Chapter 8
Damiano
Dad’s orders are ringing in my ears as I approach the warehouse with Aldo and Giuseppe. Protect Barone assets at all costs. Now is not the time for people to think they can take what belongs to us.
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. No one’s going to take what’s mine.
Power in Malus is shifting. Don Agnello Montoni was a powerful Barone ally, but now he’s dead.
Cristiano Montoni is the new Montoni don, and he hasn’t made his loyalties clear.
To old families, like ours? To his sister’s husband’s family, the Vicis?
Vincenzo Vici places no trust in allies of the man who slaughtered his family, and that could include us if we get too friendly with Don Cristiano.
Meanwhile, the Sokolis are circling us like sharks.
The night is still and silent, until I hear the sound of a rock tumbling across the lot behind me. Aldo and Giuseppe keep walking toward the warehouse, but I turn around and take my gun out, hunting the darkness for any sign of movement.
I know someone has been here because the silent alarms were set off. Surely they can’t still be here.
Behind me, Dad’s soldiers open the heavy warehouse door, turn the lights on, and go inside. Yellow light floods the shadows and illuminates the lot. I keep moving forward, away from the warehouse and toward a stack of pallets to one side of the lot, partly overgrown by weeds.
A telltale shadow is cast across the ground. There’s someone hiding behind those pallets. Fucking hell. Whoever broke in is still here, and I point my gun at them.
From inside the warehouse, I hear, “Aldo, is that a trip w—”
The night is ripped apart.
There’s a deafening explosion, and heat scorches the nape of my neck. I’m flung forward, and I lose my grip on my gun.
Firelight is raging all around me. It’s my goddamn nightmare.
As the fire roars and my head swims, I watch Lucy running into that meth house as it explodes in flames and shattered glass, over and over.
I push myself up onto my elbows and try to get my feet under me. Then there are hands on me, pulling me to my feet. Rough, violent hands.
“The Barone prince himself. Can you believe it, boys? We nearly turned the don’s son into cat food.”
There are nasty snickers all around me. The hands seizing me are decorated with spider tattoos.
Sokolis.
My already racing heart doubles its speed. I have no weapon, and my soldiers are dead. When Dad doesn’t hear from us, he’ll know something’s happened, but it will be too late by then. If the Sokolis are emboldened to set deadly mantraps in our warehouses, I’m screwed.
Someone drives a van into the lot, and they drag me over to it and open the back. The dark, bare, dirty interior yawns like a tomb.
They sit me on the edge of the van with a gun to my head while they argue about my fate.
Torture me, kill me, or ransom me? They look like demons with flames at their backs and the smoke belching into the night sky.
Their shrill laughter and the screams of dying meth addicts echo in my ears.
The stench of burning flesh reaches my nose, and my stomach rolls.
One of the men turns to me and gives me a shove. “Who’s Daddy dear allying with? The Montonis? The Vicis? Or is he going it alone?”
I finally recognize the man looming over me. He has a slight lisp, because once I shoved a fork through his tongue for upsetting Lucy. When I don’t answer, he punches me in the face. I blink and shake my head to clear my vision.
Then I see her.
A woman walking toward us with the warehouse blaze at her back and her body outlined in flames. A vision so beautiful that I can’t breathe.
An angel.
Made from pure fire.
The men surrounding me have no idea she’s behind them. She raises her hand, and for a split second I wonder if she’s beckoning me. If she’s come to take me to heaven.
But I’m not dead, and this isn’t the rapture.
She’s got a gun.
Shots burst in the night. Two of the men crumple to the ground. The third, the Sokoli I warned never to set foot on Barone territory again, starts to turn and raise his gun. To point it at my angel.
With a roar, I ram my fist into the man’s stomach, and then several times in the face, slicing open my knuckles on his teeth.
Wrestling the gun from him, I shoot him twice in the chest. My whole body is shaking.
The fire, the explosion, and the terrible memories have sent adrenaline racing through my body.
There’s a broken bottle on the ground. I snatch it up, hold it by the neck, and thrust the jagged end into the man’s mouth.
“I warned you I’d take your fucking tongue,” I seethe, twisting the broken glass in his mouth. I slice his cheeks and his tongue, grinding the glass into his face.
I feel a hand on my back. A voice I love dearly calling my name. I want to obliterate this man from the face of the earth. I pull the broken glass out, then stab him again. The Sokoli screams and stops moving, but I keep slamming the jagged glass into his face.
“Damiano, he’s dead.” A slender hand touches mine, and finally, the red mist recedes.
I throw the glass aside and snatch Lucy into my arms.
“Lucy. My love. My love.” My arms are locked around her as my body shudders in relief. She’s all right. She’s here.
Lucy presses kisses all over my face. Her cheeks are wet with tears. “You could have been killed. I nearly lost you. If you had gone into that warehouse as well…”
We can’t hold each other tight enough. Our hearts are desperate to be inside each other’s bodies.
She was the one hiding behind the pallets. She followed me here. I seize her upper arms. “You could have been killed. Why did you come here?”
“Because here is exactly where I need to be,” she says fiercely. “I know we’re in the mafia. I’ll work with you. We’ll protect each other. I’ll never leave your side ever again. Never.”
I sit down on the edge of the open van with a groan and wrap my arms around her waist, burying my face in her breasts. She’s all for me. All for me, and no one else. My beautiful, untouchable secret. “If only that could be true.”
“Damiano, remember who we are. We can have whatever we want.”
“It’s too dangerous. Dad won’t allow it.”
“Dad doesn’t have to know.”
I open my eyes. A thrill goes through me.
Are we talking about work, or are we talking about something else?
One of my hands is curved around her waist. The other—fuck, my hand is on her ass.
I should pull away. But after four years of denying myself, I can’t.
Not yet. She eases herself onto my lap, her knees straddling my hips, and any remaining willpower I had evaporates.
“I’m stronger than you think, and you want me with you,” she whispers.
I smooth her hair back and look deep into her eyes.
Want her with me? Or just want her? As I hold her tighter, she pants softly, and I feel myself getting hard.
Lucy smells like gunpowder and sweet, forbidden fruit.
She didn’t pull away the first time I kissed her.
I wonder if she’d pull away if I kissed her now.
I swallow hard. “We can’t. That kind of talk is dangerous.”
“We’re the dangerous ones. I killed for my brother, just like you’d kill for me.”
I look past her at the dead men. At the bullet wounds. Headshots, clean and precise. I didn’t know Lucy had the nerve to fire a gun, let alone kill two men. No hesitation, and with a single bullet each.
Lucy is incredible.
She takes my face in her hands and teases her lips just over mine. “One day you’ll be the head of this family, Damiano. Dad won’t matter anymore. You’ll make the rules, and you can have anything you want.”
The words hang between us, heavy with promise and danger. Her lips are so close to mine I can feel her breath. The warehouse burns behind us, casting dancing shadows across her beautiful face. Smoke billows into the night sky, and somewhere in the distance, sirens begin to wail.
I should pull away. I should put distance between us before we do something we can’t take back.
Instead, I groan like a man in pain and pull her mouth down to mine.
The kiss is nothing like that accidental brush of lips in the diner years ago. This is desperate and raw. I kiss her like I’m drowning and she’s air. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment and can’t wait another second.
Lucy gasps against my mouth, and then she’s kissing me back just as fiercely. Her fingers tangle in my hair. Her body presses against mine, all soft curves and deadly strength. I taste smoke and salt and something essentially her that makes my head spin.
My hand fists in her hair while the other grips her hip. I can’t get close enough to her. I want to crawl inside her skin and never leave.
When we finally break apart, we’re both gasping for breath. I rest my forehead against hers, my eyes squeezed shut, trying to get control of myself.
“Lucy,” I breathe. “Fuck. We can’t do this.”
“We just did.”
“We can’t do this again.” My hands are still holding her close, contradicting my words.
“Not like this, surrounded by corpses and burning buildings.” I open my eyes and look at her, trying to make her understand.
“When I make you mine, it won’t be in hiding.
I’m going to find a way for us to be together. Really together.”
Her eyes search my face. “How? Dad will never allow it.”
“I don’t know yet.” I cup her face in my hands, my thumbs stroking her cheekbones. “But I swear to you, Lucy. I’ll find a way.”
The sirens are getting louder. We don’t have much time, but I can’t seem to let her go.
“The Sokolis,” Lucy says, and I hear the steel in her voice. “This wasn’t random, was it? They set a trap.”
I nod grimly. “They could have blown up the warehouse, but instead they tripped the silent alarm and waited until there were Barones inside.”