The first sound hadn't been the shooting.
It was the screech of tires on cobblestones, so sharp Adriana felt her teeth aching. A split second after, black vans rolled into the piazza, doors slamming open, shadows spilling out with weapons in their hands.
The bystanders panicked. Shopkeepers shrieked, tourists sobbed, children screamed as the square disintegrated into chaos. Humans pushed against one another to escape, trampling stalls and tables. Fear thickened the air.
And at its center was Lucian Hale.
Standing still. Impassive. As if chaos itself warped to him.
"Welcome to my stage," he said, his voice carrying, low and unshakable. His eyes ice and cruelty found Damian. "Dance for me."
Damian's instincts snapped alive. He shoved Adriana behind the cover of a marble column, drawing the knife he always carried.
"Stay close," he ordered, his voice a blade in itself.
Adriana bristled. "Damian, I'm not a bystander"
And you won't, he cut across, his eyes on her for the blink of an eye. "But if you're dead, this war's lost."
No more words. The first wave crashed.
Men in black came swift, coordinated, their bodies conditioned. Batons, knives, guns glinting in the fading sun. Damian met them like a storm concentrated, merciless, unyielding. He dodged one blow, disarmed another, slammed his elbow across a throat, then turned back to drive his knife into the man at his back.
Adriana did not hesitate. A knife whizzed past her ribs; she sidestepped, snatching the wrist of her attacker, twisting until the knife fell from her hand. She caught it mid-air, planted a knee in his chest, and finished with a smooth cut across his arm.
Her heart pounded. Fear trembled in her veins, but more poisonous than fear was fire. She was no longer the cringing woman at the mercy of men's wars. She was one of them now fighting side by side with Damian.
He noted. Even when he smashed another man's jaw with a vicious punch, his gaze flickered in her direction. A nod. Wordless. Pride.
"Not bad," he growled.
"Move on, Hale," she tossed back, her lips curling over the blood.
"Pretty mayhem, isn't it?"
She heard the voice through the smoke and shouting, a voice she recognized all too well. Victor emerged on the other side of the square, his coat streaming behind him, his hands relaxed at his sides as if this were not battle but game.
Adriana stood rooted, fury burning. "Victor!"
His smile faltered, unreadable. "Adriana. You always had a gift for appearing at the wrong time at the most inconvenient moment."
"Whose side are you on?" Damian's voice was flat, lethal.
Victor tilted his head, eyes flicking between Damian, Adriana, and Lucian who waited like a musician waiting for his cue. "Side? You misjudge, cousin. I don't join sides. I take survival. And survival belongs to the winner." A tic-ed smile spread on his lips at his own humor.
Adriana's heart ached in betrayal. Damian's jaw firmed, hand tightening on his sword. But there was no time Lucian's men charged again.
In the midst of the chaos, Lucian descended the steps of the grand piazza's fountain, taking one measured stride. He distorted the battlefield, all eyes, all terror. He didn't rush. He didn't need to. His men fought for him, bled for him, died for him.
"Rusty, Damian," Lucian spoke, his voice unflappable as swords crashed close to him. "You fight like a man in chains. You once were unstoppable. Now? You bleed."
Damian's jaw contracted. "Not for you."
Lucian's gaze snapped to Adriana. Cold acceptance. And amusement.
"So this is it," he whispered. "The reason you're less strong. The woman who nipped the wolf's fangs."
Adriana's fury churned, more powerful than fear. "If you think that love makes him weak, you don't know its power."
Lucian chuckled softly. "Oh, I'll know it. When it's carved from his bones."
He lifted his hand. Another wave crashed down.
They pushed back towards the fountain, smoke scorching their eyes. Adriana crouched low, jamming her stolen knife into an attacker's thigh, then wrenched it free. Another struck at her with a baton that she knocked aside with her forearm, pain flashing, but she retaliated with a vicious butt of her head against his nose.
Blood sprayed. He fell.
She stumbled, panting, but didn't flag. Each step was sharper, swifter, as though the fear inside her was burning into fuel.
Damian saw the difference. Her courage terrified him and exhilarated him both. She wasn't clinging to staying alive now she was striking back. And she was magnificent.
Victor's Betrayal… or Not?
And then Victor moved.
At first, Adriana thought he was attacking them but his sword sliced through Lucian's men instead, killing two in quick succession.
Adriana blinked with amazement. "Victor?"
He faced her, his calculating eyes glinting. "Don't suppose me heroic. Lucian devours even his own. Better the devil I know…" He sneered sarcastically at Damian. ".than the one who thinks himself God."
Damian's voice was as cold as ice. "And when Lucian's gone?"
Victor's grin widened. "Then, cousin… we settle accounts."
Explosions rocked smoke bombs, covering the square with foul gray. Figures lurched, steel glinted, yells were specters. Damian pulled Adriana through chaos, caught her hand.
"Stay low!"
She coughed, clinging to him. "Where where are we going?"
"To him," Damian growled. "This does not end until Lucian does.".
They burst from the smoke into the open heart of the square. And there he was. Lucian. Alone. Untouched.
Waiting.
Lucian's men fanned behind him, a dark wall of muscle and steel. Lucian himself stood calm, his coat unruffled, his smile sharp.
"You should have run," he said softly. "But you've always been predictable, Damian. And predictable men are so very easy to break."
Damian moved forward, Adriana at his side. "You consider love to be a weakness. But it's the only thing that keeps me unbreakable."
Lucian's eyes fell to their entwined hands, contempt twisting his mouth. "Then let's prove it."
Lucian's hand rose. The air thickened, thick with foreboding. Dozens more men in uniforms spilled out of the vans, encircling the square, guns glinting in the dark.
"Bend them to their knees," Lucian commanded.
The square trembled under the beat of boots. Smoke curled. Shouts rose.
Damian drew his sword. Adriana stood next to him, her knife steady against the tremble in her arm. Victor vanished into the fog, his loyalty a knife in the shadows.
And Lucian smiled, calm, cruel, confident.
The streets of Milan would burn soon.
And this was just the beginning.