Pain. Searing, hot pain. It drags me out of whatever coma I was in and I hear a loud scraping sound.

I’m not dead.

Huh.

My eyes flare open and there are at least six guys in what looks like a basement. All bikers. Not Les Diables. Their colors are different. One turns around, and I see the letters sprawled over the black leather: POPEYES MC. The Popeyes. Holy fuck, I can’t believe I got jumped by a group of disillusioned Les Diables fucks.

The same disillusioned fucks who killed my dad during the biker wars. They say some things come full circle. They seem to be right.

My chest swells and the pain in my shoulder and abdomen stabs me suddenly. Fuck, I need to get out of this alive. Elena needs me. I have a wife and a baby on the way, and I can’t just fucking die. Not now.

It doesn’t escape me that that fucking cunt hair is behind all of this. He hired these fucks to kill me, only they’re taking their sweet-ass time—why?

“You’re awake,” the man sitting on an empty crate says unnecessarily.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I do. The only good Italian is a dead one.”

The others laugh like sheep.

I glare at all of them, trying to size them up. “So why are you taking orders from one?”

He drags a lead pipe over the cement floor and grins nastily. “Because this one has a lot of fucking money.”

“All you dumbasses are going to get killed the moment Johnny gets wind of what happened to me.”

I strain my biceps against my restraints. Coils and coils of rope bind me to the chair. My hands are beet red from the lack of circulation.

“We want to know where the money is. The hundred grand you have stashed away.”

The basement echoes with my hollow laughter, which cuts off into a groan. The lead pipe smashes over my knees, breaking at least one of them. For a moment, I debate sending these fucking morons to Tommy. They won’t get within five yards of him.

“You’ll have to kill another made guy to get to the money. Does that sound worth it to you?”

That part is a lie, but they look at each other. The leader, an old man with a long gray beard, looks at me with wrinkled eyes.

“Vidal,” he says, rolling the name from his tongue. “Vito Vidal. You’re his fucking kid, aren’t you?”

My lungs heave as fire burns beneath my skin—I just want to smash this old fuck’s face in. He knows my dad.

They shot him down in the streets like a fucking dog.

“Listen, we’re just here to get you to back off from the girl. Elena Vittorio. She’s Rafael’s, end of story. All you have to do is say that you’ll stay away from her.”

“Don’t talk about my wife.”

“She’s the one who hired us.”

Their lies make me laugh. She loves me—she told me so right before I left. My chest burns when I realize that I never said it back. She just took me by surprise and I didn’t have the balls to say it back. She and that baby are the only things in the world that matter to me, and God help the man who tries to take them away from me.

A bead of sweat rolls down my face as he slaps a sheet of paper—a certificate of divorce that Elena (supposedly) has already signed. Seeing her fake signature sprawled on the paper sends a jolt of pain to my heart, even though I know it’s bullshit.

I look up into his faded brown eyes.

“Go fuck yourself.”

He shrugs and pulls it back toward himself. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get your signature one way or the other.”

A man fists his hand through my hair and taps my face with a pair of filthy pliers.

“Open up.”

Pull all my teeth, you sons of bitches. I don’t give a fuck. I won’t sign that shit.

I open my mouth and he sticks it inside. The rubber chafes against my lips as I taste the metal in my mouth. He grips the very back molars and then I know it’s going to hurt like a bitch. He twists hard and I feel the bone crunching in my mouth. Delicate tissues snap as it grinds in my head and my tongue is drenched with blood. I grip the edges of my chair and fight the urge to scream as pain rivaling my gunshot wounds tears my mouth. He yanks with a sickening wet sound and my bloodied tooth swims in front of my face. My mouth swells immediately and dark blood gushes from my lips. I spit it out as the pain throbs, almost as if there’s still something stuck in there.

Fucking bastards. I’ll fucking kill every last one of them.

The old fuck lays the contract there as though I’ll sign it, and I spit at it. A splatter of dark blood hits the paper.

“You know, you must be the only guy in the fucking universe who’s fighting so goddamn hard to keep his wife.”

The guy with the pliers presses a gun to my damp head. “Sign it.”

“No.”

I can’t believe this—I fucking failed her, Elena. My beautiful wife is going to give birth to our kid without me, and my heart squeezes to think of her. I don’t give a shit about myself, it’s all about her.

The door slams open and four quick blasts cut down the Popeyes where they stand. The one holding a gun to my head wheels around, screaming, but a blast from a shotgun knocks him the fuck down. My vision swims as I see Les Diables bikers swarming in the small room. The old fucker is still alive. He raises his hands. Kevin, one of the guys I recognize, raises his gun to his head.

“Wait,” I say to him. “I want to do him.”

“Let’s make this quick.”

Relief floods over my body as they cut through my ropes. I wonder what fucking God I have to thank for this. So many questions run through my mind, but I’m just glad that my ass is saved. I stand up, a little shaky on my feet, but Kevin hands me a gun.

“Wait,” the old fuck begs. “Just wait a second. The Italian was the one who put us up to this. He never said to kill you. We weren’t going t—”

BAM.

His head explodes into fragments of skull and brain matter, which vomits out the back of his head. His body lands with a loud thump to the floor.

The bikers hardly blink an eye.

“Thank you guys,” I say through my swollen jaw. “How the fuck did you know I was here?”

“Thank your wife.”

My wife?

I grasp his tattooed arm and he gives me a once over. “Jesus, we should get you to a hospital.”

“I need to see my wife first.”

“She’s fine. I got one of my guys watching her.”

“I’m going home to check on my wife. You can either help me or not.”

My heart thuds, blood sluggishly pulsing from my wounds. Fuck, I feel as if I’m going to pass out. Only sheer willpower puts one step in front of the other. I burst out of the dank room and almost trip over the couple bodies strewn on the floor. Julien gives one of them a fierce kick.

“Good thing we found this place. Looks like their stronghold. Pathetic fucks.”

I don’t know where the hell I am and it’s pitch black outside. Jesus, how long was I out?

I pile in the van waiting for us, and the vice president steps outside. “Hurry the fuck up before the cops get here.”

Everyone shoves themselves inside the van and I close my hand over the wound in my side, which throbs with increasing intensity. It’s like a stabbing pain that’s impossible to ignore or distract from. Pain, pain, pain. My mind flashes with words like: searing flesh.

“He doesn’t look too good.”

“I’m fucking fine,” I roar, my voice punctuated with pain. “I need to see her first.”

“You’re lucky she hired us.”

Hired? What the fuck is going on?

The pieces fall together when we stop in front of my house. Johnny’s car is there and a needle of pain goes right through my heart. She must have asked him for help, but he wouldn’t give it to her.

One of the bikers hurries out of the van to help me climb the steps, but I shove him out of the way.

“I can do it myself!”

“Tony, you have two gunshot wounds.”

I’m fine—I just fucking need to see her. I need to make sure nothing happened to her. I palm the door, and a bloody handprint smears as I push it open.

“Elena!” I yell into the apartment.

Footsteps run toward me, and then I see Elena’s widened, red face and my heart clenches.

“Tony! Oh my God, you’re—you’re hurt!”

She rushes toward me and I wrap my arms around her waist, an incredible wave of relief crashing over me. My eyes burn suddenly and I dig my fingers into her clothes, willing myself not to cry out.

Anything could have happened to her.

Her chest shakes against mine as she succumbs to tears, clutching me so fiercely that I grunt in pain. She pulls back, tears burning red paths down her face as she touches my jaw tenderly.

“Jesus, what did they do to you?”

“I love you, Elena.”

Her lips tremble with a spark of happiness, and I feel it grow inside my chest.

“I never got to say it before they took me, and it was all I could think about.”

My vision swims and I stumble backward. Elena looks horrified.

“Okay, he needs a hospital.” I recognize Johnny’s sharp tone and feel a sudden surge of anger toward him.

His strong arm slides across my shoulders, his hand anchoring under my good one as he lifts me upright and we make our way outside, into his car.

“You’re driving me, boss? I’ll get blood all over your seats.”

Elena opens the passenger door for us, her face white. “Get in, Tony.”

I slide inside and she takes the backseat. God, I’m tired. I just want to fall asleep, even though the leather is fucking freezing against my back.

Johnny gets inside and starts the car. It screams as we peel out of there.

“Want to tell me why my wife was forced to go to Les Diables for help?”

A guilty look crosses Johnny’s face. “I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t think anything happened to you. I didn’t—”

“You didn’t believe my wife.” My voice cuts across his and resentment bleeds into my chest. The bullet wounds throb with my rage.

“She didn’t exactly come to me with much proof.”

“Seemed to be enough for the bikers.”

“She paid them—”

“Of course she fucking did, because my own family didn’t think I was good enough to protect. You would have just left me for dead—”

“That’s not true. If I had known, I would have put guys out on the street.”

“You did know. Elena told you.”

He lifts a hand, shrugging as he turns the wheel and takes a left turn. “Nothing she showed me caused me any concern.”

“She’s an extension of myself, and you didn’t believe her? Why the fuck would she lie about something like this?”

“I thought she was being paranoid!” He glowers at me, his young face creased with anger. “I apologize. I didn’t think that fucking moron had the balls to go after you again after Vincent’s warning.”

Whatever.

I groan as the pain in my abdomen feels as if it’s twisting inside me, like a sharp blade digging in my flesh. Elena utters a gasp and threads her fingers through my hair.

“We’re almost there,” she says in a thick voice.

It feels good to have her hands on my skin. I sigh as she caresses my hair, and Johnny gives us a strange look.

“All right, we’re here.”

He slams the brakes and men in white coats dash outside to meet us, rolling a stretcher between them. Johnny opens the door for me and Elena holds her hands to her face, trying to look brave for me.

“Is he—is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

They roll me on the stretcher and I let out a stream of curses as my body flattens on the bed.

“White male, late twenties, multiple gunshot—”

My mind drifts as they wheel me into the hospital, Elena keeping pace with them. She squeezes my hand.

* * *

“He’s not in this hospital. I’ve my guys searching everywhere for him, but looks like the bastard was smart enough to avoid going to one.”

A female voice, distracted. “What does that mean?”

The grim male voice booms out, “It means he’s biding his time. Fuck, maybe he bled out and died in a ditch somewhere. Anyway, I still can’t go to Vincent with this. There’s no proof linking him to the bikers.”

“I don’t fucking believe this!”

Something heavy slams against a metallic object that rattles loudly. My eyes crack open and I feel strangely restricted. My chest pulses and the sensation of a strict bandage over my shoulder explains the feeling. An ice bag sits against my cheek, freezing the skin.

My eyes slide over to John, who stands next to my wife near the window.

“If you won’t kill him, I will.”

They both start when they realize I’m awake. A slow smile pulls at Elena’s lips as she approaches my bed and kisses my forehead. She takes the bag of ice away and looks at me through warm eyes. Perfect love and trust shines through them.

Johnny’s unsmiling face hovers over mine, pulling me irresistibly to the present.

“My hands are fucking tied, but I can’t ignore this. We’ll take care of him.”

“Fuck that, I want to be the one to kill that motherfucker.”

I rip the blanket off my legs and attempt to sit up. My side screams in pain, and Elena pushes me back down. “Don’t be stupid. You’re in no condition.”

“Fuck my condition.”

Johnny grins at me. “Did your wife tell you she shot that asshole?”

What the fuck?

Elena lowers her eyes when I glare at her. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Elena, what the fuck happened?”

She flinches at my tone. “I wanted him to come to me so I could kill him. I almost did.”

Holy shit.

“Are you out of your mind? Someone could have seen you. You could have been hurt.”

Her eyes glimmer with angry tears. “I had to do something!”

Johnny looks at my wife with a bit of grudging respect. None of the other guys’ wives would have had the balls to do what she did.

She’s crazy.

She’s mine.

“Nothing can be done until we find the guy. Just rest, Tony.”

Just rest. Easy for him to fucking say.

A familiar voice yelling down the hallway makes my guts seize.

Oh fucking no.

“Where’s my son?”

“Mrs. Vidal, your son is talking to Johnny.”

A muffled voice from outside is cut off by my mother’s angry retort.

“I don’t give a damn about that man. Get out of my way!”

“Mrs. Vidal!”

“I’ll go. See you later, Tone.” Johnny gives me a short wave before heading outside. Part of me wants to call him back.

“Oh fuck.”

Elena’s hands freeze in my hair as my mother bursts through the door, looking as though she’s aged several years.

“Oh my God. My son! My beautiful son—what happened?”

Elena steps away from the bed as Ma comes barreling for me. I brace for the impact as she throws her arms around my neck and squeezes.

“I’m just a little banged up, Ma.”

“You were shot! Who did this to you?” She speaks in a low, gritty voice, as though the neighborhood kid beat me up.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Her face screws up in anger and she swells like a bullfrog. “Don’t worry about it? Why don’t you tell that to your wife and baby? How the hell are you going to raise this kid if you’re getting shot—”

“Ma, relax.”

Her mouth trembles as she falls silent, her eyes wrinkled in pain. “Tony, I love you but you are destroying yourself.”

Her seething voice cuts me deeper than the wounds burrowed in my body. I never wanted this, and I can’t get out.

“You know I can’t leave.”

“Try. For their sakes.”

Elena’s worried face meets mine, and I watch her flatten her shirt over her belly. The one that has my baby growing inside it. Sadness clenches my heart and I let my head fall back on the pillows, blinking rapidly. The thought of leaving them crushes my heart. For the first time in my life, I’m afraid. I don’t want to die.

Ma’s face hovers over mine, and she seems to understand the turmoil in my head.

“It’s different when you have a kid, isn’t it?”

Yeah, it is.