Page 206 of The Owner's Temptation

This isn’t a rescue mission.

It’s a goddamn war.

* * *

In thirty minutes, I’ve mobilized a fucking army and I’m on the helipad at the top of Wolfe Industries arguing with my head of security about who is going to fly.

The chopper is sleek—top of the line, customized, and grotesquely expensive. Wolfe’s personal toy. He’s not here to fly it himself, of course, but I’m not planning on waiting for a goddamn pilot to arrive.

“I can fly it,” I mutter, inspecting the instrument panel with sharp, practiced eyes.

Killian gives me a look like I’m full of shit. “You can fly aplane, Lucian. Helicopters are a whole different beast.”

I slide into the pilot’s seat anyway but he pushes me over.

Killian climbs in after me with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll fly. But you’re explaining the bloodstains to Wolfe.”

I smirk, just barely. “He’ll be lucky if there’s a helicopter lefttogive back.”

The cabin is silent except for the roar of blades overhead and the occasional flick of Killian adjusting flight controls. I don’t speak. I can’t. Every second we’re in the air is another second she’s in Lorenzo’s hands.

Every breath I take is a fight not to punch through the glass and start jumping early.

My knee bounces uncontrollably. My fingers twitch over the handle of my Glock, my mind painting a hundred ways this ends.

Every one of them involves me walking out of there with Sienna in my arms and that bastard’s head in a fucking bag.

As soon as I watched that video, I knew exactly where he was keeping her.

It’s a warehouse from our past. Not one he owns anymore so ironically it survived my destruction of his other properties.

It’s where Lorenzo and I made our first kills. Seventeen years old. Still boys with blood on our hands and his father watching with cold pride in his eyes. That was our initiation into the DeLuca crime family. That’s where we proved we were monsters.

And now Lorenzo’s brought it full circle.

That sentimental fuck chose that place for a reason.

He wants me to see it. Feel it. Bleed in it.

Well, good.

Because I want him to hear me coming.

And he fucking does.

The helicopter touches down with a bone-rattling thrum, the gravel lot kicking up in swirling clouds as Killian keeps it steady. I’m already out, my boots hitting the ground hard a second before Killian pulls away.

The wind slaps me, the late-morning sky dim with smoke-stained clouds, and the warehouse looms ahead like the grave it’s always been.

Lorenzo is waiting.

He’s standing dead center at the far end of the lot, hands in his coat pockets, like we’re here to negotiate a fucking real estate deal instead of trade blood and bones. A long series of scratches down his face that look fresh.

I walk toward him slow, steady. Every step an exercise in restraint.

We stop with a stretch of open ground between us—neutral territory that won’t stay neutral for long.

He studies me, his expression unreadable. “Where is he?”

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