Then all hell breaks loose.
I'm out of the car before the engine stops smoking, my gun in my hand and three rounds already fired. One of the bastards coming out of one of the SUVs goes down hard, clutching his shoulder. Another dives for cover behind a dumpster.
"Stay in the car!" I shout to Sienna, but even as I say it, I know the car is a death trap. Bulletproof glass won’t last forever, and they’ll get to her eventually. Bullets riddle the hood and the front of the Mercedes… the engine is probably done for. We aren’t going anywhere in it now. We’re going to have to run, and they’ll catch us.
I drop another Russo soldier with a clean shot to the chest, but there are more of them pouring out of the warehouses like cockroaches. Too many.
A bullet takes a chunk out of the hood of the car beside my head, and I roll behind a stack of crates, reloading by instinct. My mind is running calculations—six men visible, probably more in reserve, limited ammunition,Sienna.
The math isn't good.
"Damian!" Sienna's scream cuts through the gunfire.
I spin around to see two men dragging her from the wreckage of the car. She's fighting them, clawing and kicking like the wildcat that I’ve called her since we met, but they're too strong.
The sight of their hands on her turns my vision red.
I empty my clip into the nearest group of men coming toward us, not caring about conserving ammunition anymore. One of them shooting at Sienna is all I can think about. I don’t know if they want her alive or dead, but the fact that it’s even a question makes me feel feral, rage flooding hot and uncontrollably through me. I have to get to her.
All of my cold calm is gone. The calculation that’s carried me through every fight has vanished. I feel like a beast, an animal, frantic to get to my mate. Ihaveto get to her.
But there are too many of them, and they're using her as leverage now. One of the fuckers has a gun pressed to her temple while she glares daggers at him, her strawberry-blonde hair wild around her face.
"Drop your weapon, Kutnezsov!" the man holding her shouts. "Or your pretty little wife gets a bullet in her brain."
The world narrows to that single moment. Sienna's eyes meet mine across the warehouse yard, and I see something there that stops my heart.She's not just scared—she's furious. Furious that these men dared to touch her, furious that they're threatening me, furious that they've come after us both. Furious that they’re keeping her from getting to her son.
She’s no assassin, no mafia princess, but in that moment, I see a ferocity in her that rivals even Valentina. As she kicks and bites and fights despite the fact that she can’t possibly get free, I’ve never felt anything like the emotion that swells in my chest, straining muscle and bone as I look at the woman fighting to get free.
My wife is magnificent in her rage.
And I'm going to kill every single one of these bastards for putting their hands on her.
But I can’t save her if she’s already dead.
I’ll find a way out of this. I won’t let anything happen to you, Sienna. I want to say it out loud, but I know better. They need to think I’m surrendering, or I won’t ever get a chance to fix this.
I let my gun clatter to the ground. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. A feeling of helplessness washes over me, cold and clawing, and it feels like drowning. I see one of the men clap a rag over Sienna’s face, and as she goes limp, I lunge forward despite myself, seeing red.
"Smart man," someone says behind me. “But you’re not going anywhere but into a cage.”
Something hard connects with the back of my skull. And the last thing I see before darkness claims me is my wife, being dragged away, shoved into the back of a van.
Sienna.
—
I wake up on a hard floor that smells like piss and blood, concrete cold against my cheek. I push myself up, my head swimming as I do, and I see that I’m still wearing the same clothes, but my gun is gone. I can feel the weight of it missing instantly, and then it all comes back to me.
The ambush. The fight. Dropping my gun to keep them from shooting Sienna. Watching her be dragged away while I was helpless to stop it.
My head is pounding, and when I reach up to touch the back of my skull, my fingers come away sticky with dried blood.
There’s no one else in the cell with me.
“Sienna!” Her name spills from my mouth, a guttural cry, and I instantly hear footsteps echoing in the corridor outside of my cell. Not a minute later, I see three guards led by a taller, broader, heavily muscled man—a man I recognize as Sal Envio, Russo’s enforcer. He was in lockstep with Russo on the plans for the pornography ring and human trafficking, I know that much, which makes me hate him on principle before I even get to the part about taking Sienna and locking me up.
Now I want him dead. I want them all dead.
