"Look, if you want to talk about?—"
"I don't want to talk to you about anything." She stands up from where she was crouched by the gun safe, brushing dust off her knees. "I want you to leave me alone."
"Not happening, and you know it."
She looks at me for a long moment, and I can see something calculating in her expression. Something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"We'll see about that," she says quietly.
That's when I know today is going to be different.
I'm proven right four hours later when Sofia excuses herself to use the bathroom at RRE and doesn't come back.
"Shit," I mutter, checking my watch. She's been gone twelve minutes—far too long for a bathroom break. I signal to Luca and Dario, and we move toward the women's restroom.
"Sofia?" I call out, knocking on the door. "Everything okay in there?"
Silence.
"Princess, you've got ten seconds before I come in there."
Still nothing.
I push open the door and immediately see the problem. The window is wide open, and there's no Sofia in sight.
"Fucking hell," I breathe, rushing to the window. We're on the second floor, but there's a fire escape right outside. Of course she found the one bathroom with an actual escape route.
I stick my head out the window and see her—three buildings away and moving fast across the rooftops. She's wearing dark clothing and moving with purpose, like she's planned this route a hundred times in her head.
Which, knowing Sofia, she probably has.
"Luca, stay here and coordinate with Vito. Dario, take the stairs and try to cut her off at street level," I bark, already swinging my leg over the windowsill. "I'm going after her."
The fire escape groans under my weight as I take the stairs three at a time. By the time I reach the roof, Sofia has a significant head start, but I can still see her silhouette against the late afternoon sky.
She's fast, I'll give her that. And she's not running in a straight line—she's zigzagging between buildings, using air conditioning units and ventilation systems as cover. This isn't a panicked flight; this is strategic.
My phone buzzes with a text from Marco:Roadblocks at all major intersections. She won't get far.
But as I watch Sofia leap across a narrow alley to the next building, landing in a perfect roll that tells me she's practiced this, I'm not so sure.
I push myself harder, using my longer stride to close the gap between us. My shoulder throbs where the debris hit me during the attack, but I ignore it. The only thing that matters is catching her before she does something that gets her killed.
Three buildings later, I'm close enough to shout. "Sofia! Stop!"
She glances back at me, and even from this distance, I can see the determination in her face. She's not stopping. If anything, my proximity seems to spur her on.
She reaches the edge of the building and I realize with horror what she's planning. There's a parking garage across the street—not another building, but a four-story structure with a concrete roof. The gap is too wide. No one could make that jump.
"Sofia, don't!" I bellow, putting on a burst of speed that burns my lungs.
But she's already backing up, getting a running start. I can see her calculating the distance, the trajectory, the risk. And I can see in her posture that she's going to try it anyway.
Time seems to slow as she runs toward the edge. I'm still twenty feet away when she launches herself into the air, arms windmilling as she clears the gap between buildings and crashes onto the parking garage roof in a painful-looking tumble.
She made it. Barely, but she made it.
I skid to a stop at the edge of my building, looking down at the street below and then across at Sofia, who's picking herself up and dusting off her clothes. The jump is possible—I've seen it done—but it's risky as hell, especially for someone her size.
