Chapter Two #2
Enzo had seen women fight. He had watched Roselia Zanetti drop hardened enforcers in the dust of the Naples training rings, fighting with a wild, brawling ferocity. He had watched Raisa Voronina execute mercenaries with the cold, militaristic precision of the Spetsnaz.
But the woman in the beige cardigan was in a league all her own. She was the wind.
She didn't use a weapon. She ducked beneath a wild swing from a switchblade, pivoted flawlessly on her heel, and delivered a devastating, spinning roundhouse kick that connected squarely with the attacker's jaw.
The thug hit the brick wall and slid to the ground, unconscious.
Two more men lunged at her simultaneously.
Arielle dropped her center of gravity, sweeping the legs out from under the first man, before rising instantly to deliver a surgical, pinpoint strike to the second man's solar plexus.
It was over in less than eight seconds.
Six armed, desperate thugs lay groaning or unconscious on the cobblestones.
Enzo stood over them, his mouth literally hanging open.
He forgot about the cut on his arm. He forgot about the syndicate.
He stared at the stunning, dark-haired war goddess standing amidst the carnage, her chest rising and falling in a steady, completely unbothered rhythm. She wasn't even out of breath.
Arielle smoothed down the front of her cardigan, her expression a mask of serene, polite calm. She turned her eyes to the stunned family.
"Are you all okay?" Arielle asked, her voice soft and melodious, incongruous with the devastating violence she had just unleashed. She gestured gracefully toward the mouth of the alley. "Do you need to call the police? The station is right here, just around the corner past the bakery."
Salvatore Falco, a man who rarely found himself at a loss for words, blinked several times. "We... we are unharmed. Thank you, Signorina. You saved our lives."
Ana stepped out from behind Enzo, pressing her hands to her chest, her eyes wide with awe. "That was incredible. Who are you, my dear?"
"My name is Ari," she replied smoothly, offering a polite, distant smile. She took a step backward, already preparing her exit route. She had intervened, but she had absolutely no desire to linger and invite questions. "I am glad you are safe. I think you can handle it from here."
She turned on her heel to walk away.
"Hold on. Wait," Enzo blurted out, stepping over a groaning thug to close the distance between them.
Arielle paused, glancing over her shoulder.
Enzo looked down at her. Up close, she was breathtaking. Her hair was escaping its practical knot, framing a face that was strikingly, ferociously beautiful. But it was the cold, analytical intelligence in her eyes that paralyzed him.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Enzo asked, his voice hushed with genuine, profound reverence. "I have known trained killers my entire life, and I have never seen anything like what you just did."
Arielle’s expression did not change. She offered a faint, practiced smile.
"I've got four older brothers," Arielle said simply. "I know how to fight."
Before Enzo could formulate a response, before he could ask her last name or beg for her phone number, Arielle pointed a slender finger toward the main street.
"If you need help dealing with the authorities, the café across the street can guide you," she added politely. "But I really must go. Have a good afternoon."
She turned and walked out of the alleyway, retrieving her dropped paper bag from the cobblestones, and vanished into the bustling crowd of the piazza like smoke.
Enzo stood rooted to the spot, his jaw still slack. He stared at the empty space where she had been standing, his heart hammering a violent, unfamiliar rhythm against his ribs.
"Well," a sharp, aristocratic voice echoed in the quiet alley.
Enzo turned his head. Valentina Falco was leaning on her silver-handled cane, her eyes glittering with unrestrained delight. Beside her, Ana Falco had pressed a hand over her mouth, visibly vibrating with suppressed laughter.
"What?" Enzo demanded, defensively crossing his arms over his chest, realizing he was being stared at by his mother and grandmother.
Ana let out a bright, joyous laugh, clapping her hands together. "Oh, Enzo. Your moment of reckoning has finally arrived. Did you feel the earth shatter? Because I certainly did."
"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about," Enzo lied immediately, a hot, traitorous flush creeping up the back of his neck. "We were just attacked. This is a serious security breach."
Valentina tapped her cane against the cobblestones, her smile widening into a look of pure, vindicated triumph. "I think Raisa and Roselia are going to be very, very happy to know we are going to have another lethal woman in the family. She is magnificent. An Amazon."
"What are you two discussing over there?" Enzo groaned, rubbing his hand over his face in profound embarrassment. "There is nothing like that. I don't even know her last name. She is a stranger who helped us out of a tight spot. Let's just go to the police station and get this done."
He turned away from them, marching toward the mouth of the alleyway to signal the local carabinieri.
But despite his loud, arrogant protests, despite the vows he had made in the parlor of the Falco estate about never letting a woman tie him in knots, Enzo’s mind was completely consumed.
As he looked down the sunlit street, searching the crowd for a glimpse of a beige cardigan, he knew with certainty that he was going to find the Amazon war goddess again.
The last bastion of freedom in the Falco bloodline had just fallen, and he had fallen spectacularly.