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“We built this,” I correct.
He stops by the old stone fountain, the one that cracked during the last storm. His fingers card through my hair, tucking a lock back with a tenderness that completely undoes me. When his lips find the space below my ear, the world narrows to pulse and breath.
“I’m scared sometimes,” I admit, “that it’ll all fall apart again.”
His hand covers mine. Warm, rough, and sure. “Then we’ll rebuild it again.”
That’s Enzo. Speaking with the kind of certainty that binds bone to belief.
Enzo keeps a firm hand on my back as we cross the walkway, the night air cool and smelling of rain. I’m halfway through teasing him about hating parties when everything tilts sideways. A man comes out of nowhere, his face hooded as he rushes toward us with a glint of metal that’s unmistakably a knife.
I gasp, instinctively reaching for Enzo, but I never get the chance to scream a warning. Marco acts before I can blink. One second, he’s leaning against the brick wall, joking with a lady, the next he’s between Enzo and the blade. The sharp, wet sound of the knife sinking into him fills the now dead-silent night.
Marco grunts as the knife clatters to the ground.
The would-be assassin doesn’t even have time to look surprised before Enzo has him pinned, his wrist twisted at an angle that prompts me to glance away. The other Benedetti men flood the space. Someone shouts. Someone else swears.
Marco staggers back, presses a hand to his side, and gapes at the blood blooming through his fingers.
Enzo shoves the assailant toward one of his men and lunges for Marco, reaching him with two others before he can fall.
“Get the car!”
He tosses me keys without breaking stride. I catch them before running down the steps and diving into the driver’s seat of his Maserati. They lift Marco into the back seat like he weighs nothing.
“I can walk,” he grunts, one hand clamped to his side, the blood threading between his fingers. “I’m stabbed, not dead.”
“Get in,” Enzo snaps.
His voice is too calm, which means he’s trying to bury his worry.
In the driver’s seat, my body carries out actions without thinking. The baby kicks once, sharp and indignant, as if protesting the chaos.
“It’s not deep,” Marco calls from the back, his breath uneven but still annoyingly amused. “I’ve had worse in sparring.”
“You’ve never been stabbed from sparring,” I shoot back, already pulling onto the road.
Marco snorts. “Details.”
Enzo sits beside me, his jaw tight, one hand braced on the dash, the other reaching back to keep pressure on Marco’s wound. His white shirt is streaked red, and it looks wrong on him.
Ashford County Hospital is mercifully close.
We don’t speak for the rest of the drive, and the city traffic thankfully parts around us in blurs of light and sirens. I focus on the road, on breathing, and on the fact that Enzo is upright, alive, and steady beside me.
When we stop under the emergency awning, the hospital doors fly open.
Nurses rush forward with a gurney while Marco protests the entire transfer.
“I said it’s a scratch,” he insists, though his face has gone pale beneath the bravado. “You should see the other guy.”
“Sir,” one of the nurses replies dryly, “the other guy isn’t bleeding on my shoes.”
They wheel him inside, Enzo and I close behind. A woman in a white coat appears, intercepting the gurney mid-motion. She’s a beautiful force of nature in scrubs, with dark hair pulled into a low knot and an alert, composed expression.
Marco’s eyes seem to lock onto hers, and he shocks me when his mouth quirks like he finds her amusing.
“Careful, Dottoressa,” he murmurs, his voice rough silk. “I bruise easily.”
