Page 1 of Fall Before Her Throne

1

LEONA

“They’re coming.”

Max’s voice was breathless and strained. His fingers clutched mine. He squeezed, once, a barely there pressure, before his grip went loose and his eyes rolled back in his head.

My heart lodged in my throat, pulsing a thunderous beat.

The world around me stuttered to a stop.

Max was here. Max was bleeding out on the doorstep of the penthouse. The perimeter alarm blared in the background while my men jumped into action around me. Someone was coming. Someone did this to him.

“Who is coming, Volpe?” Obi demanded from behind me—next to Cas—but Max didn’t respond. “Who?!”

“We know—we know who,” Ciel said tightly. I caught his careful look, his piercing blue eyes screaming the truth.

The Camorra.

They had come for Arion Vokshi, the Albanian who had escaped their grasp in Europe. Max had killed him yesterday at The Obsidian, the club in Philadelphia we infiltrated with Fallon and the other girls. He was supposed to meet with the Camorra today to get them to leave New York and return to Italy.

Clearly, that didn’t work. They turned on him. We should have expected this. We should have known he could never have convinced them to leave.

Now they were coming for us all.

Obi’s hand closed on the back of my neck, slipping underneath my mess of curls, sending a jolt down my spine. His chest rumbled with frustration. “We must move.”

I knew I should be leaping into action, grabbing any weapon I could find to defend our home, but I couldn’t look away. The cut on Max’s side oozed sticky darkness down what used to be a white shirt. Even more blood matted his hair to his right temple. One of his eyes was swollen shut. His cheek looked like a balloon. Lacerations peppered his arms.

I stared at his chest, trying to see if it still drew breath.

“Cas,” I choked out, clutching my bodyguard’s shoulder.

Cas’s fingers went to Max’s neck. He blinked, eyes as wide as mine. “He has a pulse, but it’s weak.”

A breath gusted from my lips. Obi’s grip on my neck kept me steady, grounded. I didn’t have time to think about the implications of the intense wave of relief coursing through my body. My thoughts instantly refocused. Wynn, Ciel, and Ryu talked in the background, something about gathering weapons. Obi was right; we had to move.

“Grab him,” I said as I stood. “Bring him inside.”

Cas looped one arm under Max’s shoulders. “Ryu,” he called. “Grab his other arm.”

“The fuck? I’m not carrying that asshole,” Ryu scoffed while he peeked around the threshold, toward the empty hallway that we all knew was likely less than a minute away from an assault. The perimeter alarm still echoed inside the penthouse. “Let him bleed out. Who cares?”

“Ryu!” I snapped. “Please!”

“Fucking fine,” he grumbled, but he grabbed Max’s other side, and together they carried him back inside the penthouse hallway.

“Inside, Leona,” Obi ordered. “Now.”

“Wynn,” I shouted as I headed to the weapons closet. I strapped on my thigh sheaths, slipped on my knives, and shoved extra magazines of ammo for my Hellcat into my pockets. “Did you get a hold of Willow?”

“Not yet,” he answered. He held a phone between his ear and shoulder while he strapped on more weapons. Ciel tapped on his tablet, and the blaring alarm shut off.

“I’m ini—I’m initiating defense protocols,” Ciel said.

“Copy,” Obi said from the hallway.

“Shutters coming down!” Ryu’s voice carried from the kitchen. He and Cas must have taken Max there to get him out of the way.