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A shiver stole through me when I thought about my mamma even being in the vicinity of this place.

It reeked of decay and death. I didn’t appreciate the route my mind was taking when I thought of that.

It brought back too many haunting memories.

Nemours had found a way to get to my mamma, and she almost died because of him.

My father had decided to go with her if she didn’t survive.

For a second, my mind did its own thing and went in the direction of Sistine.

I put myself in Brando Fausti’s shoes like I’d never done before.

It felt like I was wearing new skin, and I didn’t fucking like the feel of it.

It stood for a man I could never understand.

I shook my head, attempting to fling the fucking thought off in the distance, but even so, thoughts of Sistine being the one who was down here had my temperature rising.

Remo gave me a look that seemed to mean, all good?

The thoughts in my mind were running rampant for some fucking reason, and for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to control them.

But physically— all good. I nodded in answer.

Maybe he’d noticed the sweat on my brow even though the temperature had to be in the negative.

My muscles were tightening, and I could feel the blood pumping through my veins in an insane, hot rush.

Suddenly, I had to get out of the underground and make sure all was good in Venice.

Fuck me sideways.

I knew what was happening deeper than skin, but it was a new feeling I wasn’t used to. I felt like a boat dropping anchor for the first time. My body moved forward, but something was tugging at the furiously pumping organ in the middle of my chest.

Remo lifted his hand.

We all stopped.

A breath later, men swarmed out in front of us.

These were not friendlies.

No fucking surprise.

We knew we weren’t getting out of this search and rescue mission without shedding some blood.

The scene might have looked tame when we first arrived, but these motherfuckers were saving the best for last. Their group stood in front of ours.

One of their men lit a torch on the wall.

The scene came to life with the heat of the flames.

Even the rats scattered. I lifted my googles, and so did the rest of the men.

The leader sized up Remo, but ultimately, his eyes landed on mine. We stared at each other. He and I were going to battle. Seemed like I was the chosen one. I grinned. There was something violent between us already.

He grinned back. “Leaving so soon?” he asked in broken English. He was Russian.

“Nah,” I said. “From what I gather, the party is just getting started.”

He cracked his neck like some macho man in a fucking B Grade movie. He said something in Russian, what I assumed to be the equivalent of attack! Then hell was unleashed in the underground club.

The hall was narrow, but it seemed like we all had enough space to do hand-to-hand combat.

Guns were not drawn. Too much of a chance of bullets ricocheting.

If it were my grandfather, he could probably catch them in his mouth and spit them back at the enemy, but none of these men seemed to want to get down that way.

Chatty Leader and I circled each other. I had a knife sheathed to my side, but my plan was to break his fucking neck. I could see the intent in his eyes. He had something similar on his mind.

“Not today, Satan,” I said to him.

He lunged at me with an angry grunt, and I dodged. What went from a playful, mocking tone had already turned into outrage in him. That was good. Anger that hot didn’t bode well in a fight. The head had to keep its cool while the body was always on alert.

He came at me again, and this time, I used my elbow to break his nose with a satisfying crunch, but it wasn’t stopping him. If anything, he was growing hotter and hotter by the second. Wilder. He kept coming at me straight on. I kept hitting him in all the right spots.

His nose was swollen, leaking blood and mucus, his lip busted, and blood outlined his teeth. Whenever he snarled at me, he looked like a wild animal.

I wasn’t sure who had taught this fucker how to fight, though.

Or who put him in charge. He was fucking sloppy, and only a few minutes in, he was out of breath and out of his mind.

Maybe that was where his talent lived. He was so feral he scared the other guy.

Like being so ugly made some people cute to other people.

I laughed at him, which I knew was pissing him off more. Until he nodded to the silk rose clipped to my tactical belt.

He smiled at me. “You have a whore. I will find her and enjoy fucking her while your cold corpse rots in this underground graveyard. The rats will have a feast.”

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. His smile was as big as it was when we’d first started dancing. He’d gotten to me, and he knew it.

He gurgled for a second, then started laughing.

“I will find her,” he said through the hold I had on his throat.

“I will find her, and no force on this earth will be able to stop me from torturing her.” I increased the pressure, and he started to salivate on my hand, his eyes starting to bulge.

He was still strong, though, and in this instance, he was keeping his cool.

He reached below his belt and pulled out a knife.

I moved to the right just in time for him to cut through my fatigues and find skin.

He was trying to stab me between the ribs.

Probably trying to puncture my lungs. He was fast on the draw.

My hand was still around his throat, but he went at me again.

This time, though, his swings were wild, trying to get me to release my hold so he could breathe again.

He’d gotten a few swipes in on my arm before I let go.

Chatty Leader wasn’t going to have another chance to make a mark on me again. Or open his fucking mouth about the woman the rose belonged to. I unsheathed my knife and before he could come at me again, I stabbed him in the throat.

It was like a scene out of a movie. His eyes froze for a second, blood trickled from his mouth, and he slid down the wall.

A man came at me from behind, another one of their fighters, wrapping his arms around my throat.

He pulled me back, looking for purchase against the wall, and he was putting all his weight into it.

It felt like my neck might pop off, or one of my eyes might fly out of its socket.

He was successful in getting his back to the wall, but he made a mistake.

He left too much room between my head and his.

My head might have been swimming in and out of focus from a lack of oxygen, but I pushed through it, and with a strained grunt, I forced my head forward and then back with all the momentum I could muster.

His nose broke with a satisfying crunch.

The shock of it gave me enough time to bend his hand to his arm.

At the same time, I kicked his knee in, crippling him.

He screamed in my ear, cursing in Russian, and before he could come at me again, I took him by the hair and smashed his face into the stone wall.

He fell to the floor, and I prepared to face another enemy, my breaths ragged in the cold but my body on fire.

More of our men had joined the fray, though, and the Russians were scattering like the rats.

As one of their fighters ran past me, I lifted my leg and tripped him.

He went flying, landing somewhere in a passage that was pitch black.

Remo took my side. “We must go,” he said in Italian. “Stella has been found, but not in good condition.”

The news that Stella wasn’t doing well snapped me back to attention. We had to focus and get the fuck out, in case my brother needed backup getting Stella out. We were still cut off from all communications and had no idea what the situation was looking like farther into the underground club.

One of our men grabbed the torch and pointed forward after Remo gave him the order to do so.

As we passed one of the tunnels, a man identical to the one who had attacked me leaned against the wall, his shoulder against it.

Our eyes locked through the wavering flames.

In a breath, he disappeared into the darkness.

I knew. I’d killed his brother, blood related or not, and he was going to attempt to kill me.

He’d never forget my face.

I’d never forget his.

At the meetup point, a bunch of our men converged, and we made it out of the club together without incident.

Most of us were sweating, bleeding, and torn up.

We’d all collected wounds and enemies in this battle.

This wasn’t only about Stella, but the existence of the club and what it stood for.

Mamma had been forced to dance against her will, and a war broke out after it—a war that had raged for years.

A war that almost took our parents. Had taken family and friends.

The air outside of the club was chilled but sweet.

It smelled and tasted like life, even with the smells of fire and brimstone that surrounded us.

Blood was heady in the air. Some men were being carried out by other men.

Rushed to the safety of our emergency vehicles.

Including my brother with Stella in his arms.

Once they were gone, I realized how messed up Stella was, and the reality of the situation hit me harder than any of those men could’ve. My brother could lose his heart right after he found her. The thought didn’t sit well with me.

My heart was experiencing a lot of new emotions, and I knew why. I was starting to feel empathy toward situations that suddenly hit too close to home.

Remo came up to me and said he was going to take me to one of our medical places to get stitched up.

We had places scattered all over the world—places that my great-uncle Tito, who had been the lead doctor for the Fausti family for years, and who was also married to my great-aunt Lola, had set up for times like these.

I looked down at my side. The fabric was ripped, and so was my skin.

Blood poured out of it, and I was surprised the heat of it against the cold air wasn’t making smoke.

I teetered a bit, and Remo put a hand on me to stop me from swaying, though he was teetering too.

My old man seemed to appear out of nowhere to check me out. He looked at the wound with serious eyes. His eyes told me that, if he knew who had done it, he would kill him.

“Too late,” I said, my voice hoarse.

He nodded and, without a word, held a wad of gauze to my side. A man waited outside to take me and Remo to one of our hospitals once Marciano joined us. My old man handed me my phone and ordered me to answer it so mamma wouldn’t worry when she called to check on me.

The phone in my hand started to vibrate. I had a voicemail.

“Signor Fausti,” the sweet voice almost whispered on the other end of the line.

“This is Sistine Capella, from Cappello's Jewelry store. You gave me instructions to do as I wished with the name plate, but—” a slight, breathy pause “—I was calling to make sure you were okay…” Another pause, this one longer, and then she hung up.

My vision was hazy, my head swimming, probably from the blood loss and the adrenaline still surging through my veins, but through all the static, my brain checked the time of the voicemail.

She was probably leaving it at the time the Russian was trying to stab through my ribs to puncture something vital.

“Fuck me sideways,” I said, and then took a seat on the sidewalk, putting my head between my legs. My hands were coated with blood—mine and probably someone else’s—and shaking, like the vibration from the phone alert had me trembling all over.

Somehow, someway, Sistine Evita and I were connected already.