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I raised my gun, taking aim at the guy on the left while Gabe followed my lead and pointed his gun at the guy on the right.
My bluff worked. They shoved Matteo down the stairs and turned to flee, but they were too late. I pulled the trigger and shot my guy dead center in the back of thehead. He dropped to the ground as Gabe’s guy roared in pain but kept going.
“Get him,” I barked.
Gabe went after him, taking the stairs three at a time while I turned my attention past the foyer.
Gabe had swept the house on his way in, but he’d missed something.
Isabella never slept on the second floor.
Dim light spilled in through the dining room window as I crept down the hall. Everything looked pristine. Chairs slotted in on each side of the table, not an inch off. The cream-colored curtains fell loosely from its bronze rod, the knob shaped into the head of a lion. Silver knives gleamed against the reflection of the parlor windows. Across the dining room, the parlor doors were closed—like always.
The parlor was where Isabella spent most of her time, knitting or reading her old smutty romance novels.
I pushed the door open, cursing the heavy curtains that blocked out every bit of light from outside. The room was black, but the coppery scent of blood filled the air.
A dark shadow from behind the door pounced at me, trying to wrestle the gun from my hand. I rolled my eyes inwardly at the poorly-thought strategy.
I kicked out, slamming my steel-toed boot into something bony. It didn’t matter where I hit him, so long as it stunned him.
He screamed, and his grip on the gun loosened enough for me to yank it out of his grasp.
Using the sound of his voice as a guide, I spun him around and wrapped my arm around his neck, pressing down on his windpipe. I jammed the Glock into his back, right behind his liver. One wrong move, and the guy was dead no matter what.
“You really are one stupid motherfucker, aren’t you?” I seethed while he struggled futilely. He was a big guy—but one whose access to oxygen had been cut off at the throat.
“Let me go,” he croaked out, trying to pry my arm away.
I laughed drily. “Of course.”
I released his neck, raised my gun above my head, and brought it down in a thudding blow to the back of his head.
He fell like a ton of bricks, hitting the ground with another sickening thud. I glanced at the motionless form in the dark—he’d be out cold for a while. I would have preferred to have done away with him, but I needed to know who ordered the hit. Extracting information, after all, just happened to be one of my areas of expertise.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and flipped on its flashlight. Aunt Isabella was sitting in her favorite paisley-printed chair with her knitting needles on her lap. The yellow light touched on her short white hair, the deep creases on her tanned face, and the wide bloom of black-red blood across the bodice of her high-necked gown.
I clenched my jaw and crossed the room to close Aunt Isabella’s wide, open eyes. The deep brown of her irises stared back into my own as I scanned her face—the lightest splotch of pink remained on her cheeks, it would soon fade, the only color on her otherwise pallid skin. My eyes landed on the paler skin of the underside of her forearm.
It had been cut.
Mutilated.
Someone had taken a knife to Isabella’s soft, wrinkled skin and carved a name into it. A name I knew very well. Everyone knew that name. But not in the way that my family did.
Luca.
Though crudely carved in bloodred scratch, the four letters were unmistakable.
Rage surged through my veins. I covered the marking with the first thing that I could grab—one of Isabella’s knitting projects, a scarf. I was on my feet and back through the house in three seconds flat. They’d just declared war. But while they might have fired the first shot, there wasn’t going to be a single Luca left standing by the time I was finished with them.
I stuttered to a stop in front of the oak door, slamming it shut. As I circled back, my heel balked mid-turn. Though I shook with anger, some small bit of sense had seeped through the haze. Sense enough to realize this made no sense.
What good did it do the Lucas to wage war on a family they were at peace with?
No territory wars. No battle over supplies. No tussles among men. Not so long ago, it had been Vincent and Lorenzo’s most fervent wish to unite our families. I’d been seventeen years old when Lorenzo had tried to marry me off to a Luca. No wedding vows were sworn—the girl had died. I didn’t know the kid, but I’m glad there isn’t a marriage contract out there with my name on it.
So, if not the Lucas, who murdered and carved up Isabella? The reason, if I was right, was clear. They wanted me to find her, find the carving, and wage war on the Lucas. Though it was no simple task to determine who would benefit from that the most. The Nova family? I’d heard they’d had it out with the Lucas just the other night, though I hadn’t bothered keeping tabs on the outcome.
