I had four bodies scattered through my now completely destroyed apartment, and not one of them belonged to a Bellucci. Absolute fury was all I felt as I sat in one of Anthony’s guest bedrooms watching a nurse clean the glass from Emerson’s skin. Her knees and hands had been sliced and pricked, she had a mild concussion, and a dislocated elbow that the doctor had to pop back in, while I listened to Emerson cry and tried my best not to punch him in the face.

If it weren’t for the DePalma’s pull in this city, I’d be at the hospital with a lot of police officers right now, facing questions I couldn’t answer. Fortunately, Anthony had a doctor on call to deal with situations like this. He wasn’t a stranger to the DePalma residence, especially given that Gio was a fighter and while he was the best there was, he often needed to be patched up after a fight.

“How are you feeling?” Doctor Ford asked Emerson while his wife, the nurse, continued to clean out her wounds.

“Better,” Emerson replied, forcing a weak smile.

“Don’t tell him you’re okay if you’re not,” I scolded.

Her nose crinkled, but she kept her eyes on the doctor. “Seriously, I’m okay. I can feel the pain killers working, so thank you for that.”

Doctor Ford nodded, scribbling a few notes on his pad. “You’re lucky the blow wasn’t any harder. I’d say someone was watching out for you tonight.” I didn’t miss the way her eyes moved skyward, and I knew exactly who she was thinking about. “The rest of your injuries are mostly superficial, there should be very little scaring, but I will need to come back to check the wound on your hand to make sure it’s healing properly without stitches. Your elbow should feel better tomorrow, but it will still be sore, you’ll need to try and keep it in a sling for a couple of weeks.”

She was lucky all right, the dislocation had only been partial, so there was no major damage done.

Emerson gave him a tight smile. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Anthony stepped inside the room as the doctor and his wife had packed up the last of their things. “One of my men is waiting for you by the door, thank you for coming,” he told them simply, and they dipped their heads as they hustled out of the room, feeling the tension that was growing.

I pushed out of my chair, ignoring the way my ribs screamed in protest.

“You want to tell me what the hell happened tonight?” he demanded, closing the door behind him.

I’d yet to inform Anthony of what went down, my main priority—getting help for Emerson. I knew that had pissed him off, and I had the feeling that I was about to feel every fucking drop of his anger at full force. I’d made it out alive, but the night was still young, and Anthony had me in his sights.

I explained to him the situation and what had transpired, leaving out the small detail about how I’d been fucking his niece only minutes before the assholes appeared. Unfortunately for me, this man wasn’t stupid.

“How the fuck did Tobia get away?” he snapped, his eyes burning holes in my head.

I scoffed. “Tobia is a coward. The moment he realized he wasn’t on the winning team, he took off the way he came in. I couldn’t follow him while I had a sledgehammer flying at my head.”

“I killed someone,” Emerson whispered suddenly, drawing a dark silence over the room. “I stabbed him in the leg and he bled out.” She looked down at her hands, the blood had been washed away, but she was right. She’d killed a man, a man who was ready to do the same thing to her.

I walked over to the side of the bed, brushing the hair back from her face and hooking my finger underneath her chin.

This woman was a fucking warrior.

Last time she’d seen Tobia, she’d frozen, unable to do anything, unable to fight back and try to save her sister’s life. This time, she’d done whatever she had to do to make sure she came out on top. She fought back, and she fucking won.

Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at me. She was in shock, I could tell that this was going to have a huge impact on her. Most people would go their whole lives without doing what she’d done tonight. Most people would never have to face the fact that they were responsible for taking a life and forcing someone else from this world and into that of another.

I scanned her face, waiting for a sign that told me she was going to break down. A part of me felt like this could have been the deciding factor, the one thing that would either pull us together or tear us apart.

Death was something that I’d made my peace with a long time ago. Whether it be my life or that of another, death was something that I had accepted as a way of life.

Kill or be killed.

Her eyes stared back up at me, and I inhaled a deep breath of relief as I realized I couldn’t see any guilt within her gaze. “You did what you had to do in order to survive. If you hadn’t have stabbed him, and he’d been able to put full force behind that bat, there’s no way in hell you would have been alive to speak about it.”

These men had been there to hurt us, we’d both heard Tobia’s words.

He wanted to torment and torture Emerson.

“My office,” Anthony ordered from behind me. “Now.”

“Uncle Anthony…” Emerson spoke up, earning his attention as he was half turned toward the door. “Please send him back in one piece. I’ve become kind of fond of him.”

He didn’t acknowledge her comment, his body stilling for a few seconds before ducking out the door. His heavy footsteps left the room, stomping off down the hallway. He was angry—understatement—he was enraged. I steeled my spine and stood to full height knowing Anthony was going to have a problem. He could decide right now that he wasn’t going to accept the fact that I was falling in love with Emerson, his niece, someone who his brother had fought for a long time to keep away from this life. I may have escaped death tonight, but I could be facing the firing squad right now.

It was time to either walk away for good or stand strong and tell him I didn’t give a fuck and I was having her.

I knew which it was going to be.

A soft hand slipped into mine and I looked down to see Emerson looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to be here alone,” she whispered, her voice was almost gone. It was husky and soft and sexy as fucking hell.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Andre said, stepping into the room. He tried to force a smile for Emerson’s sake, but as soon as he looked at me, I saw the deadly mask fall across his eyes. Andre always did other work for me on a Saturday night, checking up on distributors and picking up profits. The kid was my most trusted man and with business normally booming, he was on his way to getting his own men.

“Watch her,” I told him, warning him with my eyes that she needed a friend right now, not a killer who was ready to go on a rampage like I could tell he was. I looked back at Emerson, her body was starting to relax and she was getting sleepy. She’d asked for light pain killers, but I’d made sure the doctor gave her something strong enough so her body and mind could relax and rest. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Unless Uncle Anthony shoots you,” she commented dryly, her eyelids drooping.

Good to know she was concerned.

Andre took my place as I slipped my hand from hers and headed for the door. My body fucking ached, going hand to hand with two men wielding weapons that had the ability to break my skull open with just a single tap—not something I recommend.

I’d taken several shots to my stomach, the doc told me my ribs were going to be severely bruised, possibly a fracture, but somehow I’d managed to escape a break. Either way, I was going to be in a lot of pain for a while.

It wasn’t going to stop me though.

Tobia was out there, and I knew for a fact that my gun had hit its target at least once. He was injured, and I was going to use that to my advantage.

Anthony was waiting for me, leaning against the edge of his desk, a drink in his hand. “My brother… he walked away from the family for several reasons.” I closed the door behind me and moved closer, knowing that he had something important to say. “I know one of them was because he knew that being the youngest child meant he would never be in charge. Nic isn’t innocent. Growing up he was just as much a part of this life as I was. He knows what goes on, he’s seen and done things that I know must plague his mind every day.”

This was somewhat news to me.

I knew that Nic had walked away when he was in his early twenties, not wanting to follow someone else’s legacy but instead, create his own.

“Nic always wanted to run things, it’s just a part of his personality to be over-controlling. He wanted to be the boss. That was all there was to it.” Anthony sighed and took a drink. “Until Dad passed away, we weren’t allowed to have anything to do with him. Dad wasn’t angry that he’d walked away, but back then it was seen as a weakness in the ranks to have a son on the outside. While we speak now, we still don’t see eye to eye. In his mind, he took the high road, and I’m just some gangster.”

I continued to listen, even though I was unsure of where all this was going.

Sure, Nic was Emerson’s father and Anthony’s brother. But I didn’t give a shit whether he had a problem with me having her or not. He’d done nothing to support her. Emerson had spent her whole life being smothered by him and made to feel like she always had to live up to his expectations.

The brothers were two different men, and while Anthony’s life rode mostly toward the wrong side of the law, he was a man of loyalty, respectable and proud.

Anthony placed his glass on his desk and stood to full height. “Here is your warning, the only one you will get. There will be fall out. If Emerson is with you, Nic will see that as a strike against his image. He will come after you and probably after her.” Anthony stood in front of me, right inside my space and looked me directly in the eyes. This was the man who had basically raised me, he’d been my father for as long as I could remember.

Anthony had taught me how to be respectful and strong at the same time.

He’d taught me that being a man wasn’t measured by the people we could destroy, but more by the way we helped to raise up the people with us.

“As far as I am concerned, I raised you as my son never treated you any differently than my other children.” The intensity in his eyes ripped shreds at my heart. It was true. “Emerson is my niece, she has DePalma blood running in her veins…”

I lifted my chin.

I heard him loud and clear.

“You better be fucking sure about this, because I will not hesitate to do what I need to do if you do anything to disrespect or hurt her.”

“I’m not letting her go, and there isn’t any person out there who’s going to take her from me,” I answered, refusing to look away.

Anthony’s body tensed. “Just remember, I thought the same thing about Jasmine…” He took in a deep breath. “But when you find a woman who can handle the men that we are, who can look us in the eye every night when we get home and still tell us they love us… you don’t fucking let that go.”

In my head I could see images of looking down and seeing Emerson lying in that puddle of blood and having no idea whether it was hers, and in that moment, for a brief second, it wasn’t her.

It was my mom.

I refused to lose another person who cared for me, or watch them being stolen away.

My mother had stood up to my father, protecting me, refusing to let my father ruin me without a fight.

And Emerson…

She stood up to me, she’d stood beside me, and she’d fought for me.

When a woman was willing to lay down her freedom or life for you, you didn’t let them walk away. There was something special about a woman who had seen you kill a man and could still place their heart in your hands.

Emerson underestimated how strong she was.

And so did I.

With pressures from her parents, the pain of Sophie’s death and now this, she carried a lot of weight on her shoulders—and she made it look like a pair of fucking wings.

“As long as she will have me, I will lay my life down for her,” I told Anthony with full confidence.

“Good,” he replied.

I could see it coming even before he pulled his fist back. I’d been waiting for it because there was no way I was getting out of this without taking a fucking ass whooping.

And I’d take it.

I’d fucking welcome it.

If it meant I could keep her.