He pushed Aria behind him, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he tried to get a handle on the men coming toward them. He counted four on the stairs, maybe five. He didn’t hear anyone else, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more out there.

How had Primo’s men found them?

He barely had time to register the question in his mind before his training took over. He had only two directives: keep Aria safe and destroy the men who had dared breach their refuge.

The men were almost to the main floor of the house. He had less than ten seconds to secure his position. There was nowhere for Aria to go that wouldn’t put her in the path of the men coming for them, which meant Damian had to cut them off at the pass.

“Stay down,” he said. “Don’t come into the house until I give you the all clear.”

“No, please…” She tugged at his arm.

He shook her off and started forward.

* * *

Panic clawed at her throat as he slipped from her grasp. She couldn’t help feeling that it was the last time she would touch him. The last time she would feel him next to her.

No. He would fight them. He would kill them. He would come back to her.

She had to believe it. Anything else was unimaginable.

She forced herself to breathe, then crouched down, working her way behind one of the stucco pillars of the terrace. The best way to help him was follow to his instructions.

She’d barely reached cover when gunshots erupted through the house.

* * *

He’d used the pillars of the terrace to make his way into the darkened house, but by the time he reached the doors there was no other cover. He listened as the men emerged into the living room and tried to calculate their final positions. As near as he could tell there was a man still in place at the top of the staircase blocking the exit, one at the entrance to the kitchen, one somewhere near the terrace, and another against the wall in the living room.

His heart told him to go for the patio and the man closest to Aria, everything in his body screaming to protect her at all costs.

More than that, he wanted to kill the motherfucker who dared to come for her.

He forced himself to breathe, to think four moves ahead. Going to the terrace would offer him the short-term security of knowing he could put himself in front of a bullet heading for Aria, but there was no way out from there, only the rocky cliff face leading to the water far below. It would be too easy for Primo’s men to corner them.

And he was no good to Aria dead.

He ducked low and dove for the sofa in the living room instead. Guns flared in the darkness around him.

* * *

Aria’s heart was pounding like a war drum in her chest, her ears ringing from the gunfire. The moon had emerged for a split second, offering her flashes of the scene around her — the shadowy figure of the man positioned near the kitchen, one too close for comfort near the terrace, Damian ducking for the cover of the sofa — before everything went dark again.

She felt exposed in spite of the pillar, unable to see if the man she’d spotted on the patio had seen her, if he’d moved any closer under the cover of darkness. She was debating the merit of trying to move when something came at her from behind, one hand on her mouth, an arm snaking around her body and arms like a vise.

She tried to scream as he dragged her back toward the edge of the terrace.

* * *

Damian fired at the men once he reached cover, if only to keep them on their toes while he regrouped from his new position. He was mentally calculating his remaining ammo when the men shouted to each other in a language he didn’t immediately recognize. He listened more closely, trying to place it.

Greek?

What the fuck…?

A moment later a scuffle sounded from the terrace, followed by a muffled scream that could only mean someone had his hands on Aria.

White hot rage flashed behind his eyes, the image of someone hurting her — someone putting their hands on her — making him want to stand and shoot blindly at anyone and everyone who might be between them.

His need to get to her, to feel her safe in his arms, was overwhelming, but he didn’t have enough ammunition left for his liking and that meant getting his hands on one of their guns. It only took him a second to decide on a strategy,

He aimed his body in the general direction of the man closest to him and dove for the ground, hoping to find the man’s feet. Another burst of gunfire erupted behind him, a bullet biting into his back as his arms closed around someone’s legs.

Then they were on the ground, fighting for dominance, Damian all too aware of the ticking clock under Aria on the terrace.

* * *

Her scream was futile, nothing but a series of muffled sounds emerging behind the hand clamped firmly over her mouth. She tried kicking her legs, but they came up against a body so solidly built it was like trying to kick down a giant oak. The arms around her were immovable, their progress toward the edge of the patio inevitable.

Her heart clutched in her chest as more gunfire sounded from the house. Damian was somewhere in there, and although she didn’t know how many men had come for them, she knew they were outnumbered.

Knew he was outnumbered.

The gunfire fell silent, and she heard s scuffling on the floor of the house followed by the sound of wet flesh and grunting, somebody obviously fighting. She kicked harder, desperate to get to Damian even as she had no idea how she would help him.

“Stop it, bitch.”

The voice behind her was guttural and accented. She was relieved to feel the arm around her chest loosen, but her relief was short-lived when she felt something being clipped around her chest, the sound of metal clicking into place followed by more metal dropping near her feet.

She looked down in time to see a giant hook attached to the railing of the terrace.

The man holding her was going to rappel over the side of the cliff.

And he was going to take her with him.

* * *

Damian had finally managed to get on top of the man. He wanted nothing more than to punch the man into oblivion, to pulverize his face until he stopped breathing.

But Aria was out there. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew she was in danger.

It was all the incentive he needed to quell his instinct to kill the man under him with his bare hands. He put a bullet in the man instead, then took his gun and stood, warm blood leaking across his back from the hit he’d taken earlier.

The time for sneaking and crouching was over. One man was dead and one was busy with Aria. That meant there were only two left.

Two to one in a house he knew like the back of his hand? He would take those odds.

He stood and aimed at the man by the stairs, saw him fall by the light of his gunfire, watched him topple backward as another bullet burrowed into Damian’s skin, this time into his bicep.

He turned his gun on the man near the kitchen and kept moving toward him as he fired. He had a glimpse of a dark beard and black eyes as the man’s body ricocheted off the counter and onto the ground.

Then he was stalking toward the terrace and the woman who had, against all odds, come to own him.

* * *

Aria was helpless as she was hauled over the railing. She understood now that she was clipped to the man behind her, that he was going to take her away from Damian by way of the cliff face and that there was nothing she could do about it. Even if she managed to unclip herself — a long shot at best — she would fall to her death.

She went still, trying to think of something — anything — she could do to help Damian get to her.

She shouted his name, hoping he would find her in the darkness.

* * *

Her voice tore through the night, the fear and panic in it ripping through him like a machete. He raised his gun, but it was too difficult to see, too difficult to sort Aria from the hulking mass behind her, pulling her over the edge of the terrace.

At first he thought the man was going to jump, kill them both.

Then he saw the hook and repelling line. She would live if they made it to the bottom, but Damian would have to beat them there. He was turning for the stairs when the man holding her fired. He saw it come at him as if in slow motion, tried to move, felt the sting of it in his chest.

He tried to stay on his feet through sheer force of will, through his desperation to save her, but his body collapsed under him anyway. He noted it with a kind of dispassion. How strange that in the end he would have no control over his body. That he would fold like a piece of paper in spite of the rage coursing through him.

In spite of the knowledge that the only thing that mattered to him was in danger.

She screamed as he fell. “No!”

He wanted to tell her it was okay. That he was going numb and didn’t feel anything except his heart breaking as the man leapt from the terrace. But he couldn’t get any words out, and he watched as she disappeared below the edge of the terrace, his name and her sobs echoing off the rock below.

He lost consciousness for a moment. There was her scream, and then he was opening his eyes, staring up at the clouds clearing, the moon finally shining onto the patio as the sound of a boat receded in the distance.

He rolled over, left a trail of blood as he crawled to one of the pillars.

He propped himself up and reached for his phone.