(Isla's POV)
Luciano pushed me so fast my knees scraped the floor. The gunshots were still ringing in my ears, sharp and violent. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. All I knew was that this man, this stranger who somehow knew my real name had shoved me to the ground like my life depended on it.
"Stay down!" he barked, covering me with his body.
My heartbeat roared like thunder. My hands shook so badly I could barely press them to the floor to keep myself still.
"Who's shooting?" I cried. "What's happening?"
Luciano didn't answer. His head snapped toward the back of the mansion, eyes sharp like a hunter who sensed danger before anyone else. He was completely still, listening.
Then,
Silence.
Just silence.
It wasn't normal silence. It was the heavy kind that made everything feel wrong.
Luciano lifted off me slowly, but his hand stayed tight around my arm. His grip was firm, warm, unshakable.
"Don't move," he warned.
I didn't. Mostly because I couldn't. My legs felt like wet noodles.
A voice crackled through a nearby security radio.
"All clear! Repeat, all clear! That was the drill: faulty timing, sir!"
Drill?
Luciano's jaw tightened. So hard I thought he might break a tooth.
A drill.
Not real gunshots.
Not danger.
Not death coming for me.
My entire chest collapsed with shaky relief, but my relief didn't match Luciano's reaction. His eyes burned with anger: cold, controlled anger that told me someone was about to get fired. Or worse.
He stood up in one sharp motion and pulled me up with him. I stumbled into his chest, and for a second, I felt his heart beating fast under his shirt. Not slow. Not calm.
Fast.
The Ice King wasn't as calm as he looked.
He stepped back, his face snapping back into that stone-cold expression I'd seen earlier.
"It was a drill?" I whispered, still shaking. "So… we weren't in danger?"
He didn't answer me. Not right away.
Instead, he looked down at my arm at where his fingers were still gripping me. He let go like he hadn't realized he was holding on so tight.
"My apologies," he said stiffly. "The security team made a mistake."
A mistake.
A mistake that almost made me faint.
A mistake that made this man drag me like a ragdoll.
He then studied me closely: too closely, like he was checking if I was hurt, or worse… checking if I saw something I wasn't supposed to.
"Are you injured?" he asked.
"No," I whispered. "Just… scared."
His eyes softened for half a second, then hardened again.
"You should leave," he said. "Before anything real happens tonight."
"Leave? I can't leave!" I snapped. "My sister"
"Your sister is exactly why you should go."
I blinked. "What does Gianna have to do with this?"
Luciano didn't answer. Instead he leaned forward, his face inches from mine, his voice low and sharp.
"I know who you are, Isla Torres."
I froze.
It felt like every bone in my body turned into ice.
No one here knew my real last name.
No one was supposed to know.
"How…how do you know that?" I whispered.
Luciano didn't blink. "I know a lot of things. But that name is dangerous. For you. For everyone near you."
"I don't understand," I said, fear tightening my throat.
"You don't have to," he replied, his voice firm. "You only need to understand this: tonight is not normal. Something is coming. And I don't want you caught in it."
His words wrapped around my chest like a rope.
"Why me?" I whispered. "Why are you warning me? You don't even know me."
He didn't move for a long moment. His eyes ran across my face slowly, almost carefully, like he was memorizing every part of it.
"You look just like her," he whispered.
"Like who?" I asked.
But he stepped back and didn't answer.
Before I could ask again, the mansion doors swung open and a group of guards came rushing toward him.
"Sir, we apologize! Someone pressed the wrong sequence"
Luciano raised one hand. Just one.
All of them shut up instantly.
He didn't yell. He didn't threaten. He didn't even look at them. But the air around him felt like a warning.
He turned to me again.
"Do not wander off alone," he said. "If anything happens, find me. Immediately."
"I still don't understand what's happening."
"You will," he said quietly. "Soon."
He walked away without another word.
And I stood there, shaking, more confused than ever