The bullet had barely missed when the silence shattered again, not from distance this time but from proximity, for the fight had already shifted, already tightened into something far more brutal, far more intimate, and Alessandro did not step back from death—he stepped into it, his body closing the gap before the echo of the shot had faded.
Steel met motion.
Claws met resistance.
The alley narrowed around them as if drawn inward by the violence unfolding within it, and Michele did not retreat, for he dropped the rifle in one clean motion, letting it hang as his hand moved instead to the blade at his side, drawing it free with a smooth, practiced pull, the faint metallic whisper cutting through the air like a promise.
"You're not him," Michele said quietly, his voice low though sharpened now, edged with something older, something that had waited years to surface, and his grip tightened around the blade as his stance shifted, his body lowering, aligning, prepared.
