I could hear the sounds of Maria screaming even over the top of the chaos that was unfolding in front of me, and it was as though my body began to move on autopilot as soon as I heard her voice once again. I turned, lifting my gun, and hurried towards her as fast as I could—what room was she in? Shit. I kicked in the doors of one room, two, three—and then, finally, I found her.

 

Or at least, I found someone. Alfonso. He was standing behind the door, and pounced out on me as soon as I walked in, taking me by surprise. I let out a grunt of pain as he locked his arms around my neck, pulling me backwards and jerking me up as he did so—my head jarred in pain, and I struggled to throw him off.

 

“You motherfucker,” he hissed into my ear. “I saw everything you did with her. I know about all of it. As soon as this is over, I’m going to tell Lucca everything, and then you’ll—“

 

Before he could continue, I took his distraction as an opportunity to throw him off—I gripped his arms and yanked them down, creating a gap that I slipped through before he could regain his hold on me once more. I lifted my fists, and my vision blurred once more—no, not now, anything but that. I blinked a few times and forced myself to look up into his eyes. He cricked his neck and began to pace around me, taking his time, as though he was enjoying it.

 

“I don’t care what you know,” I spat in response. “None of that matters anymore. All that matters is that you’re not getting anywhere near that woman.”

 

“Maria’s nothing more than a girl, Jasper,” he replied, eyebrows raised. How did he know my name? “A girl you’re going to get yourself killed over. Is that really what you want?”

 

“Anything’s better than knowing I left her to a guy like you,” I growled, my voice harsher and more furious than I had ever heard it before. I realized that I was shaking with anger, my rage burning through my veins from just being in the presence of a man who wanted to hurt someone I cared about. I had no idea where her father was or what he would do when he got to her, but it couldn’t possibly be worse than anything this asshole had planned.

 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he snapped. Before I knew what I was doing, my fist had darted out and landed a punch on the side of his face; it wasn’t hard enough to knock any teeth out, but it brought me straight back to my days of scrapping on the street. It felt good—and if anyone deserved to have the shit kicked out of him, it was Alfonso fucking Condotierri.

 

I sucked in a deep breath, regretting those cigarettes I’d had earlier—of course, I had to choose today to start smoking again. Alfonso reached up to touch the side of his face where my punch had landed, and slowly lifted his head to look up at me. My eyes darted past him and to the bathroom door, which was tight closed—I could hear voices inside, talking urgently, and guessed that that was where Maria was hiding out. It sounded like Lucca was in there with her. How had he gotten up here before me? I needed to get to her. Alfonso was just standing in my way.

 

“Are those your men, out there?” He nodded to the door, where the bullets were still crashing and exploding off the walls. Despite how noisy it was, it all seemed vaguely muted as I stared down Alfonso—I didn’t take my eyes off of him, couldn’t. I knew he was trying to distract me, and I wasn’t going to fall for it.

 

“Yeah,” I replied, lifting my chin proudly. “And they’re a whole lot better than your men, too. They’re going to be carried out of here in body bags, every single one of them.”

 

“Speak for yourself,” Alfonso snorted, and he took a step towards me; I held my ground. He glanced behind me, at the door, and it was clear he was weighing his options, trying to figure out how best to get out of this room without getting into too much trouble from me.

 

“You’re not getting out of here,” I warned him, backing up to cover the door.

 

“Oh, I think I am,” he sneered, and the way he looked at me—I had never seen so much disdain and contempt for me before in my life. There was no question that he saw himself as substantially better than me. Maybe that was why he had taken such exception to Maria and I sleeping together. It wasn’t just that I was hooking up with the woman he felt as though he was owed—it was that she had chosen someone he considered so much lower than him. That had to hurt. But not as much was what I was about to do next.

 

Lowering my head, I lunged towards him, wrapping my arms around his waist and using my momentum to slam him into the wall behind us. I felt the air leave, disappearing in an “oof” behind my head as we made contact with the concrete; he was heavy, solid muscle, and I knew that he had a good fifty pounds on me. The only way I was taking this guy down was by surprise, and I had that now—just had to use it to my advantage.

 

He shoved me off, hard, and knocked me to the ground—I scrambled away as quickly as I could, putting distance in between us, before I got to my feet. Before I could get myself fully upright, he was on me once again—hurtling towards me and pinning me to the bed behind us, his hands around my wrists. I fought back a stupid laugh at the fact that someone could walk in on us right now and think we were about to screw, my brain desperately finding something to calm me down as I struggled against his grasp. He pulled back one of his hands, winding up for the punch-but I jerked my knee up and kicked him hard between the legs before he had a chance. I dove out from under him as his fist came down and bounced off the bed uselessly.

 

Before he had a chance to turn around, I leaned forward and grabbed him by the collar; he didn’t have enough hair for me to get a firm grip on so I had to make do with what I could. Yanking him back, he slipped on the carpet and fell, cracking his head painfully against a small coffee table behind us. The polished wood rattled, sending the complimentary tea and coffee scattering across the ground below. He lifted his head, and I could see that dizzy, disorientated look in his eyes, the exact same as the one I’d had after I took that fall earlier. Good. I needed him far from his best.

 

He dragged himself to his feet, gripping the TV unit next to him for support. I sprang a few steps away as he wound his fist up again, watching him swing through the air once more.

 

“You’re not much of a fighter,” I commented. “How’d you end up where you are if you can’t even land a punch?”

 

Now wasn’t the time for fighting talk and I knew it, but I wanted to gloat over him, wanted to remind him that despite everything, I was going to win this thing.

 

“I didn’t need to.” He lifted his head, and I could already see a bruise forming on the side of his cheek. “It’s only useless fucks like you who rely on fighting to get your point across. The smarter ones…they end up like me. And I know that Maria’s going to get tired of you eventually.”

 

“At least she wanted me in the first place,” I shot back hotly. That seemed to tip him over the edge—in an instant, he came barreling towards me, using up the last of his strength in some misguided attempt to take me down. I stepped aside, and let him slam headfirst into the door behind me. Well, that was easier than I thought it would be. He fell to the floor in a heap, eyes closed and mouth open, completely unconscious. I looked down at him, and fought the urge to land a few more punches on his dumb, arrogant face, but I had more important things to be thinking about for the time being.

 

The commotion outside the door had quietened down a little bit, and I pressed my ear up to door to try and make out what was going on in the corridor; I could hear footsteps, a few people running, and shouting from what sounded like the next hallway across. Okay—so I didn’t have to worry about them kicking the door in and chasing me out. That was a good start. Now, to find Maria.

 

The voices that had been coming out of the bathroom had quieted down. I ran over and slammed my fist against the door.

 

“Maria!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, but there was no response. A cold prickle ran over my scalp. Shit. What had he done to her in there? In that instant, I regretted getting Lucca involved in any of this—I had panicked, and called up the last person she would want to see. The person she was fleeing. And now he had her, and I didn’t know where they’d gone.

 

I called her name a few more times, and, upon hearing nothing, kicked the door a few times until it crashed off its hinges. I stepped over the splintered wood and looked around—there was no one here, but there was a door at the opposite end of the bathroom leading to another bedroom. I ran through, but there was no one there.

 

Crap. Fuck. Lucca must have already taken her somewhere else—the commotion in the room had probably alerted him to my presence. I darted back over to Alfonso, and went through his pockets-pulling back his jacket, I found a gun hiding out in a holster that looped over his shoulder. God, this guy really does think he’s some kind of badass, I thought to myself, rolling my eyes and grabbing the gun. I hesitated for a moment before I opened the door—what if the Stiches had been taken down, and Alfonso’s men were waiting to fill me full of bullets as soon as I stepped out? I forced myself to push the door open, and found myself faced with…nothing.

 

I scanned the corridor quickly—nothing. Well, nothing except carnage—the walls were peppered with bullet holes, cartridge shells practically forming a new carpet beneath my feet. Where had the fight moved to? I strained my ears, and tried to follow on where I remembered hearing them earlier—I traced their steps up the corridor and around the corner, and my ears pricked. I could hear something—someone. Maria.

 

Thank god. She was still alive. I picked up the pace and began to run, towards the sound of her scream—my heart was pounding in my chest as my brain ran through all the possibilities. What had happened to her? At least she was still inside the hotel—that at least gave me a chance to get to her before Lucca took her out. I kicked open the doors at the end of the corridor—and was met once again by the sound of a gunfight.

 

As the Stiches and what looked like the stragglers of Alfonso’s men fought it out a few feet from me, I closed my eyes for a second, trying to pick out the sound of her voice.

 

“Jasper!”

 

That was her—for certain. It was coming from the room next to me, and I turned to notice that the door was slightly off its hinge. I took a deep breath, ducked, and shouldered the door in.