“Collateral damage,” Trygg replied evenly. “Pop the charges and get the hell out of there.”

Savage nodded, knowing that was sound advice.

But his thumb didn’t move on the detonator.

Something was starting to bother him about the woman the longer he stared at her. Something that gnawed at the perimeter of his memory.

“I need a closer look.”

Without waiting for confirmation from his comrade, he set the detonator down in the soft grass, then tightened the focus on his binoculars. Not on Massioni or his men, but on her. The gorgeous blonde whose heart-shaped face and pixie features seemed strangely, distantly familiar somehow.

Which was impossible, considering this female was clearly Massioni’s plaything.

The face that teased at the frayed edges of Savage’s mind—and his heart—had no place here. Not with criminals and killers like the ones assembled inside the villa that was wired to blow on his command.

Holy shit.

It couldn’t be her.

Trygg’s voice sounded in his ear. “You got problems over there?”

Savage couldn’t answer that. Not when his veins were filling with adrenaline and a sick feeling of apprehension was starting to take up space behind his sternum.

He brought the woman in closer, his eyes burning from the intensity of his unblinking stare. She was still caught within the cage of Massioni’s thick arm, smiling indulgently as the Breed male showed her off like some kind of prize to his leering friends. Showing her off as if the bastard owned her.

Fuck. Don’t let that be her.

“Status,” Trygg demanded now. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. I think the woman is…” He drew in a breath, hoping like hell he was wrong. “Christ, I think I know her.”

Trygg’s curse scraped across the earpiece. “Bad fucking time for a reunion with one of your many conquests, man. And if the bitch belongs to our target, you don’t know her now.”

No, he didn’t.

Not anymore.

Hell, not for a very long time.

As Savage watched, Massioni finally released the woman from his possessive hold. He said something to his colleagues, a remark that made them all chuckle. Then Massioni gestured at her dismissively. Her placid smile still in place, the beautiful blonde pivoted away from the men.

It wasn’t until she turned around that Savage’s suspicion was confirmed.

The proof was there on the back of her left shoulder—the scarlet mark of a Breedmate. Only the rarest of women bore the unique birthmark signifying they were something more than mortal.

The small teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol rode this female’s shoulder in the precise spot that Savage dreaded it would.

“Son of a bitch. I don’t believe this.”

It was her.

After all this time—nearly a decade.

Arabella Genova.

Savage snarled as Massioni playfully smacked her ass, sending her on her way. Unfazed, she glided out of the room as elegantly as she’d entered a few moments ago, Savage following her progress with the field glasses held in a grip so tight they should have shattered.

Trygg was right. He didn’t know her now.

How the girl he once adored had ended up in the hands of a thug like Vito Massioni, he could only guess.

And it didn’t matter.

Savage had a job to do.

That’s what he told himself, even as he pulled the binoculars away from his face and hissed a sharp curse into the darkness.

The Bella he’d known as a girl all those years ago was just a memory. This Bella was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and on the dead wrong side of the law.

Collateral damage, just like Trygg said.

Savage knew what he had to do. The Order might never have the chance to get this close to Massioni and his lieutenants again. Everything was in place. The mission was moments away from success. All he had to do was hit the detonator.

He picked it up, staring at the trigger that would erase Massioni and his entire operation from the face of the Earth.

And, now, Bella too.

“Fuck.”

Savage raked a hand over his tightly clamped jaw. His pulse was banging in his temples, his heart slamming against his ribs with each heavy beat.

“Status,” Trygg said, a note of warning in the warrior’s gravel voice. “I don’t like what I’m hearing over there, Savage.”

He didn’t answer. Nothing he said now would put his comrade or anyone else at the command center in Rome at ease.

Savage set aside the binoculars. Then he carefully deactivated the detonator and slipped the remote into his back pocket.

“Stand by, base. I’m going back in.”

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Arabella held her composure until she had reached her private quarters on the villa’s second floor. Once inside, she leaned against the closed door and let her revulsion leak out of her on a shudder. At least she was getting better at the charade. There was a time when she might have had to bite back a scream.

Her skin crawled everywhere Vito had touched her. She could still feel his hard fingers on her body, on her breast. The sting of his offensive smack to her backside burned her dignity even more than it did her ass.

She hated being trotted out in front of his friends as his personal show pony, forced to dress and act as if she belonged to the coarse, criminal Breed male.

Though to be fair, in many ways Massioni did own her. Her life. Her freedom. Her unique Breedmate gift for premonition—the thing that first brought her to his attention three years ago. He owned all of that, no matter how much she despised him.

He might have owned her body, too, if she hadn’t found a way to convince him that the price of taking that part of her would cost him the one thing he couldn’t afford to lose.

The threat had kept her out of his reach so far, but there were times when she knew he’d been tempted to test her. She only hoped she wouldn’t kill him if he tried. Because no matter how clever she wanted to think she was in dealing with him, Vito Massioni always had one final, terrible card to play.

And so long as he held that over her head, she had no choice but to serve him.

She could never escape him, not even in death.

He’d made certain of that.

Arabella knew better than to keep Massioni waiting. He’d sent her away to fetch her scrying bowl while he entertained his boot-licking cronies in the grand salon. They were gloating over a large payout from a shipment of Red Dragon to the States and the United Kingdom—a narcotic that destroyed the minds of their own kind, the Breed, creating blood-addicted monsters from just the smallest dose. They didn’t care that their sudden windfall came at the expense of both Breed and human lives. She had learned a long time ago that Vito Massioni’s greed knew no bounds.