Chapter 35 Six months. That's how long we'd had peace. I should've known it wouldn't last. The text from Maya had been simple: Headed to Miyori's for brunch. Love you. I'd grunted at my phone, my focus on a shipping manifest. Three hours later, my phone rang. Miyori's name flashed on the screen. I swiped to answer, wondering why she was calling me. "Yeah." "Is Maya with you?" Her voice was pitched high, tight with a fear I immediately recognized. The knot turned to ice. "No. She said she was with you." The silence on the other end was deafening. "Raziel... she never showed up, and I can't reach her." A static roar filled my head. The world narrowed to the cold screen of my phone. I ended the call without another word, my hands moving on pure, terrified instinct. I pulled up the app-the one connected to the tracker embedded in the black diamond pendant in the necklace I'd given her. A blinking dot pulsed on the map. Not a restaurant. Not a street. A warehouse on the industrial docks. A warehouse I knew belonged to Enzio Vescovi. My blood went from ice to fire. Alessia. I was already moving, grabbing my gun from the desk drawer. Priest was out of town, his entire crew with him. I had no men. I'd severed those ties when I left Enzio's organization. I was a king without an army, staring down the abyss of losing my queen. There was only one person left to call. Ironically, it was because of Maya I could even call him. I dialed Caine. We had been friendly since the day in the gun range. He answered on the second ring. "Brother. To what do I owe-" "Enzio and his daughter have Maya," I cut him off, my voice a gravelly scrape. "Enzio's dockside warehouse. I need you. Now." There was a beat of silence. No questions. No hesitation. Just a cold, simple, "I'm twenty minutes out. Don't go in without me." I broke every traffic law getting there. Caine's black SUV was already idling at the mouth of the warehouse district when I arrived. He was leaned against the driver's side door, looking like he'd just come from a business meeting, not going into a potential war. He tossed a Kevlar vest at me as I jumped out of my car. "Put it on." "I don't need-" "Put it on, Raziel," he snapped, his voice leaving no room for argument. It was the first time I'd ever heard him sound like our father." I snarled but yanked the vest on. He checked his own weapon-a sleek, suppressed pistol-his movements efficient and utterly calm. "Plan?" "I kill them all," I growled, heading for a side door. "Charging in blind is how you get her killed," Caine said, falling into step beside me, his presence suddenly a steadying, lethal force. "We do this smart. Or we don't do it at all." He was right. The rage burning through me was a liability. I nodded, letting him take point. He picked the lock on a rusted side door with an ease that spoke of a past I knew nothing about. The inside of the warehouse was cavernous and dim. We found Maya slumped in a chair, her head lolling to the side. A dark purple bruise was already flowering on her cheekbone. The sight of that discoloration on her skin sent a fresh wave of fury through me. Enzio stood over her, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Alessia stood beside him, a deranged gleam in her eyes. "Took you long enough," Enzio said, his voice echoing. "I guessed right that the necklace around her neck was a tracker." "Let her go, Enzio. This is between us." "It is between us!" Alessia shrieked, her voice cracking. "You threw me away for that? For some trash you picked up because you felt sorry for her?" "Alessia, baby, calm down," Enzio said, but his eyes were on me, calculating. "No! I loved you! I waited for you! And you choose a junkie!" She was unraveling, her hand dipping into her purse. "You think this is about love?" I spat, taking a step forward, my gun trained on Enzio. "This is about your psychotic jealousy and your daddy not setting boundaries for you. Let. Her. Go." "Or what?" Enzio sneered. "You have no power here." "I do," Caine said, his voice a quiet, deadly murmur from the shadows behind me. He stepped forward, his pistol aimed with a chilling steadiness. "And I have plenty of bullets." Enzio's eyes widened slightly. "Caine. This doesn't concern you." "My brother concerns me," Caine said, his tone conversational, like he was discussing the weather. "And it seems you've inconvenienced him. Now, we can do this the easy way, where you walk away and never look in his direction again, or we can do it the hard way. I'm rather hoping for the hard way." Alessia wasn't listening. "If I can't have you," she whispered, a terrifying clarity in her eyes, "no one can." It happened in a split second. Her hand came out of her purse with a small, pearl-handled pistol. She didn't aim at me. She aimed at Maya's heart. There was no thought. Only instinct. I lunged, putting myself between them. The gunshot was obscenely loud in the concrete space. The impact hit me like a sledgehammer to the back, slamming the air from my lungs. The Kevlar stopped the bullet from piercing my heart, but the force was brutal, agony exploding across my spine. I stumbled forward, crashing to my knees. Chaos erupted. Pop. Pop. Pop. Caine's suppressed gun coughed three times in rapid succession. From the rafters, two of Enzio's men I hadn't even seen crumpled and fell to the concrete with sickening thuds. "Get to the car!" Caine barked, his voice cutting through the ringing in my ears. He laid down covering fire, precise and ruthless, forcing Enzio to dive for cover and sending Alessia scrambling. I clawed my way to my feet, my back screaming in protest. Maya was staring at me, her eyes wide-and I realized she had been drugged. My heart dropped. Hysterical tears streamed down her face. "Ra... Ra...? She ruined it." "I've got you," I grunted, hauling her up, throwing her arm over my shoulder. Every step was fire. Caine was a whirlwind of controlled violence, herding us toward the door, putting himself between us and any threat. We burst out into the cold air. I shoved Maya into the back of Caine's SUV and collapsed beside her, breathing in ragged, painful gasps. Caine slid into the driver's seat, slammed the car into gear, and we peeled out, leaving the warehouse and its ghosts behind. Maya was sobbing, clawing at her own arms, lost in a drugged, terrified haze. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." She kept repeating. "I don't like this feeling no more." "How bad?" he asked, his eyes flicking to me in the rearview mirror. Calm. Always fucking calm. "Vest... caught it," I managed to grit out. I thought I was fine. That's when I felt it. A searing heat blooming low on my right side. A pain entirely separate from the brutal impact on my back. My hand went to it instinctively. My fingers came away slick and dark with blood. A second shot. I never even heard it or felt it. It had gone under the vest, tearing through muscle and whatever else was in its path. The world tilted on its axis. All sound faded into a distant hum. "Maya?" Maya's cry was distant. The car swerved to a violent stop. The driver's door flew open and Caine was there, his face frantic. He was shouting, but I couldn't hear the words. "-the hell, Raziel! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!" His hands were on my side, applying pressure that sent a fresh wave of nauseating pain through me. I tried to speak, tried to tell Maya I loved her and everything would be alright, but only a wet, choked sound came out. My vision was tunneling, darkness creeping in from the edges. "I've got you, brother. I've got you," he was saying, his voice the only solid thing in the spinning world. He ripped his own shirt, wadding it against my side. "Don't you fucking die on me." He vaulted back into the driver's seat, the engine roaring to life. "Stay with me, Raziel! That's an order!" I wanted to tell him he wasn't the boss of me. I wanted to tell him to make sure Maya was okay. But the darkness was too heavy, too warm. And the last thing I heard was the squeal of tires and Caine cursing the world. Five-year-old Annie, who can understand animals, saved Landon Hawthorne, a wealthy businessman, from suicide. Now she's his whole world and he's her legal cheat-code against every villain fate throws ...