The street out in front of the theater was choked with traffic. Cars and their angry drivers, mulling people, scared patrons and musicians struggled through the cars and other vehicles, trying to get as far from the building as possible.

Valerio and Salvatore abandoned their car at the end of the block, and used their earpieces and lapel microphones to communicate with their men. The building, as far as they could determine, was completely evacuated, but there was no way to tell who had been inside at the time.

“Who has Allegra?” Valerio asked the question out of desperation. If someone had her, they would have said so, but he still had to ask. “Well?”

Jane, the pianist and Allegra’s friend flagged him down as he rushed toward the building. He vaulted over the hood of a cab to get to her side. “Where was she?”

Jane swallowed, her hands pressed to her cheeks in a helpless gesture. “I left her in her dressing room.”

Valerio started to move away toward the building.

“Wait!” Jane called him back with the desperation in her tone. “When the alarm sounded I went back. She wasn’t there.”

A quick look out of the side of his eye told him that Salvatore was speaking to several of the men.

“Where would she have gone?”

A young man was running in their direction, skidding to a stop beside Jane. “I’ve been looking through the crowd. Allegra’s not out.”

Valerio wanted to shout at the boy, but he held his anger barely in check, especially because it was directed at himself. “Where could she have gone?”

A queer look passed over the younger man’s face and then he rose up on the balls of his feet to look at the crowd as sirens blared through the air, cutting through the excited babbling of the onlookers. “She was with Linda. Or rather, Linda was in Allegra’s dressing room with her when I left.”

Linda. The image from the artists file popped up in his head. Tilting his chin down, he spoke into the lapel microphone, and cut in on the other conversations. “Who has eyes on Linda Overmeyer?”

One by one the men checked in, all of them had the same answer. Valerio felt his heart stop in his chest. His instinct was to rage and tear the building apart brick by brick, but that wasn’t going to help Allegra, not at that moment.

“Hey, hey…” a man dressed all in black waded through the crowd that had only grown in the last few minutes, “you looking for the Rossetti woman?”

Valerio heard the man and nodded. “Yes, what do you know?”

“I passed them on the stairs.”

“Them?” Apprehension crawled over his skin.

“Yeah. She was walking with that cold bitch,” he turned to Zack, searching for a name. “You know…”

“Linda.”

“Yeah,” he snapped his fingers, “the oboe player. I asked them if they needed help. Linda told me where to step off but the other lady, she didn’t even seem like she heard me.” He frowned and his eyes narrowed as if he was searching for the right words. “Every time the alarm sounded, she seemed to tense up. Her shoulders…” he shook off the thought. “I didn’t want to argue. I just thought it was weird that they were headed down toward the sub-levels, but-”

Valerio’s hand shot out and fisted in the man’s shirt, how do I get down there?”

The stagehand turned to look over his shoulder as firefighters rushed in through the stage door.

“There could be a fire-”

“There is no fire.” Valerio felt the man tense as his tone sank in and the man paled, blood draining from his face. “Tell me.”

A hand clapped down on his arm and Valerio turned to the younger man standing beside him.

“I’ll take you.”

Valerio’s eyes narrowed on his face. “How do you know where it is?”

“I spent summers with my grandfather in this neighborhood. He told me about the tunnels.”

Tunnels. The word sank in and Valerio reached his hand up to his lapel spoke into the microphone to tell his brother what was going on as he gestured to the other man.

Go.

* * *

Away from the sirens, her mind began to clear and fresh fear set in.

He wore the same cologne.

The scent coated her tongue, rolled her stomach.

His touch crawled along her skin.

She was trying to keep up. Not because she wanted to go with him, but she didn’t want to fall either. The uneven ground beneath her feet was hard enough to contend with. And the farther they went, the air changed too.

Changed from cold and stale, to rank.

“Where… where are we going?”

“You just leave it to me, Allegra. I’ve got everything under control.”

Control. The word had a chilling effect on her. It said volumes.

“Yes, I know, Lance.” Even saying his name hit her hard, made her ache. “I just… can’t we slow down?”

“We’ll slow down when we get there.”

“I don’t have my cane,” she told him, tugging on his arm. “I’m worried I’m going to fall.”

He slowed suddenly, nearly stopped beside her and that sudden change made her trip, forced her against his body and she had to slam her lips closed to keep from retching all over him.

“You were always clumsy.”

Allegra was thankful that her mouth was closed. His cold words brought up so much anger that she thought she might burst. Unbidden, her thoughts turned to Valerio. Is that what it felt like to have his bear inside of him. Was the bear all the base emotion and his human side the reason? Or was there a mix of both?

When Lance tugged her along, she went, trying to stall her steps, keep her thoughts on Valerio. He would come for her. He was likely already looking for her.

He would come, she knew.

She just had to wait and see what Lance had in mind.

* * *

They moved through the structure quickly enough. Zack knew the building well and seemed to sense the question on the tip of Valerio’s tongue. “I get here early a lot. Don’t have much to do in my apartment except sit around while my roommate screams at soccer games on his TV. So, while I’m here, I look around.

“I discovered the entry to the tunnels just a few weeks ago, but I didn’t go any further than the sign.”

Valerio noticed the tension pinching between Zack’s shoulders. “What sign.”

Zack came to a stop beside the wall and moved an aged particle board that was propped up against the wall. He came away from the action shaking his hand from a splinter but he gestured to the wall with his free hand. “Right there.”

Gotham Center Station

Dedicated February 12, 1904

Valerio called up to Salvatore and managed to make himself heard through the electronic distortion. Nodding, he turned and looked at Zack. “Salvatore sent some of our men to the City to get the plans for the subway tunnels. The rest of them are swarming around the building, covering every exit and door they can find to get in and get Allegra back.” He could feel worry roiling around inside of him like boiling water. “And we’re going to get her back.”

“Yeah. I know you will.” Zack moved along, fairly quietly, which surprised Valerio to no end.

“You can go back now.” Valerio picked his way along the wall, his eyes were completely black, the bear riding just under his skin, adding his own talents to the search for Allegra. Talents, he reminded himself, that Zack didn’t have. “I can go the rest of the way myself.”

“I can help you,” Zack insisted.

“How much do you know about the tunnels and where they lead?”

An uncomfortable silence was what he got in response.

“It would be safer if you were with the others.”

“You’re some kind of a caveman, aren’t you?” Zack walked faster to catch up and fall in step with Valerio. “You’re not the only one who cares about her and wants to make sure she’s safe. You’re just one guy. What happens if this guy gets a jump on you. Who is going to help Allegra out of this hell hole?”

Hell. The words struck a chord with him. The first time he’d met Allegra, she’d mentioned Orpheus. And it struck him with the force of a sledgehammer on an anvil, he was going to rescue her, but he was going to do a hell of a lot better than Orpheus. He was going to rescue her, because he had to.

Beside him, Zack mumbled aloud to himself, his shoulders hunched over. “I had a feeling that something was off, but I didn’t stay.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen. No one did.”

Zack nodded.

“Allegra would want you to stay,” Valerio told him. “She wouldn’t want you to be in danger.”

“Me?” His expression was all disbelief. “What about you?”

“Me?” Valerio smiled, a little curl of his lips, pulling away from his teeth. Zack’s complexion paled and he stumbled back a step. “I’m the danger.”

Valerio took off down the stairs, disappearing quickly into the dark.

* * *

The sounds around her changed. From close echoes to a big yawning sound. A wider chamber.

She stopped and he dropped the hand on her arm, leaving her there in the darkness.

“Good,” he laughed, “stay where I put you. Maybe you have learned something since you put me in jail.”

She fisted her hands, felt her teeth scrape against each other. She wished for just a little bit of fang or claws. ‘Imagine,’ she wondered, ‘what I could do then?’

“Keeping silent?” He laughed. “My my, you have learned something.” She heard something click open, like a cabinet. “Mother said you were too stupid to change.”

“Your mother?” The words rushed out between her lips. “I thought… I let myself believe the cards were from her.”

Another cabinet opened and something switched on.

Electronic feedback scraped through her ears, but she resisted the urge to cover them with her hands. She needed her ears now, more than ever.

“Dressing rooms clear!”

“Greenroom clear!”

She could hear more voices, doors slamming open or closed, heavy footsteps.

Laughter reached her ears too, but it wasn’t from a speaker. “I’ve always wanted to do that, you know?”

She didn’t answer.

“Pulling a fire alarm. It seems so… plebian.”

Breathe, Allegra. Breathe.

“So, you thought my little messages were from my mother.” She heard glass touching a hard surface. “She would be insulted, Allegra. She always said you were a waste of time.”

“Then why,” the question burst from her lip, “why come back? Why bring me here? Let me go.”

“You know that I don’t listen to her much. She wanted me to go into finance like my father.” He sighed, a long-suffering sound that turned his voice bitter. “But, I just did what I wanted. And where did that get me? An ungrateful bitch of a girlfriend.”

“You got your revenge, Lance. You took away my sight. You gave me scars. I didn’t take anything from you.”

“You took our future!” The walls echoed with his scream of rage. The voices of the firefighters droned on, but she could hear Lance’s heaving breaths underneath it all. “You took my dream away, Allegra. You deserved what happened to you.”

No. She wanted to scream at him. Tell him that he was crazy.

She stayed silent.

“You even took my home from me, but my mother found a way to bring me home.”

“And how did that work?”

Wood scraped against the ground and she heard his footsteps drawing closer. She tensed up waiting for a hit. Instead she felt his breath in her face. “That same top-dollar plastic surgeon that kept you from looking like a stained-glass window gave me a new face. And she paid some penniless scholarship student a mint to take my place in Geneva. I never did like living there.”

“And this place?” She swallowed hard, struggling to keep calm with him so close to her. “Where are we?”

“This?” He laughed and the high-pitched scratch of it felt like nails on a chalk-board. “This is home for us until further notice. I thought we could hole up here until I’m sure you won’t ruin things for us again. Until I’m sure you know the way things are going to work.”

“So, I’m a prisoner.” She tasted bile on the back of her tongue.

“Karmic justice as far as I’m concerned, my love.”

“I have a life, Lance. I have a job. I need to go back.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until she begged him to stop.

“You’ll go back, over my dead body.”

* * *

There were times throughout his life that Valerio and his bear couldn’t see eye-to-eye. His bear wanted action. His bear wanted everything at the moment he wanted it. Valerio has been the voice of reason and patience.

But not today.

Not when Allegra needed them both.

Today, he wanted his mate and he wanted blood.

And when all was said and done he was going to feast on them both.

A growl rolled through his body and fangs broke through into his mouth. He got a taste of blood and inhaled the dank air of the abandoned subway station.

His bear scented the air and recognized Allegra. It also smelled her fear.

Fur pushed out through his pores and the air rushing through it spoke volumes about the space surrounding him. His eyes bled black and he saw into the darkness as if he was outside in the middle of the day.

It didn’t matter where Lance Singleton took Allegra. He was going to find him.

The only thing up for debate was how much he would suffer before he died.

* * *

Lance’s personality had always been quixotic at best. When they were together, she had thought it endearing. Someone who felt everything so potently.

That was until she experienced the extremes of him. There had been nights… and even days… for months after the attack, years even, when she’d wake screaming out of a memory that left her shaking. Flashes of light. Searing pain. Hearing the doctors tell her over and over that she’d never see again.

And then, there were the dreams that took her back in time. The dreams that walked her through the memory of her last day. The excitement about her life changing opportunity and then walking out the door, only to wake up and knew that even though her eyes were open, it was pitch-black around her.

She’d become lazy in the last few years. She didn’t have to live vigilantly waiting for the very air around her to change.

“I should apologize to you.”

That caught her by surprise. Even at the sentencing hearing, when he’d been given a chance to apologize and take time off of his sentence, Lance had remained mum. “For what?”

His sigh was tight, rough in his throat. “The zoo. I heard them talking through the speakers. I went to hear you play. My mother told me I was being ridiculous, but I never listen to her when she gets like that. I went to hear you play and saw you with him.”

“Valerio.”

“I don’t want to know his name.” He mumbled under his breath until he grumbled out a few more words. “I wanted him out of the way. Everything I did was trying to remind you that you belonged to me.”

She wanted to ask him what else he’d done, but she had an idea. The police, the questions, the sudden wardrobe gifted to her from Natale. Her new friend was generous but again, she knew that Valerio had withheld even more information from her. Just like she’d done to him. And now, she was stuck here. Great job, Allegra.

“You can sit, you know.” He scoffed at her as his mind shifted gears. “It’s not the Ritz, but then again, you always seemed to be a motel kind of girl. The couch isn’t half bad.”

She shook her head and felt heat across her cheeks. “I don’t know where the couch is.”

“It’s right… oh, yeah.” He laughed, a rough bark of sound. “Where’s that cane my parents paid for?”

“I didn’t take it with me when the alarm sounded.” She explained the situation to him instead of telling him where to step off. Biding her time. “Linda didn’t tell me where we were going.”

* * *

Valerio tasted cologne on his tongue and scratched his teeth over the surface of it, trying to remove the taste. His fangs caught at the tender skin and scored it, welling up blood. It only fueled his rage.

He was closer. He felt Allegra’s presence like a caress against his face. He held her scent on an indrawn breath and wanted her in his arms.

His men were searching through the City’s records, but thanks to their lack of organization and a decent filing system, they weren’t likely to be much help. If they ever found it, it was likely not to be quickly enough to help, but that didn’t stop him.

Didn’t stop them.

Valerio continued to pace down the hallways, following her scent and this feeling he held inside of his chest, in his heart.

He’d called Allegra ‘Stellina’… his star.

And she was.

With the dark surrounding him, he felt her light up ahead. Heard her heartbeat in his ears. Felt her calling to him.

And he moved on.

So close.

* * *

So close.

She felt like she was losing her mind.

Lance had given up trying to get her to sit. He’d given up shouting.

Now he was trying something new.

He had his hands in her hair. Fingers combing through her thick waves. Curling a length around his finger. Lifting it to his nose and taking in a long noisy breath.

His hands on her shoulders, squeezing, fingers trailing down the length of her arms, trying to hold her hands.

When he settled his hands on her hips, she froze.

When his fingers started to inch her skirt up, her stomach twisted and flipped inside of her and she pulled the fabric from his hands.

“No.” She shook her head and turned.

The sudden movement was something neither of them expected and her forehead connected with him. Where she didn’t know, but it hurt.

And something cracked.

“You broke my nose!”

She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. Karmic Justice, she repeated in her head.

“Bitch!”

She should have expected the open-handed slap that knocked her off of her feet, but it had been so long since she’d faced his kind of anger. The ground rushed up to meet her and the hard crack of her tailbone against the floor took the very air from her lungs.

“Why can’t you just let me love you?”

She wanted to keep quiet, she wanted to just hide, pretend she was invisible and hope that he’d give up and leave her alone, but when she felt his hand on her ankle something inside of her changed.

She didn’t break. She’d already done that.

No, this time, when she felt his hand on her she remembered that she wasn’t that same person anymore.

She’d faced the darkness and found love. And if it took everything inside of her, she was going to fight for that. Fight for herself.

She kicked out and felt the impact all the way up to the top of her leg. His grunt of pain made it worth it, but it only made him angrier.

He grabbed a hold of her legs, but she continued to kick at him, cheering herself on when she felt her feet connect. For once, she’d wished for heels, some punishing stilettos that would have killed her otherwise. She was at a disadvantage, she didn’t know what else was in the room, but she used each kick to propel her forward, her hands frantically reaching for the unknown.

“Hold still,” his fingers dug into the tender flesh at the back of her knee.

She kicked out with her other leg and cried out, she’d only succeeded in driving his fingers deeper. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her, but she’d cry about it later. “No.”

Saying the word again and again felt so good, like a mantra and a prayer. All cathartic as hell.

But it didn’t save her.

Not when he had size, strength, and sight in his favor.

The moment her hand closed around something that was heavy and hard she ground her teeth together and tried to swing, only to find out it wasn’t something she could move.

It managed to pull her hair from his grip. She heard his muttered curse.

But she also felt his hand close around her throat.

“Why do you have to fight me?”

She gasped for air, her hands clawing at his arm, but her short-trimmed nails didn’t do her any favors.

“Why?”

How she would have loved to spit in his face and snark back at him that she couldn’t very well talk with his hand choking the life from her, but she was almost perversely happy that he was getting more pissed by the minute.

The fact that she could ruin his sadistic plans was satisfying. Painful, but satisfying.

And all she could think about beyond her next breath of air was Valerio. How she wished that he were there… because she loved him and she needed to touch him one more time.

* * *

The heavy door barely made a sound as he wrenched it from its frame. The age and amount of rust had weakened it beyond what it could withstand. It didn’t matter if it had been a brand-new door, he would have found a way through it.

Allegra’s scent was stronger now, the normally subtle scent of her tea tree oil shampoo and body wash turned his head, but it was the heady spice of her skin that called to him like a hunger. He moved further down the tunnel and turned his head to listen.

Voices, tinny and sharp, as if magnified by a speaker, sheared off the concrete walls. The building had been cleared by the firefighters. He’d heard the news through intermittent alerts through his earpiece. Their men were keeping people back from the theater. Salvatore had spoken to Essa and explained the situation. All they were doing was waiting for word from him.

He turned another corner-

“No!”

It slammed into his chest like a punch.

Allegra’s fear was only eclipsed by her bravery.

He felt her heart pumping blood like a jackhammer, pushing blood through his own veins at the same speed.

It felt as though she gave him her strength, spurring him on.

He didn’t worry about the element of surprise. She was in pain and he would stop it any way he could.

And he got his chance as soon as he entered the next room. The cavernous space was decorated like a loft apartment in an upscale building in Soho. He barely made note of the setup as his eyes fell on Allegra.

The roar that tore from his throat was more animal than human and had the desired effect. The man on top of her let go of her throat, bracing his hand down on the floor to turn toward the sound. He exposed enough of his throat that Valerio was able to wrap his hand around his pasty skin in a crude imitation of what Lance had done to Allegra.

The two tumbled into the couch, shoving the heavy piece of furniture a fair distance away.

Valerio turned his head to look at Allegra, thrilled to see her moving, trying to sit up. His distraction cost him as Lance landed a punch to the side of his head, but the blow barely turned his head.

“You should have stayed away.”

Lance got up on his knees, grabbing a hold of Valerio’s shirt in his fist. “And you should keep out of my business!” He swung another blow and it had less effect than the first one. “Who are you?”

Valerio turned the tables a moment later.

He opened the gates, let his bear push deep into his gaze. They both enjoyed the look of shock on Lance’s face as the man reared back.

“What are you?”

His lips pulling back into a fang-baring smile, Valerio held on for a few more moments. “I’m the man who’s going to make you pay for your crimes.”

Lance stumbled, falling down onto his back, struggling to use his hands and legs to put some distance between them. “Look, you don’t understand,” Lance was nearly sobbing as he kicked out his legs to ward Valerio off. “This is all her fault!”

Valerio knew the moment Lance realized how wrong he’d been to speak. He saw the way the other man’s jaw went slack and the flush of anger left his face and turned his skin to a dull greyish tint. His last human thought as he loomed over the other man was the grim satisfaction as he saw the terror in the man’s eyes.

“What I’m going to do to you,” Valerio barely managed to heave each breath through his lungs, “no doctor will be able to fix.”

“Wait, please! Wait-”

Lance’s words turned into incoherent babble as Valerio shifted before him. Human rage melted into animal bloodlust and bared teeth turned into snapping jaws.

Instead of choking Lance, Valerio’s bear ripped out his throat, leaving it a mess with blood spurting from ruined veins. Heavy paws lifted and fell, crushing through ribs, puncturing a lung, robbing Lance of what oxygen he had left.

As his head lolled to the side, his cheek falling to the cold concrete at an unnatural angle, the last thing Lance ever saw was Allegra, her face alight with love as she wrapped her arms around the neck of a bear.