Timing our entrance precisely, we hop the fence one by one and land behind a huge hedge. The first patrol of security guards rounds the corner ahead. We have approximately fifteen seconds before the next one comes from the far courtyard.
I point and give my men the “go” signal.
We sprint to the fountain as a single unit. When we reach the hiding position, we all collapse prone on the ground.
The second patrol arrives. They’re scanning the darkness on high alert. We’re no more than ten feet away from them.
We rise up, three of us each grabbing one of the patrolmen from behind. Before they can so much as inhale to scream, we bury our knives in their throats.
Quick. Silent. Efficient.
Their bodies slump into our arms. Still moving in unison, we drag them underneath a nearby hedge and tuck them out of sight.
I hold up the “Stay here” hand signal.
Staying low, I creep up to the nearest window. Pressing my face to the glass, I peer inside.
It’s dark in there. A long, carpeted hallway. Paintings hang on the walls. At first, nothing stirs. Nothing moves.
And then a door at the far end of the hall opens. The light spills out to illuminate a burly man with a shock of red hair. He’s struggling with something heavy.
He puts his back to me and keeps dragging whatever it is down the hall in my direction. I watch, eyes narrowed and a nasty feeling brewing in the pit of my stomach.
When he turns around at the bend in the hall, the light hits whatever he is carrying.
Matteo.
He’s covered in blood, his eyes gray, empty. And there’s a hole at the side of his head.
“Those fucking bastards…” I whisper under my breath.
They fucking murdered him point-blank.
There’s more motion from the room that Matteo was just dragged out of. A woman emerges. She’s tall and thin with an imperious posture. I’d recognize her anywhere.
Molly fucking Fitzgerald.
What the fuck?
Did she survive the fire too?
It feels as if all the heat rushes out of my body then. I’m cold everywhere, dumbstruck by what I’m seeing.
Then one more person steps out into the hallway.
Harper.
Is that really her?
I rub my hands across my face, but when I blink a couple of times, her image doesn’t fade. She really is there, in the living flesh.
I can’t fucking believe I actually found her. And with Molly, no less.
She looks horrified, and she’s trembling.
Fuck.
I wish I could jump through this window right here right now and pull her into my arms.
But if I did that, I’d be caught by Molly’s guards in no time, and they’d put a bullet in my brain too.
Fuck!
I can’t fucking risk it.
My heart contorts. I swore once upon a time that I’d protect her—from these people. From my world. And I fucking failed.
The thought of her being locked inside, surrounded by nothing but hatred, fills my veins with unending rage, causing me to forget all the warnings that filtered through my mind just seconds ago.
I raise my gun, ready to blast through the glass and go save my woman.
But before I can pull the trigger, someone grabs the shoulder strap of my vest and yanks me to the ground.
“Fuck!” I curse as I plummet into the earth. The fall knocks the wind from my lungs.
I look up to find out who the hell just tugged me down at the precise wrong moment.
But it’s fucking Claudio.
“Have you lost your fucking mind, Claudio?!” I shout.
“I apologize, Marcello, but I had no other choice. You were about to burst in there and get killed.”
My nostrils flare as rage pours from my mouth. “I didn’t ask you to stop me.”
“I know,” he replies. “But I would rather see my Don survive. We will go get her, I promise you that. But we will do it the right way. Not now. Not right this second. Listen to your second man, please.”
The fire in his eyes forces me to weigh his words carefully.
He’s right.
It was stupid. I’d get myself killed. I’d get my men killed.
“Fine. We will come back later,” I say.
But in my head, the demons are screaming again.
Because if she dies like Matteo, it’ll be my fault.
Harper
Feverish and completely drenched in sweat, I wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night… only to land straight back into one. Because I’m abruptly pulled out of my sleep by a hand covering my mouth and eyes locking with mine. A man is crouched on top of me, his body weighing down on mine so hard I can barely breathe.
A guard, one of my mother’s own trusted employees, is trying to have his way with me.
His thin lips move closer, vile stench entering my nostrils as he opens his mouth. “Don’t fucking make a sound,” he whispers.
My eyes widen as his free hand moves to my nightgown and tries to wriggle underneath.
The adrenaline kicks into action, and I thrash beneath him, trying to kick and shove him off me, but my body is still drowsy and weak from the sleep I just had. I can’t wake up this quick and fight off an attacker.
The guy’s hand snakes up my belly, and bile rises up my throat.
I scream, but the sound gets nowhere as it’s blocked by his hand.
His grip is so tight that it hurts as he straddles me, and panic begins to flood my veins. This cannot be happening. I can’t let him do this to me.
I try my hardest to remember my training, and I use all my strength to lock his own shirt between his neck and my elbow so I can choke him, but he manages to grab my wrist before I can and pins me down to the bed.
I try to shove my knee between his legs and kick him as hard as I can, but he’s so much heavier than me, and this nightgown doesn’t help either.
“Don’t fucking move, and it’ll be over quick,” he groans as he fumbles the button on his pants loose with a single hand.
Fuck.
How could I have ever let my guard down like this?
Why did Mother hire someone like him?
Suddenly, my door bursts open, but it isn’t my mother who’s come to rescue me.
It’s Marcello.
My heart almost stops beating the second our eyes connect.
“Motherfucker!” Marcello yells as his eyes home in on the man on top of me, the look on his face darker than I’ve ever seen before. The look in his eyes was like a devil who just stepped straight out of hell to pick up the sinners and drag them back down with him.
Faster than I can even blink, Marcello pulls out his gun and shoots the guy point-blank in the back.
I shriek as blood spatters all around, covering me.
I almost want to vomit, but then I realize the situation I find myself in, and my fight or flight instinct takes over. No time to lose my shit. I have to go, now.
I kick the body off me and crawl away, trying to swat the blood off my nightgown, but it’s no use. I scramble off the bed and stare at Marcello for a moment as he tucks his gun back into its holster.
“Harper,” Marcello says. The indignation is still there even though it’s hidden by a layer of guilt and anguish over my predicament. “That fucker was touching you, wasn’t he?”
“You came just in time,” I respond, nodding as I try to ignore the dead body on the floor.