Page 20 of Broken Princess

The footsteps continue on down the hall and I can hear another door being broken in. Fear seizes my chest, and I brace myself for a fight I know I can't win when whoever it is starts slamming into the door. He has a hell of a lot better luck than I did—two hard shoves and it bursts open like it exploded from the outside.

The dust settles and I look up to find myself staring at the last person I expected to see.

"Lorenzo?"

My voice sounds frail and doubtful, which is fair enough. Part of me is convinced I have to be dreaming still, or maybe hallucinating from the stress of all of this. There's no way he's actually here.

More concerning, though, is the way relief fills me at the sight of him.

No matter how many miles I managed to put between us, some things never change.

CHAPTER 10

LORENZO

"Lorenzo?" Amelia asks, her voice cracking, from where she's hiding on the floor behind the bed.

The sight of her fills me with a thousand conflicting emotions. Fear, relief, and so many others I can't even name. I never had such a complex emotional range before this girl, and while it's all still relative to her, I'm definitely out of my depth.

She appears unharmed, so that allays the fear for the moment, and I rush over to her, pulling her onto her feet and into my arms before I can even process anything.

The last few hours, particularly the last few minutes, have been complete chaos. It was no surprise when I realized the location Milo had given her father was not where he had actually taken Amelia. It was a trap, which was nothing more than what we had expected.

There had been over a dozen men waiting in the warehouse when we got there, and between the two of us, we had whittled it down to three.

Of course, Milo hadn't actually been there. We had managed to torture it out of one of his associates that there were two potential safe houses he could have taken Amelia to, and time was of the essence, so we had ultimately agreed to split up. He took one, and I took the other.

It turns out I chose the right one.

My instinct is usually right where Amelia is concerned. I just don't often listen to it, but that's going to change.

"How did you find me?" she asks, finally squirming out of my arms enough to pull away to look at me. Her eyes search my face, full of confusion and questions, but that makes two of us.

"Milo called your father," I answer. "I came along for the ride."

Her eyes widen slightly. "Dad? Is he—?"

"He's fine," I answer. "We weren't sure where you were, so he went to one of Milo's other safe houses."

"All that gunfire?" she asks, looking me over in renewed confusion.

I smirk. "Yeah, that's what took me a while."

Her eyes widen in disbelief, which I think I'm kind of insulted by. "Where is Milo?"

"He got away," I mutter. I'm pissed about it, too, but finding her obviously took precedence. "Come on, I have to get you out of here. No telling when that asshole will call in his reinforcements."

She nods, still seemingly in a daze. I guess I can't really blame her. She's not used to any of this shit, even though it isn't my first rodeo. Not by a long shot.

It is the first time I've ever felt genuine fear during a fight, though. I'm not used to the stakes being someone I love.

Hell, I'm not used to loving anyone, and it looks like my initial assumption that it would be a dangerous liability was correct.

Not that there's any turning back now.

As she follows me out of the room, I put up a hand to keep her back. "Stay behind me and try not to make any noise."

It's not like her to comply without arguing, but we're in my domain here, and she knows it. To my relief, she actually listens for once.

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