Masculine heat crushed me as they closed in, making me feverish and dizzy. I didn’t know how many of them threatened me; I couldn’t claw my way through the terror that blanketed my mind to count the hands that touched me.
Dante’s name reverberated through the warehouse, the sound of my blind panic mingling with cruel laughter.
Pain overwhelmed me, crushing the last flicker of my hope for rescue.
The Devil wasn’t coming for me. Luca wasn’t coming for me.
I would suffer and die here, alone and abused.
I sank into agony, falling out of time and losing track of my surroundings. For a few minutes, merciful darkness closed over me, but fresh pain continually yanked me back to consciousness. The torment went on and on, until my screams died and the fire of my defiant will was extinguished.
A feral roar thundered through the sick laughter that surrounded me, and the suffocating weight of the Russians was suddenly lifted away. I gasped for air, and oxygen flooded my lungs. The sudden shock of awareness was cruelly sharp, magnifying the pain that’d become dulled by disassociation.
I lifted my face from the pool of warm blood beneath my cheek, the world reeling at the smallest movement of my abused body.
Gunshots rang out in a deafening barrage. My tormentors fell around me, some screaming, others deadly silent. Guttural groans were cut off with savage swipes of wickedly sharp blades.
Shockingly green eyes filled my world, and Dante rasped my name as he reached for me.
The firefight continued to rage around us, but the ringing in my ears muffled the deafening booms that echoed through the warehouse.
Dante’s calloused fingertips caressed my bloody cheek—the barest brush of his hand—before he was ripped away from me.
I cried out at the loss, terror flooding my dulled senses.
The Russians would kill him. My savior would die, and then I would be murdered too.
The world wavered at the edges as I took in the horrific scene, unable to look away from the carnage.
But it wasn’t the Russians who had Dante in their murderous grip; Luca grappled with him, a silvery blade flashing between them. Dante twisted to the side, releasing a roar of rage and pain when the knife sank into his shoulder. He shoved Luca off him, and the hilt slipped from my husband’s hand, the blade lodged deep in Dante’s flesh.
Dante’s lips stretched in an animal snarl, and he wrenched the knife free and tackled Luca. His blood glistened on the steel as it arced toward the man I loved.
“No!” I screamed, horror crashing through my haze of agony. “Dante, don’t!”
The blade halted at Luca’s throat, a crimson line beading beneath the sharp edge. My husband went utterly still, and Dante growled in his rage-reddened face.
“Stop!” I cried, struggling to my knees.
Dante’s keen eyes cut to me, piercing my chest. The possessive fury that burned in their depths knocked the air from my lungs, but I managed to plead with him.
“If you care about me at all, don’t hurt him,” I begged.
He lifted the blade, raising it for a killing blow.
My heart hammered against my ribcage with bruising force. I struggled to my feet, desperate to put my body between the Devil and my vulnerable husband.
“I love him!” I shouted.
Dante roared, and the knife slashed toward Luca.
I slipped in the pool of my own blood, and the world spun. Darkness crashed over me.
Chapter 2
Dante
Nora’s knees buckled, and she crumpled to the blood-soaked concrete floor. She didn’t move.
