Rain hammered against the windows of the penthouse. Luca stood in the hallway, his shirt unfastened, watching the city drown in waterfalls of light. Blood had dried dark on his knuckles. He'd had no intention of removing it. Sometimes it was the only truth that clung to his skin.

The door opened behind him and Luca didn't turn. He could hear the measured footsteps of his father's approach.

"Three of Vitale's men," Don Moretti said. "And you let the fourth live."

"I wanted the message delivered," Luca replied, his voice as smooth as always. “Dead men don’t talk.”Reckless."

Luca finally turned. His father looked older than ever before and the burden of the family name seemed to press visibly upon his shoulders. "If Vitale wants to wage war I won't stop him. I'm not seventeen anymore."

His father's gaze locked with his and Luca had the strange feeling that every year he had lived had suddenly crystallized before his father's judgment.

"His daughter is back in town," the Don said after a moment. "Isabella. She was at the club tonight. She saw you leave the bodies."

Something cold twisted inside of Luca's ribs. He remembered her. A quiet girl who had been watching before he had watched her. She was the girl whose father had sent men to kill him, men who'd left their mark upon Luca's body in the form of twin bullet scars. "She saw me," Luca said.

"She saw you kill three of his men."

Luca's mouth twisted into something like a smile. "Interesting."

---

The club smelled of expensive perfume and old money. Luca moved easily between the throngs of people, a practiced ease with which only someone who belonged there could possess. He found her on the balcony, a glass of wine in her hand untouched and cool at her side.

She looked different. Harder. The softness he might have once have called pretty had vanished into some sharper angles beneath dark hair and dark eyes. Six years had made her into a woman and Luca thought she looked good.

He stopped a few feet away from where she stood and regarded her carefully.

"Isabella."

She turned around slowly. “Luciano. You’ve gotten taller.”

“You’ve gotten bolder.”

She almost smiled. Almost. "My father is dying. I'm back to take what is mine before he dies and it goes to someone else."

"Your father tried to kill me."

"I know." She took another step forward and Luca caught the smell of her perfume. Something dark and musky. "Tonight you killed three of his men. So where do you think that leaves us?"

Luca studied her for a long moment. The fire that had always burned inside of him at the sight of her had not diminished, but there was something else now, something he didn't want to name.

"The same place we've always been," Luca said finally. "On opposite sides."

She watched him intently for a long moment. "Maybe the sides are changing."

His phone vibrated in his pocket and Luca glanced down at it. There were only a handful of numbers that could text him at this hour. He read the message.

She's not alone. Vitale's last captain is in the building. East stairwell. He has orders.

Luca's jaw tightened. He looked back at Isabella. Her face was impenetrable, but her fingers had turned white where she'd been gripping the glass of wine.

"Stay here," he said quietly. "Don't move."

"Or what?"

He leaned in close enough that only she could hear him. "Or I find you and you won't like how I do it."

He pushed off the wall and strode toward the stairwell. The man was waiting for him when he got there, a gun pointed at Luca's temple. Luca didn't give him a chance to shoot. The fight was brief and over too quickly. When it was done Luca was on his knees next to the fallen captain, pressing a gun to his temple.

"Tell Vitale his daughter is under my protection," Luca said. "Tell him to touch her and I'll burn everything he owns."

The man laughed, a wet sound. “You’re already too late.”

Luca frowned. "What?"

"She was never the target," the captain said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "You were. And the bomb is in the car that brought her here."

Luca was already moving. He reached the VIP floor just in time to see Isabella walking toward the exit, a phone pressed to her ear. She looked up as he came around the corner and for the first time that night Luca saw real fear in her eyes.

"Luca--"

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him, already striding toward the emergency exit. The first explosion shook the building and glass erupted around them as the lights dimmed and died.

In the darkness, with the smell of smoke curling around them and her heart pounding against his chest, Luca knew one thing with absolute certainty.

The war had begun.

And the woman in his arms was either going to be the reason it ended... or the reason he died trying.

End of Chapter 1