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“You really don’t need to keep up the theatrics with a gun against my head, Terzo. I’m well aware that if I try to run, you’ll shoot me,” Gianna says, this time projecting her voice, as if she’s hoping someone is down here to hear her.

Well, I am. And, fuck, she’s clever.

“You shot Giuseppe, so the gun stays,” the man snaps back.

The voices are becoming louder, cutting through the air.

“Three men against one woman,” Gianna says. “Well, two and a half, I suppose now. I still don’t like my odds. I said I’d come willingly; you don’t trust me?”

The guy laughs. “No. We don’t. You were never meant to rule LA, Gianna. Stop behaving like you do.”

Three of them stand in the way of getting my wife back. I don’t care. It could have been an entire army. I’ll take the odds.

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

Gianna

I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking, but my body is reacting as if Colten is here. The tingling on my skin, the racing of my heart. It’s him. This isn’t fear. Not even with a gun pressed against my temple. I’m numb to that. I am hyper-aware of my husband. I swear I got a whiff of his cologne. I’d know that scent anywhere.

It’s either that or my body is tricking me into feeling safe so I can die in peace. Either way, I’ll take it.

Coming up on my left, there’s a tunnel that goes off into another section. A tight, almost alleyway down here that would lead to one of our warehouses on the ground. My eyes can’t pull their focus from that space, so I keep talking far too loud, on the chance my gut is right and Colten is there.

“It didn’t have to go this way, Gianna. If you’d have come to us before killing your father, we could have cut you in. We might have even let you reign in LA,” Terzo, the asshole who is pushing me at gunpoint, says.

“Standing up against Enzo is a death wish, Uncle T. I might be a lot of things, but I tend to steer clear of stupidity.”

He pushes me harder, causing me to misstep and almost land on my face. He grabs my shoulder, pulling me upright. As I look up, all the air is knocked clean from my body.

Colten Sterling.

His finger pressed to his lips, crouching on the ground.

I’m putting every ounce of trust in the man that I forced to marry me. In the man that I love wholeheartedly.

A gunshot rings out. Then another. I drive my elbow as hard as I can into Terzo’s stomach and spin to face him. His age has made him slower.

Carlo is dead behind him, and Giuseppe is bleeding out from the chest, blood spilling from his mouth.

I’m staring down the barrel of my uncle's gun.

“Bitch,” Terzo hisses.

The world flips upside down in seconds.

His finger twitches on the trigger, and I’m thrown full force sideways into the ground. Gunshots blast around us as we land with a thud, Colten’s body weight squashing me.

My shaking hands grab at his face. His cheeks. His jaw. His hair. Making sure he’s real. That he’s really here and this isn’t some kind of dream.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words follow. Nothing. My body is trembling, and I can’t stop it. I’m frozen.

The ringing in my ears is deafening. Colten pushes himself off me, and I follow his line of vision. Terzo is dragging his limp body along the floor, leaving a trail of crimson behind him.

“No,” I mutter. I’m not letting any of my uncles get out of this alive. “Gun. Colten. I need your gun.”

He holds out his hand, and the second I place mine in his, sparks shoot up my arm. He lifts me to my feet, his eyes scanning my body for injuries.

“I’ve never been happier to see someone alive,” he mutters, gripping my cheeks.