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I seethe with a mixture of anger and fear I’ve never felt before.I can’t lose this woman. “Greta, do not fucking argu––”
“No!” She gets in my face. “Until death does us part, Emiliano Calvano. We may not be married––yet––but it still stands.”
My grip tightens on her shoulders, desperate to make her understand. I’m about to rail her when her eyes widen at something behind me right before a blazing flame of pain shoots up my thigh and into my hip, causing my knee to buckle and hit the damp grass.
“Emil!” Greta cries, then gives an audible growl when she lifts her eyes to the motherfucker at my back. “Give up, Sebastian. Your men are no match for ours.” Her voice is strong, her loyalties engravedin steel.
“They aren’t my men bleeding out on the ground. They’re his,” Stefan returns, and with the strength of my queen by my side, I stand and face my brother. “Or rather, I should say they wereour mother’smen. She came from a wealthy family, and with that came an overprotective father. His men became hers, then all it took was a little DNA to prove I was hers and a sob story of how you’ve become one of the biggest sex traffickers in Rome, tarnishing their dear Gillie’s name, andvoila, the De Santis soldiers becamemysoldiers.”
I shake my head at his words.It’s a lie. It has to be.Granted, I banished them from thefamigliaafter finding out they didn’t lift a finger to help find my mother. Of course, I didn’t know what I knew now at the time. Still, they wouldn’t betray their daughter’s firstborn… Would they?
“They despise your father, Calvano, but their hands were tied by tradition and the threat of ruin by your grandfather, so when I told them you had gone into the same business your father tried so many times to get them to fund…” He trails off with a shrug.
The sound of gunfire suddenly goes silent as I take in his words. My mother’s smiling face flashes before my eyes. Smiling in sheer joy as I played my first full piece on the piano before morphing into a look of horror with streams of blood trailing like rivers from her eyes and her mouth gaping in a silent scream.
I shake the vision away and come back to the scene before me. My men circle the three of us, guns raised and waiting for my command while Greta stands tall beside me, her lip, cheek, and temple leaking blood from battle. Strands of her chestnut hair have fallen from its tight braid. I smile at the messy mop on her head and tuck a thick lock behind her ear. I smile inside at her strength. My Queen in all but name. One of the many things I plan to change when this bullshit is over.
Mia perlalooks at me with love and devotion, but the fear she tries to hide behind the deepest blue of her sapphire eyes makes me decide that a quick death is too easy, too merciful for the sick fucker who tried to claim my queen as his own. “Stand down,” I order, my eyes still onmia perla.My men obey but keep their weapons unholstered and cocked.
“You want my kingdom,brother?” I turn to the man that shares my blood. “Then fight for it like a man. No weapons, no interference. Just you, me, and our bare hands.”
I turn back to Greta, and without a word, I communicate everything words could never express. I know she hears me when she kisses my lips and whispers, “Me too,mio amore.”Then, without preamble, she pulls the knife from my thigh, and like the wicked siren she is, she runs her tongue over the flat edge of the blade, gathering my life’s blood on her tongue before swallowing it. My men gasp in awe at the Calvano Roma tradition signifying a husband’s and wife’s eternal bond. With her actions, she has commanded their undyingdevotion.
She takes a step back, and I turn to Stefan, whose face is painted in disgust.
Fuckinghypocrite.
“Do we have a deal? I’m wounded, after all. Who knows? You may actually win,” I mock, and like the dumbass he is, he takes the bait. He throws off his heavy black cargo jacket and Kevlar vest, and I dothe same.
“Wait,” Greta calls out from the circle of my men. I swing my eyes to her and watch as she rips the sleeve of her shirt, then kneels at my feet to tie it below my knife wound. “Finish this, Emiliano Calvano.” She punctuates her order with a painful tug on the knot, and I grunt in acknowledgment of her silent command. “Don’t fucking die.”
With fire in my blood, adrenaline acting as a natural anesthesia for my thigh, and the eyes of my men and the woman I love watching, I square up with my brother. Right away, Stefan makes a fool’s move by lunging at my middle in an attempt to knock me on my ass. My elbow comes down on his spine, and he grunts at the hit but doesn’t fall. He lifts me from the ground, and I use the move to wrap my legs around his waist, my arm goes around his neck, and I shove his chin to his chest. Stefan drops me, and I pivot until my back is to his front, my arm still around his neck, and pull his head toward my chest, crushing his windpipe against my shoulder. His face turns a cherry red as he sputters for air. My leg screams in agony, but I refuseto relent.
Just a little more…
The hit to my kidney is weak but painful enough that my hold on his neck loosens, and he slips through my arm swinging around with a powerful roundhouse kick to the ribs. I stagger to the side, and Stefan uses the opportunity to step and lunge at me with a Superman to my chest, knocking me back afew steps.
The fucker has skills; I’ll givehim that.
His eyes gleam with victory, but this time when he goes to step, I catch him with an uppercut. His head jerks back violently, and the sound of his teeth clanking together is like the sweetest lullaby. Done with thecazzo, I go in for the kill. His jaw crumbles under my fists, his nose snaps, and his teeth fly loose with each punch, but it’s the punch to the liver that drops him as his blood pressure plummets and his heartbeat slows to a crawl. His eyes bug, and he curls in on himself as pain wracks his body. But the fight is not over until the life drains fromhis eyes.
Limping to where he lays in the fetal position, I lift him to his ass. “Fratello, brother, don’t do this,” hewhimpers.
But his plea stirs no sympathy from me, only disgust. With my hands on each side of his jaw, I’m ready to snap his neck when my eyes catch on Greta’s, and the sorrow in those sapphire eyes nearly breaks me.
The woman could be ruthless and could dole out harsh retribution as much as me. Still, family is everything to her, so it’s no surprise that his words pierce her beautiful heart. I can’t fault her for one of the very things that drew me to her in the first place. One of the reasons I love her so deeply and the only reason I release him frommy hold.
I toss him to the ground, roll him over with my foot, and plant it firmly against his throat as I speak. “You’re banished from my country. If I hear even a whisper of your return or that you’ve started up your flesh trade again, I won’t be so merciful next time. No matter the blood that runs through your veins. No matter my queen’s wishes.” I press down harder on his throat until his face turns purple and his hands grapple to pull himself free—only then do I turn and walk away. It’s over. I smile as I lock eyes with Greta, then freeze as I watch as the woman I love lifts her gun and points it at me. Time slows as my men shout and raise their guns, but it’s too late.Mia perlapulls the trigger.
23
Greta
The binder stuffed full of wedding paraphernalia sits in my lap, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to open it. Emil and I were supposed to be married months ago, but those days have come and gone. Now, I sit in my library and ponder what might have been. Would I be carrying our first child by now? Would we be taking down flesh traders together as husband and wife? Avenging angels haunting the dreamsof demons?
Sighing, I brush my fingertips over the binder cover where Camil put a photo of me staring into the mirror while the seamstress knelt in front of me, pinning the hem of my wedding dress.
“It won’t bite you,mia perla,” his voice whispers overmy neck.
