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And then I laughed. A single snort of pure amusement, followed by another until I was belly laughing so hard it hurt.

But fuck, it felt good too. My body came alive, every inch, every cell, relaxing with the knowledge that I’d been right all along.

Luca wasn’t dead.

If Luca was alive, then he was the Guerra heir.

And Enzo knew it.

My smile widened while I stared at his panicked face. “Run, Enzo.” I laughed at him. “Run. You know the way Viktor and Bruno and all the others fell in line at your feet when they thought you were sitting on the throne? That’s what they’ll now do for Luca. As soon as they hear he’s alive, they’ll become his men. I don’t think he’s going to be too pleased you tried to have him killed.” I grinned. “Hilarious, though, that whoever you paid did you dirty.”

Enzo glared at me with more hate in his eyes than I would have thought possible. It was hard not to shrivel beneath the intensity of it, but I stared back at him, refusing to give him an inch.

Luca was alive.

And if Luca was alive, maybe the mirage I’d seen through broken, watery, pain-filled eyes back at the church was not a hallucination after all.

Hope flooded my body. I suddenly felt lighter and, one by one, everything fit together. “You had them all taken from me, didn’t you? Dax, and then Luca, and Lynx… It was you all along, wasn’t it?”

They had never left me. Not willingly. I was suddenly as sure of it as I was the baby I held against my heart.

Enzo shook his head, staring down at me like I was a cockroach that needed to be stomped on. “You really are fucking stupid, aren’t you?”

Except I knew I wasn’t.

Enzo crouched beside me, so we were eye to eye.

I refused to look away. Refused to back down. “Run,” I whispered. “It’s your only shot. Run before Viktor and Bruno get word that Luca is alive and it’s you who’s kept in a cell.”

To my surprise, the fear in Enzo’s eyes didn’t intensify. It only hardened into something darker.

He took the blade from his pocket so fast I barely had time to react. He lunged for me, and all I could do was flinch as his knife slid through the baby’s umbilical cord, detaching him from my body.

I screamed when he tried to grab for the baby, but a swift punch to my face sent me reeling, my grip on the tiny child loosening enough for Enzo to swoop in and take him from my arms.

My head rang, my vision blurred. Screams echoed in my ears, mine, Sindy’s, the baby’s. I couldn’t make sense of any of it as I teetered on the edge of consciousness, fighting hard against the blackness threatening to take over.

The cell door clanged shut once more, Enzo and my baby on the other side of it. “I’ll run, princess,” Enzo spat, using the nickname Luca had given me. “But I’m taking the baby with me. Nothing has changed, just delayed. You can tell Luca I’m still coming for him.” His evil smile widened as my baby screamed in his arms. “And that I’ve got his heir.”

4

DAX

Dear Diary,

I thought getting her back would be enough. Turns out home still has one person missing.

This had to be what eighty felt like. Stiff joints. Weak legs. Sunlight so blinding you had no choice but to close your eyes against it.

Despite doing what I could to stay fit in the confined space of the room I’d been kept in, every step hurt.

But nothing felt as bad as watching Enzo drive away with Nyah in the back seat, both of them covered in blood.

Luca struggled in the same way I did, both of us down there too long to not feel the effects of it. We’d both lost weight. Fed, but not enough for it to keep starvation at bay. My lips were dry and cracked from dehydration and the cold.

But we stumbled after the car, a cry falling from my lips as the woman I loved, the mother of my child, was stolen away.

I spun, staring at the others. “We have to—”