Time had stopped for Dante.

Since the doors had closed behind the stretcher carrying Svetlana, he hadn’t looked away. He stood there, unmoving, like a predator lying in wait—but his chest was tight with a kind of anguish he didn’t know how to contain. His mind clung to a single thought:

Is she still alive?

The hallway of the private hospital was cold and impersonal, lit by harsh fluorescent lights that clashed with the dried blood on his hands. Her blood. Svetlana’s blood.

Fabio stayed close, w