Page 93 of Mine Again (Mafia Bride #2)

Chapter Ninety-Two

Luca

“ P erimeter secure,” a voice crackles in my ear. “Gatehouse clear. South wall clear. Courtyard green.”

Twisted steel smokes in the mid-morning sun. Spent brass cartridges litter the drive. Hale’s men lie where they fell. Maximo’s crew holds the steps, rifles steady. A medic tapes a shoulder and waves the man back.

All that is left is inside.

“On the door,” Maximo barks.

We stack on the marble. Two right, two left, me at point.

Two silhouettes flicker in the vestibule, rifles up.

“Contact,” Maximo shouts.

Hale’s men fire through the glass. Shards leap like hail. We answer in short, flat bursts. One drops hard. The other stumbles back, his rifle slipping.

“We need to blow this door,” Maximo calls over.

“No need. Locks are dead.” I killed them thirty seconds ago. Jammers are up. Cameras blind. Radios choked.

Alarms bleat across the facade. Sunlight turns drifting smoke into chalky veils .

“Push,” I say, and two of Maximo’s men part the front doors.

We flood the hall, boots loud on stone.

“Where is she?” Maximo asks, already scanning for targets.

I check the tracker under Isa’s hairline. The red dot jumps, then settles.

“East wing. This way.” I point and we cut right.

Two guards flood the corridor from a side door. They shout warnings, rifles rising. Maximo puts one down center mass. I take the other in the throat. He drops, clutching air.

I give a small nod to Maximo. He answers with a hard grin and a hand signal. We push forward.

Another pair of Hale’s men breaks from cover near the atrium. Bullets chew plaster. We return fire. One stumbles, the other turns to run, and I put him down.

A part of me notes the line I’ve crossed today and does not flinch. If this makes me a made man, then I am made for her .

“Stairwell,” Maximo says. “We split.” He peels left with three men. I take the east corridor with two.

“Hold your fire near the east wing,” I tell them. “No grenades. Isabella is close.”

A young guard steps from a side room, blinks at us, and freezes. His hands lift in surrender.

“Down,” I say. “On your face.”

Maximo’s men zip-tie him in seconds. We keep moving.

Every second Isa is in here is a second too long. I check the tracker app again, the dot pulling me like a wire.

One hundred feet. Eighty.

We hit the east corridor at a jog. Glass crunches underfoot, sharp fragments everywhere. A bronze bust lies toppled beside a display case that’s been blown open, bows and quivers scattered inside.

Isa.

She armed herself. That’s my girl.

There’s blood across the cabinet, a bright smear along the lip.

Shit. She must have cut herself .

Rage goes hot and clean. My vision tightens to a pin. Every part of me wants Hale’s throat under my hand. He made her bleed. He’ll pay for every drop.

I spot the occasional blood speck on the tiles, darkening at the rims. Ice slides through my chest.

I drop my gaze and follow the drops, a breadcrumb trail that darkens as it goes. My heart hammers harder with every step.

The red droplets angle right, then cut toward the far corner. A scuff, a slip, a clean dot on the grout. She has to be close. I lengthen my stride, moving faster.

A cupboard sits crooked from the wall. Behind it, a narrow opening breathes cool, stale air.

I raise a hand to the two men with me. “Hold the hall. No one follows.”

I hear her before I see her. Isa’s voice tears down the passage like a whip.

It’s a voice I’d recognize among thousands, underwater or in space.

Gratitude hits me like a meteorite impact.

My butterfly is alive.

I slip into the narrow passageway, rifle tight, eyes hunting the glow. I spot her right away, upright and fierce with a bow in her hand.

Her hair has come loose from its tie, strands stuck damp to her cheek. Blood streaks her knuckles, and there’s a cut on one forearm. She’s fierce and vulnerable all at once.

A new wave of relief slams through me, real enough to buckle my knees. The world snaps into a single point. Isa, standing proud.

“You pathetic weasel. Running from a war you started, like a coward. If you were in the army, they would shoot you on the spot for deserting. There are people dying for you out there while you hide like a piss-soaked rabbit. My little sister has more balls than you. You’re a half-assed Bond villain in a borrowed suit, a knockoff jackal in cufflinks with a paper spine.

You sorry excuse for a man. Useless, gutless, sniveling trash. ”

Pride cuts through me so sharply I almost laugh .

My farfalla is standing over Hale with a short recurve, another arrow nocked, shoulders high and steady. Her breathing is fast but her grip is rock-solid. She doesn’t look away from him.

He’s on the ground, writhing, his face a tormented mask of pain.

One arrow pins his left forearm to the floor through the meat below the elbow.

Another spears the right, buried through muscle and oak.

A third is sunk deep in his thigh, a dark bloom spreading around the shaft.

His gun lies a few feet away, kicked out of reach.

“Move again, you worthless piece of shit, and I’ll pin your other leg,” she tells him, her voice low with promise.

He gurgles something that might be a threat, “You’ll regret…,” before it collapses into a wet whimper that dies on the concrete.

I take a second to fully relish the sight. Isa, queen on the attack. Hale, a pinned pawn with no moves left. It might be the highlight of my life so far.

“I never knew you could swear like that,” I say, equal parts proud and awed.

She turns. The bow dips, then lowers. The arrow stays in her fingers, but her face changes.

Relief breaks over her so fierce it’s almost pain.

Her mouth parts. A breath shudders out.

Our eyes lock.

The alarms fade to a far hiss, and the tunnel narrows to the color of her irises.

Time stretches thin. I hear my heartbeat answer hers. For a few seconds, we just stare at each other.

Then I move. She runs. I do the same.

We crash together in the middle of the passage. Her bow knocks my shoulder. My rifle bumps the wall. None of it matters.

I get my arms around her and lift her off the ground, her legs wrapping around me.

She’s shaking. So am I.

“You’re here,” she chokes out.

“I’m here,” I say into her hair .

Smoke and dust cling to it. She’s warm and alive in my arms.

Alive.

I’ve never been happier.

Nothing in my life has ever come close to this moment.