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Mariano

“ M ariano!”

My wife’s voice echoed inside of my head. It was panicked.

In my head, my eyes exploded open, but I was pretty fucking sure they fluttered. The ceiling above me was cracked, not from being weathered, but from my vision. A crack in my brain separated all the moody colors, twisting and turning them, a dull kaleidoscope.

A flash of lightning shocked the barn.

Thunder rolled so furiously, the ground beneath me trembled.

I blinked again, trying to piece together what had happened, how long ago it had happened.

The last I remembered, I was trying to calm the frightened horse.

She didn’t like the weather. I knew a fucking thing or two about ladies who didn’t like the rain.

This one stood on her haunches, thunder rolled again, and the next thing I knew…

Flat on my fucking back.

I blinked again.

“Mariano!”

“Mitch?”

“We’ve identified ourselves, now let’s move on to the next fucking step. Why the fuck are you on the ground?” He looked behind me. “There’s blood on that rock.”

I felt behind my head and hissed out a breath. A swollen knot had blossomed, and it was bleeding.

This all made no fucking sense.

I sat up, and the world swayed before it slapped back together.

“My wife,” I said, using the stall to get to my feet. Mitch didn’t bother helping me. I wouldn’t have taken it.

“I don’t know where she is, man. I just got here.

Our new grandchild is on her way, and I came to talk to you.

Your parents got held up in Natchitoches .

Charlotte’s starting her shit again about the property.

Your old man keeps trying to call you. Your mamma too.

From the sound of it, they keep trying to call Sistine too. ”

I looked at him and he lifted his hands.

“I’m guessing either because of the situation I found you in, or…

I don’t know. Your mamma said her feelings are all over the place lately.

I had asked her if your old man was going to kill me if I had a talk with him.

Been thinking about what you said. I miss your parents.

Life is short. Everett reminded me of that.

Here one second, gone the next.” He snapped his fingers.

He attempted to keep up with me as I tore through the storm, going for my wife. It was a torrential downpour. I could barely see my hand in front of my face. A few feet in front of us, lightning hit a tree.

“ Whoa! ” Mitch stopped, and he didn’t seem to realize he was trying to take shelter underneath one, a basic magnet.

“Keep moving,” I ordered.

“What the fuck happened, Fausti?”

I had to stop. Take a breath. Blood seemed to sit at the back of nostrils. It almost felt like I was drowning in it.

That was a good fucking question, though.

“I was dealing with the horse.” I pieced it together as we moved the fuck along. “Next thing I know, I’m coming to with you in my face.”

Iggy.

His name flashed across my mind.

“Hold up, Fausti!” Mitch called after me. “You look like a drunk teetering like that, but one on speed. Turbo drunk!”

“My wife,” I roared over the wind. But not to him, to my heart. I kept my head and shoulders against it, fighting the elements to get to mine.

Someone wanted me out. It wasn’t the horse. She was starting to calm the more I spoke to her. Something else had spooked her.

Someone.

Fuck!

“What?” Mitch screamed from behind me.

“Tell me, was there a horse in that stall, Mitch.”

He hustled up, shaking his head. “Nah, man. I think your head took a hard hit.”

The sight of my men trying to get across the swirling tributary made the blood freeze in my chest before my heart raced fast enough to turn it into fucking lava. I stopped short at the bank of the tributary, and Mitch almost ran into my back.

“Dandolo,” I said.

“You talking nonsense, Fausti? What the fuck is a ‘dandolo,’ man? Is that an Italian word for something? You need help?—”

“Benedetto Dandolo.”

It came back to me. He was in the barn with me.

He was going on about Dr. Musa and how Nino didn’t deserve her.

Nino was a shell of the man he used to be.

No one can sing to her like I can! He claimed fate had gotten him and Nino confused somehow.

This could happen! I told him his job was done and to get the fuck out.

If he ever showed his face again, it was over.

I was going to erase him from the sight of humanity.

He had been making Donna, the horse, even more anxious.

I didn’t entertain disrespectful behavior, and a man such as himself, who had appointed himself an ally to fate, should’ve known better.

He was attempting to come between a husband and his wife, even after Dr. Musa had given him the cold shoulder.

God wasn’t going to give someone else’s wife to him, just like God wasn’t going to give someone else’s husband to another woman.

That wasn’t the way things worked. Fate didn’t make mistakes. It was people who did.

“Benedetto Dandolo hit me with the rock.”

There was no time to explain, even though Mitch was asking a million questions. As I crossed the raging water, I screamed to Mitch to follow the water down to its thinnest point and go around the property.

My men were waiting for me on the other side of the bank, and one of them held out his hand for me, but I ignored it, easily getting to my feet.

My old man had trained us to deal with pissed off water.

And in this fucking situation, I trusted no one.

He could easily push me back in, causing me to waste more time before I ripped his fucking head off.

I said two words, “My wife,” and I expected an answer in under ten seconds—ten seconds we ate through as we hustled toward the villa. I’d run after that. I needed to know what was up ahead so I didn’t put my wife in more danger.

The man adjusted his gun and briefed me on the situation, his eyes every so often going to the back of my head. My white shirt was red from the constant flow of blood and rain.

Seemed like after Dandolo left me in the barn with a knot on my head, he went after my wife.

The solider told me Dandolo forced my wife onto the horse, going toward Nino and Dr. Musa’s place.

He was using my wife as a fucking shield to save his own skin.

No man could attempt to take a shot at him without putting her in danger.

My wife.

My heart raced in my chest, this time on the hunt for blood.

Her blood was mixed with mine, an element of our blood vow, an element I refused to fucking lose, and the scent of it was pushing my legs as hard as they had ever worked.

My soldiers were dotted along the path Dandolo took with my wife on the horse— ending at Nino and Dr. Musa’s place atop the hill.

“Fuck!” I roared as the wind and rain pushed against me. Lightning kept shocking the sky, giving me short glimpses of the scene atop the hill. Thunder rumbled like a starving stomach.

Donna was on her haunches, kicking in the air, the sky alight behind her.

Men surrounded her.

Men I didn’t fucking recognize.

These same men surrounded my wife.

Nino, Dr. Musa, and Dandolo were in that order, the two men pointing guns at each other, circling each other, while Dr. Musa stood between them, holding her hands out to each man.

She seemed to be talking to them, but it didn’t seem like they were listening.

Maybe they couldn’t hear her over the roaring of the wind and rain.

Oscar was suddenly beside me, his eyes growing wide and then narrowed as he realized what was happening on the hill with his parents and Benedetto Dandolo.

I could’ve sworn I heard him say the man’s name before he roared out a cry that seemed to challenge the thunder for its bass. Two flashes of light seemed to explode on the hill we were so fucking close to climbing—and not only two people fell to the ground, but three.