar voice, his voice pierces through the fog. I blink. Luca crouches in front of me, alive, the smudge of red on his cheek glaring like a cruel joke.

He puts his hand out, and I just stare at him.

“Layla, meet Kara Snow.”

My gaze drifts down to my hands, shaking and smeared with a sticky red substance that glistens like blood, but it feels off. It’s too thick, too gooey.

“This is fake? What the fuck is going on!”

“Nice to meet you.” Kara sticks out her hand with a serene smile, it feels out of place, it’s feels absurd, and I can only starebetween the pair of them. Torn between rage, confusion, and relief at seeing him breathing. With stupid fake blood on his, stupid handsome face.

“I thought you were dead.” Tears fill my eyes again. “I thought you were—”

“He needs to be dead, as do you.”

I search his eyes, his face, his handsome stupid face with fake blood running over it. I reach out and run my finger over the fake bullet wound on his head.

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