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He pushed Aria behind him, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he tried to get a handle on the men coming toward them. He counted four on the stairs, maybe five. He didn’t hear anyone else, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more out there.
How had Primo’s men found them?
He barely had time to register the question in his mind before his training took over. He had only two directives: keep Aria safe and destroy the men who had dared breach their refuge.
The men were almost to the main floor of the house. He had less than ten seconds to secure his position. There was nowhere for Aria to go that wouldn’t put her in the path of the men coming for them, which meant Damian had to cut them off at the pass.
“Stay down,” he said. “Don’t come into the house until I give you the all clear.”
“No, please…” She tugged at his arm.
He shook her off and started forward.
* * *
Panic clawedat her throat as he slipped from her grasp. She couldn’t help feeling that it was the last time she would touch him. The last time she would feel him next to her.
No. He would fight them. He would kill them. He would come back to her.
She had to believe it. Anything else was unimaginable.
She forced herself to breathe, then crouched down, working her way behind one of the stucco pillars of the terrace. The best way to help him was follow to his instructions.
She’d barely reached cover when gunshots erupted through the house.
* * *
He’d usedthe pillars of the terrace to make his way into the darkened house, but by the time he reached the doors there was no other cover. He listened as the men emerged into the living room and tried to calculate their final positions. As near as he could tell there was a man still in place at the top of the staircase blocking the exit, one at the entrance to the kitchen, one somewhere near the terrace, and another against the wall in the living room.
His heart told him to go for the patio and the man closest to Aria, everything in his body screaming to protect her at all costs.
More than that, he wanted to kill the motherfucker who dared to come for her.
He forced himself to breathe, to think four moves ahead. Going to the terrace would offer him the short-term security of knowing he could put himself in front of a bullet heading for Aria, but there was no way out from there, only the rocky cliff face leading to the water far below. It would be too easy for Primo’s men to corner them.
And he was no good to Aria dead.
He ducked low and dove for the sofa in the living room instead. Guns flared in the darkness around him.
* * *
Aria’s heartwas pounding like a war drum in her chest, her ears ringing from the gunfire. The moon had emerged for a split second, offering her flashes of the scene around her — the shadowy figure of the man positioned near the kitchen, one too close for comfort near the terrace, Damian ducking for the cover of the sofa — before everything went dark again.
She felt exposed in spite of the pillar, unable to see if the man she’d spotted on the patio had seen her, if he’d moved any closer under the cover of darkness. She was debating the merit of trying to move when something came at her from behind, one hand on her mouth, an arm snaking around her body and arms like a vise.
She tried to scream as he dragged her back toward the edge of the terrace.
* * *
Damian firedat the men once he reached cover, if only to keep them on their toes while he regrouped from his new position. He was mentally calculating his remaining ammo when the men shouted to each other in a language he didn’t immediately recognize. He listened more closely, trying to place it.
Greek?
What the fuck…?
A moment later a scuffle sounded from the terrace, followed by a muffled scream that could only mean someone had his hands on Aria.
