I fell to the ground, my knees slamming against the hard carpet with a loud thud. Shit. This wasn’t good. I forced myself to keep my eyes open as I sank forward, placing my hands on the floor to steady myself. Before I could catch my breath, a foot made sharp contact with my lower belly and I let out a loud cry. I slumped over to the side, curling up in a ball to try and protect myself from any future onslaught, but it was pointless. Another kick, another groan. My vision blurred again, and I let my head sink down to the carpet. What now?

 

“Is he done?” one of the goons demanded, and I managed to twist my head around so that I was looking up at him. He swam in front of my eyes, and my head throbbed where it had come into contact with the wall.

 

“Not yet,” the other replied through gritted teeth, and went to kick me again. But before he could, a voice came drifting down from the other end of the corridor.

 

“Hey!”

 

All three of us looked around, and I felt a wave of relief when I saw who it was—Jeremy. With my last vestiges of consciousness, I reached out for my gun—where it had skittered away from me on the floor—aimed it, and pulled the trigger. The first man fell to the floor in a lump, hitting the floor hard and making it shudder slightly. Before my other attacker had a chance to turn around, I planted a bullet in his back, and, as soon as I saw him fall, I let my head sink back down to the ground.

 

“Hey, Jasper!” Jeremy was hurrying towards me. “Stay with me, buddy.”

 

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” I placed my hand against the wall and tried to pull myself to my feet.

 

“You are fucking well not.” Jeremy glanced over his shoulder, and ran back to the door; kicking open the entrance to the room next to it, he quickly dragged a wardrobe over in front of it. Or, at least, it looked like a wardrobe—it was hard to tell as my vision continued to cloud, and I blinked a few times to try to clear my line of sight. No luck. Shit. This was really bad. And I’d gotten so close, too—so near to her again, only to be taken down by a couple of asshole bodyguards. This wasn’t how the heroic savior plot was meant to work.

 

“Where are the rest…?”

 

“They managed to get them back down in the lobby,” he replied. “They’re fine. They can take care of themselves, you know that.”

 

“I do.” I nodded blearily as Jeremy looped his arms under my shoulders. He leaned me up against the wall and looked into my eyes. I widened them at him, trying to keep them open.

 

“You don’t look concussed,” he muttered. “But you’re bleeding.”

 

“Am I?” I reached up to touch my head and stared at the crimson red on my fingers as I moved my hand back down. “Shit.”

 

“Yep.” Jeremy hurried off again, back into the room he’d kicked open. He returned a few seconds later with a bottle of something; he screwed off the top, poured it into his hands, and dabbed some on the wound on my head.

 

I winced. “What is that?”

 

“Vodka,” he replied, rubbing it into my head. “Disinfectant, right?”

 

“Well, better than nothing.” I shrugged, fighting the urge to shift my head away from him as the vodka stung me. I looked up at him as he went to work on me, and tried to remember how he’d ended up in the Stiches. I couldn’t remember; the edges of my brain felt fuzzy, and I struggled to place where he’d come from, where he’d started.

 

“Jeremy,” I began, and he looked down at me, obviously thinking of more important things. But for some reason, my brain had fixated on this, and that was all I wanted to hear about.

 

“What?” he replied patiently.

 

“How did you get into the Stiches?” I asked, pulling myself up a little further so I could look him in the eyes once again.

 

“My brother,” he responded, returning to the room to get me some water. “My dad did it, he did it, so I did it, too.”

 

“So it’s a literal brotherhood, for you.” I laughed to myself, feeling a little drunk. Maybe it was just the comedown from all the adrenalin that had been pulsing through my system only moments earlier, maybe it was relief, maybe it was just the knowledge that I had so far still to go before Maria was safe.

 

“That’s right,” he agreed. “Can you stand?”

 

“I can try.” I nodded, and he wrapped an arm around my waist and draped mine around his shoulders, pulling me to my feet. I stumbled slightly, but soon regained my balance.

 

“You okay?” he asked, and I let go of him.

 

“I’m good,” I confirmed, and realized that Jeremy was glancing over at the door. Now that the ringing in my ears—courtesy of the bullets—had faded, I could hear what was scaring him into action. I could hear footsteps on the stairs, and I wasn’t sure who they belonged to.

 

“Who’s…?”

 

“I have no idea.” Jeremy caught me by the arm. “But I don’t want to take any chances.”

 

He pulled me into the room he’d kicked open and we knelt behind the door; my senses were slowly coming back into action, and a dull, low ache was throbbing through my stomach every time I tried to move. Fuck, that was going to hurt tomorrow. If I was alive to see tomorrow.

 

There was a battering on the door; Jeremy tensed up as soon as he heard it and I held my breath. Slowly, I peered around the doorframe, and felt a wash of relief when I saw who it was.

 

“It’s them!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet and immediately regretting my decision to move so quickly. “Come on!”

 

Jeremy and I quickly shifted the wardrobe—how he moved it by himself, I couldn’t imagine—and let them through. I counted them in—all of them had made it alive, even though a few seemed to be a little worse for wear.

 

“What happened down there?” I demanded, and one them—Jordan?—turned to me with his eyebrows raised.

 

“D’Orazio’s guys—turns out we weren’t the only ones he called for back-up,” he explained. “He sent us up here to get his daughter.”

 

“Maria,” I nodded. “So they’re…”

 

Before I could finish my question, I heard a loud crash from downstairs; it was fair to assume that D’Orazio’s men were engaging Alfonso’s. I wondered how long this showdown had been coming, how many months of simmering resentment and dislike and attempts at civility had led to this moment. No time to linger on that—I still had to find Maria.

 

“Do you know where she is?” Jeremy asked.

 

“On this floor, I think,” I replied. “At least, this is where Alfonso came.”

 

“So he’s up here to?”

 

“More than likely.” I nodded. “Come on, let’s check the rooms.”

 

We moved up the corridors, taking our time, and I couldn’t help but feel a little more at peace than I had when I first walked in here. My brothers were with me; I might not have had much family to speak of these days, but I had them. And when it came down to it, they had come through for me.

 

“Jasper,” Jeremy was suddenly beside me, his voice low.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Why were you here?” he asked, eyes searching mine for the truth. I knew what he meant, but I evaded the question.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, why were you at the hotel before we were?” he pressed. “Come on, you helped her get out, didn’t you?”

 

“I didn’t,” I replied truthfully with a shake of my head. “She did that all by herself.”

 

“Out of that compound?” He raised his eyebrows. “She must be less of a brat that I thought.”

 

“She is,” I replied fondly, without thinking, and he observed me for a second.

 

“You were with her, weren’t you?” he asked simply, and I met his gaze. I didn’t want to bullshit him for a second longer—not when they had all come through for me the way they had.

 

“Yeah, I was,” I admitted, and finally saying the words, finally coming out with it after all these months, left me feeling as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

 

“Was she running away to be with you?” he continued as we made our way down the corridor. I shook my head.

 

“Nope.” I peered into a room, and, finding nothing, moved on. “We had been broken up for a while before this.”

 

“Then why did you come out here after her?” he demanded. “What were you doing here in the first place?”

 

“I made a mistake.” I twisted my mouth up into a grimace. “And, no matter what, I was paid to look after her. This is part of that. I’m not going to let her die.”

 

“You think that’s what Condotierri’s going to do to her?”

 

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “But I know she was promised to him, and that I don’t think he’s going to take to kindly to being denied what he thinks he’s owed.”

 

“By her father?” he asked.

 

I nodded.

 

He screwed up his face in distaste. “That’s disgusting.”

 

“Yeah, it really is.” I nodded. “I think that’s why she ran away in the first place.”

 

“Can’t say I blame her,” he agreed as we turned down a corner—but our conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door at the end of the hallway bursting open. We reconvened in an instant, creating a barricade that would have been impossible to pass by even the most highly-trained of bad guys.

 

“Go, go,” Jeremy mouthed at me, but I shook my head. I was where I was meant to be; at my brother’s side. We would find Maria soon enough, and I knew I couldn’t do it without them, anyway. If one of us went down, we all would—we would stand together till the end, till there was nothing left for us to stand for. Yes, I had my doubts about them, but that was only natural after all the years I’d spent with them. This was proof to me, if ever I needed any, that these guys were the ones who would have my back no matter what the circumstances. I owed them my loyalty.

 

I heard footsteps coming up the corridor, and, before I knew it, we found ourselves faced with a horde of about twenty of Alfonso’s men. They must have gone through D’Orazio’s men already—why didn’t we put the wardrobe back in front of the door? I guess I’d assumed they’d be tied up for longer than just a few minutes, but I was wrong.

 

There was a second of complete and utter silence, as though both groups of men were silently hoping that we would be able to walk away from this encounter unscathed—but we all knew it wasn’t going to go down that way. That wasn’t how men like us worked. It was all or nothing, life or death, bullets and guns and blood and that was that. I was holding my breath and didn’t even realize it, until Jeremy lifted his revolver, aimed haphazardly, and pulled the trigger.

 

The carnage was almost instantaneous; I was towards the back of the Stiches, giving me some cover, and watched as the men at the other end of the corridor were mowed down in droves. As I went to lift my own revolver, a noise distracted me—a noise that could only mean one thing.