Page 44 of Luciano

“Aria, what the fuck are you doing?” His voice was close to panic. “You’re fucking pregnant!”

“I saw two suspicious vans when I was leaving out the back way. I snuck away from the guards and followed. I couldn’t stand there and watch her just be taken,” she snapped. “I’m parked a few blocks down from where they stopped. They’re in some kind of warehouse. You need to get here fast.”

Saint ripped the phone from my hand. “Get your ass home, Aria. Now. I swear to fucking God—”

“I’m already here, Saint. Do you want the location or not?”

I gritted my teeth.

Saint looked at me like he wanted to punch something. Break something.

But Aria was right.

I grabbed the phone back. “Drop a pin. Now.”

The call ended. A second later, the location hit my phone.

I turned to Saint. “You coming?”

His face was carved from stone. “Of course I’m fucking coming.”

I lifted my phone, my fingers moving quickly as I sent out the order. Soldiers. As many as I could muster. They’d be ready in minutes.

Saint was next to me, barking commands into his own phone, his voice sharp and urgent.

“I don’t care who’s on what right now,” he snapped. “Get them to the address I send you. Now.”

I didn’t know who we were up against. Didn’t know how many they had, how armed they were, or how far they were willing to go. But it didn’t matter. We’d be ready.

My hands were steady as I slid my gun into its holster, but my mind wasn’t. I could hear my mother screaming in my head.

The sound was faint, distant, but it was there, clawing at the edges of my thoughts. My thoughts were flashing a hundred miles a minute. I could see the blood on the floor, pooling beneath her body, trembling, before it went still. That could easily be Ava.

I could almost feel her blood on my hands, sticky and warm. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms, the pain grounding me.

Focus. I needed to focus.

“Luciano,” Saint called my name, his voice cutting through the noise in my head. “Move. Let’s go get our fucking wives,” he yelled.

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. If I opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure what would come out—a scream, a curse, or something worse. Instead, I nodded, my jaw tight, and turned toward the door.

The men would be there soon. We’d move fast, hit hard, and leave nothing standing.

But as I stepped into the night, the humidity drying the sweat on my skin, I knew one thing.

I wouldn’t survive losing Ava.

Because without her, I was nothing but a ghost—a hollow shell of a man who had already died in that room with his mother years ago.

Which meant I had to make sure there was no one left alive who thought they could take her from me and live to brag about it.

Chapter 21

Ava

The first thing I noticed was the smell—bitter and burnt, like coffee. It clung to the damp air, mixing with the sharp, salty scent of ocean water.

The second thing I noticed was the pain.

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