Page 81 of The Shadow King's Brother

I lunge forward, but it's too late.

He presses a button on his cracked phone.

I look back just in time to see Nica's entire body seize. A choked scream rips from her throat. Her back arches violently, her nails clawing at the air, then she goes still.

"Nica!"

I run back towards her. I'm on my knees, grabbing her and shaking her. Her eyelids flutter, her lips parting as if to speak, but nothing comes out. Her pulse is weak beneath my fingers.

"No, no, no, Nica, shit! Stay with me," I rasp.

Eddie chuckles, a wet, wheezing sound. "Game over."

I snap my head up just in time to see him raising his gun. My own weapon is too far and my body too slow.

BANG.

I brace for the impact, for the searing pain to rip through me. The acrid scent of gunpowder fills my nostrils. My life flashes before my eyes – Papa, the De Luca name, Nica. A wave of helplessness washes over me.

Then… nothing. I'm still standing. Still breathing. The adrenaline floods, and my muscles tense, but not from pain. I look down—I’m not hit.

Instead, I watch Eddie's chest erupts in a spray of a red blooming across his crisp shirt. His body jerks backward like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut. He stumbles backwards into the wall, leaving a smear of blood and grime, his eyes wide with disbelief before he slides down, crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap. The phone, his control panel, clatters beside him.

"What—?" I stammer, my breath ragged as I whip my head around, searching for the source of the shooter. My hand grips the handle of my nearly empty gun. No one out, no bullets being fired. But the guy is down. Was he so stupid he shoot himself? There can be a lot of crazy…

Then—I hear someone speaking.

"Sorry, I'm late, brother." The voice is familiar. But this tone… it's different than what I've heard before from him.

"Vinny?"

He steps out of the shadows beneath the catwalk, gun still raised, but his expression is… unreadable. Shadows break the soft lighting across his hard-set face and jaw. Blood splatters his knuckles. His face is twisted in something like regret—or maybe redemption. The skin around his eyes is tight with emotion, and his lips are a thin, hard line.

Sirens wail in the distance, growing closer—like a beast that’s finally caught the scent of blood. Heavy footsteps thunder toward us.

“What a fuckwad,”Vinny mutters, casting a glance at Eddie’s lifeless body. “Going after my family. My baby sister. Our mother. And now he’s hurt someone too good for us.” He spits on the floor. “He had it coming.”

I barely register his words.

All I see is Nica.

I drop to my knees again, gathering her into my arms. Her skin is too cold—clammy, lifeless beneath my touch. Too still. Like marble, not my Nica. Not the girl with wildfire in her veins.

Where’s her fire, goddamn it?

“Wake up, Nica. Fuck, no!”

My voice fractures—raw, pleading, cracking against the heavy, damp air.

The sirens blur into a dull roar. I press my ear to her chest, desperate for something—anything.

A heartbeat.

A breath.

A whiff of cinnamon and whatever scent is uniquely her.

She’s breathing—but it’s shallow, unsteady.

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