by Mara McQueen
Enzo gripped his gun tighter.
Just three more red dots running up the stairs.
Three bullets. Five more red dots on the stairs.
"Come. The. Fuck. On!" She growled.
"Four," Enzo muttered, a grin spreading over his face. "Three—"
Patrice's insides clenched. If this didn't work...if those beasts caught them...if they didn't time everything perfectly…
"Two." Enzo fired the last bullet he had. He threw the gun into the corner, hand hovering over his watch.
Patrice inhaled sharply.
"One!"
"Cover!" Patrice shouted just as Enzo's hand came down onto the watch's screen.
They both covered their mouths and noses. Charles remembered to do the same.
A hiss spread through the house, violent and fast.
Patrice smiled like a madwoman. Enzo had his booby traps, Patrice had her sleeping draught—which was coming out of every vent in the house.
Bodies started hitting the floor. Shouts echoed through the night.
Then silence.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ENZO
"And that, dear fiancé, makes thirty-two." Patrice rose back up and blew the hair out of her eyes, staring down at the mountain of sleeping assassins at her feet.
She'd tied their hands behind their backs and had tried to place them all in a comfortable position, though Enzo was smart enough not to point that out.
Her heart wasn't Underworld-vicious, but she wouldn't be exactly thrilled at that. She called herself the Viper, after all.
"That means," she went on, a spring in her step as she surveyed all the bound assassins on their front lawn. "That I hit more targets than you. I win."
Enzo took a sip of water, hiding his grin—Patrice's serum had worn off, but the after-effects lingered. Enzo was beyond thirsty. He nodded at his own pile of targets. "I have thirty-seven."
Patrice whirled around with a grimace. "You had thirty."
"Charles found seven more behind the lilac trees."
Patrice pursed her lips and crossed her hands in front of her chest. She looked adorable when she was pissed-off, which boded well for their future together.
Because they'd survived the night. They would have a future. Together.
That single thought soothed the storm of rage inside Enzo.
The island had been breached for the first time in its history. These assassins had wanted to kill them. Kill Patrice.
Someone had to pay dearly for that betrayal.
Patrice licked her teeth. "If you count how many I knocked out with the sleeping draught, I win."
"You said not to count the ones the booby traps took out," Enzo said. It felt good to feel this easiness between them again. No tension, no wondering what secrets lurked behind the smiles. "But if you want a recount, I'm sure I'll get some more from the nets, the hole—"
"Fine." Patrice pursed her lips. "You win. Again."
Enzo set the glass down and sauntered toward her. He wrapped his arms around her middle from behind. It took a second, but when Patrice rested her head back against his shoulder, he felt like the luckiest man in the world.
"I've been winning since we met," he whispered into her hair, gripping her tighter to him. "Every time you smiled at me. With every kiss. With the thought that we'll soon get married and start our lives together. I win because I'm with you."
Enzo had finally found his match and he never wanted to let her go. Someone who'd seen all of him and not only hadn't run away, but embraced each secret, each quirk, everything he'd tried so very hard to keep hidden from the rest of the world.
They could keep up with each other. They could make the other better. They could grow together.
That had always been a dream for him, a recluse thought in his mind. Yet, here he was, embracing his dream.
Patrice tilted her head back to look up at him with those big, beautiful eyes of hers.
"Then we both win," she said with a small, open smile. "Because you're quite the catch, Lorenzo Caputo."
They melted into each other's embrace, not breaking eye contact. They just stared at each other, like they couldn't get enough.
A moment of stillness, after a frenzy of a night. And not the good kind of frenzy.
But, as with most of their romantic moments, this one was broken, too.
One of the assassins shifted with a groan. They were waking up.
Patrice sighed in annoyance. "That's it. Next holiday, we're staying at my cabin. Alone. No more distractions, no more interruptions."
"That sounds like a brilliant plan." He kissed the top of her head and let her go, though he would have wanted to stay like that for hours.
This wasn't a time for romance, anyway.
The job wasn't done.
"Let's see who wanted to kill us, shall we?" he asked.
"You mean apart from Jason?" Patrice unmasked the man with a scowl. "I could've eviscerated you back in Paris. I could eviscerate you right now. But do you see me trying to kill you?"
Though still unconscious, Jason must've heard her, because he let out a snore that sounded suspiciously like a yelp.
Enzo was going to take great pleasure in reminding Jason nobody pointed a gun at Patrice. He could almost hear the man's bones cracking.
He yanked off the mask of the closest assassin. The beast inside him roared as he went completely still.
"What's wrong?" Patrice asked.
"I know this man." Michael. Low on the Syndicate hierarchy, was working his way up to become a bodyguard.
Enzo had talked with him. Invited him into his home. Had loaned him money when the man had mentioned his sister having another baby and the crib breaking down. He'd been at Enzo's party.
"He was there the first night you came." He gnashed his teeth. "He's Syndicate."
If there was any doubt someone in Enzo's Clan had betrayed him, this was irrefutable proof.
More masks came off.
"Some of these Runagates were on the list we borrowed," Enzo said.
"Mystery half-solved." Patrice took off another mask. She gasped. "And I know him."
Enzo locked eyes with her.
"He's Brotherhood. Was Brotherhood, a guard in the goddamn Capital." She grimaced at the weird mask. "He vanished one day. Now we know where he went. Brotherhood and Syndicate working together?"
"With Runagates," Enzo growled. "To take the two of us out."
"Axton and Ella were attacked too," Patrice said grimly. "By people with masks. And Raiden's worried the Capital has been infiltrated."
"Someone wants to take all of us out." Each word cut Enzo deeper. "And I know who it is."
Nothing but bloodlust flowed through his veins. He wasn't going to rest until he got his revenge.
He felt the anger wash over him in waves. Patrice must've felt it too, because she approached him slowly, gripping his shoulder. "Enzo?"
"Someone who could profit off Victor dying. Someone who wants power. Someone who hates the Brotherhood. Someone who could convince anyone to do anything. Someone who knew where the island was and how the booby traps worked." He covered Patrice's hand with his, letting her warmth ground him before the fury took hold forever. "The only person who knew we were hiding here. Rossi."
Patrice inhaled sharply, tightening her hold on Enzo's shoulder. "You need to be absolutely sure of this before we tell anyone else."
He'd always seen the ambition in Rossi's eyes. He'd admired it. But he'd ignored his dark side. The way his upper lip sometimes curled during the Syndicate First Family annual meetings. The barbed compliments. The way he'd vanished during the wedding. How, back in Paris, he hadn't contradicted Patrice that Victor had been the devil.
Or how he went on about this island. He'd always grumbled the Syndicate had lost power in Europe to the Brotherhood. Enzo should have seen the sinister underneath his words.
But Enzo had trusted Rossi. He'd believed the man had wanted to protect him and Patrice, but h
e'd known the two of them, the cousins, and the Brotherhood Elite were going to piece together what had happened at the wedding.
So he'd set them up to be killed. Enzo saw through everyone. He hadn't seen through Rossi. He'd let his feelings get in the way.
Rossi wouldn't be the first Consigliere to backstab the Capo. Or shoot him. Power did strange things to people.
Enzo didn't care about Rossi's reasons. He'd betrayed the family. The Clan. He'd sent assassins to kill Patrice.
He didn't deserve to live.
"Do you want to spare him?" Patrice asked, but Enzo heard it in her voice—she wanted Rossi's blood.
So did he. "No. Rossi's the actual devil. He doesn't deserve it. He betrayed the Clan. He betrayed the family. He betrayed me."
Enzo didn't forgive and forget.
"First, we kill him," Enzo said, not recognizing his voice. "Then we get married and start our future together."
"That sounds like the best plan I've ever heard." Patrice embraced him with all her might. "It's going to be the best Underworld wedding present—revenge."
Epilogue
PATRICE
"Okay, what do you think? More glittery snowflakes?" Patrice stepped back, staring at the first Christmas tree she'd decorated in her life.
Her parents hadn't been big on holidays—of any kind—and after she'd moved out, joined the big, bad Underworld, and adopted Mr. Oscar, having ornaments seemed like trouble she didn't want to clean up.
But she was having guests now. In her secluded cabin. For Christmas.
Lord, what had she gotten herself into? And why was she so excited?
Enzo came to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle. They were doing this a lot since the whole island invasion. Patrice loved it.
"I think it's the right amount of sparkle." He nuzzled his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply. "Isn't it, Oscar?"
Mr. Oscar didn't even glance their way. He was too busy staring at a red globe like it was the best prey of his life.
"Yeah, I give him maybe a day before he knocks the tree down." Patrice rested her head back against Enzo's shoulder, nestling her nose in the junction of his neck.
She inhaled deeply. She'd never get enough of that deep, manly, luxurious scent of his.
Hell, she couldn't get enough of him.
She ran her fingers up and down his arms, lingering on the scar near his right elbow, a mark from their last battle.
They'd gotten rid of the actual devil. They'd gotten their revenge. They'd gotten away with their lives.
Enzo had lost a bit of ligament, Patrice's left eyebrow still hadn't grown back, but they were alive and together.
They'd had proper funerals for everyone who had fallen. All of Patrice's Brothers and Sisters. All of Enzo's family and Syndicate members who'd been taken away. Some of them didn't deserve it, but Clan life demanded tradition.
Plus, if there really was an afterlife, it didn't hurt not to anger whoever was waiting on the other side.
Patrice sighed deeper into Enzo's embrace. "I'm going to have Syndicate First Family sleeping in my house."
Enzo's cousins and their Brotherhood Elite spouses were all coming for Christmas here.
"You've already had one for a few days now." Enzo laughed, low and deep. It sent shivers down Patrice's back. "Though we haven't been doing much sleeping."
"Nobody can blame me. Have you seen you?"
Patrice couldn't help herself around Enzo. Yeah, he was hot. He looked like a goddamn Adonis, with eyes that could swallow her whole. But what made him truly sexy? His mind. His attitude.
He made her laugh the days away. He made her writhe and moan through the night. He guarded her back when the bullets came flying down and helped her patch the wounds when they got back home. He charmed her every day; he managed to do it even when they argued.
He kept Patrice on her toes in the best ways. Surprises, stolen kisses, fantastic dates in secret places she would have never gotten into by herself, Lady of the Brotherhood or not.
She'd found her match and she was never letting him go.
"We still have one more day to ourselves." He ran his hand through her hair, down her neck, just how she liked it. "Let's make the most out of the next twenty-four hours. Grab your coat."
He stepped away from her and was halfway out of the mudroom before Patrice even got a chance to sigh.
"We still have a lot of stuff to do. Make sure everyone has towels in their rooms, we need to get started on prepping the meal—"
"We have literal assassins coming over." Enzo put on his coat and held out Patrice's. "I'm sure your beloved Prince can work his sword around an onion or two."
"Should I be concerned about you and Raiden being in the same house?"
"Don't worry, I can't kill him. Ava's starting to care for the git."
Patrice cocked her hips to the side. "You can't maim him either."
Enzo mock-sighed and helped Patrice slide her hands into her coat. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "But that can be our new Christmas tradition."
Patrice ignored the shivers running down her spine. "No maiming, shooting, poisoning, or tripping."
"Toni's going to be disappointed." He opened the front door. An icy breeze blew straight in, carrying big, fat snowflakes along with it. It crept through the living room, past the dark wood beams, the green velvet couch, startling Mr. Oscar, whose whiskers puckered up instantly.
He hated winter. Patrice loved it.
The crunching snow beneath her boots, the cold nose, the snowflakes melting in her hair. Everything smelled clean and crisp, and it all went so very quiet and still.
"Shall we?" Enzo offered her his arm, a grin on his gorgeous face.
He was still a charming devil. Patrice couldn't refuse such an invitation.
"We can't wander around for long," she said half-heartedly, taking his hand and practically skipping outside.
The cold, fresh air greeted her. It smelled heavenly.
"So this is your wilderness." Enzo breathed in deeply, closing his eyes. A couple of snowflakes snagged on his eyelashes, slowly melting, but he didn't swat them away. "I like it."
"It's not mine, per se." Though she owned everything as far as they could see. Her little slice of heaven, for which she'd paid almost nothing. Not a lot of people wanted to live in the middle of the Canadian freezing nowhere.
If Patrice was being totally honest, she didn't want to live here every single day. She still liked adventure. Going out on impossible missions in places most people didn't even know existed. Run on cobbled streets and get lost in alleyways.
But after all her hectic energy was spent, she wanted to have a quiet place to recharge. Her cabin—which was larger than most of Enzo's houses, as he'd pointed out as soon as he'd walked through the door—was just that.
A quiet little place to gather her thoughts before she raced back into the world, trying to right it.
The fact that she was letting Syndicate people into her home would've terrified her a mere half a year ago. But after everything all of them had gone through, she kind of started to like them? Especially Toni, they got along great.
And Enzo was Syndicate. They couldn't be that bad if he was one of them, could they?
They walked in silence past the clusters of trees, now dark and lifeless, nothing but clumps of icy snow on their branches.
The longer they wandered in comfortable silence, the tenser Enzo became. Patrice could feel it, even through both their heavy-duty coats.
"Are you sure you like it?" she asked.
This wasn't like him. With the wedding massacre and Victor's death sorted out, he'd relaxed so much more. Oh, he still had that steely intensity of his, nothing could break that, thank God, but that quiet stubbornness of his had been slowly melting away.
In the past few months, he and Patrice had gotten closer and closer. Truth be told, she had been a teeny bit worried about them.
The Treaty between the Syndicate and the
Brotherhood had been voided as soon as Victor's death had been avenged. Nobody needed an arranged marriage anymore.
Ironically, Enzo's cousins and the Brotherhood Elite had all decided to stay together. The entire Underworld quivered at that idea. Their children were going to inherit some very vicious genes and powerful titles.
But for now, they could all enjoy their relationships without traditions and contracts weighing them down.
It was nice. It was comfortable. It was freeing.
Patrice and Enzo stayed together because they wanted to, not because of some yellowing piece of paper and a shoddy negotiation.
"I'll like that little lake of yours even more," Enzo said, but he didn't detense.
Maybe he was cold. Which made this little outing so much more endearing. He was freezing his ass off for Patrice. True romance.
But Patrice wasn't going to make him suffer for long. A quick visit to her lake, then back home for some cocoa and kisses.
Great plan.
"I can't believe you remembered the lake. I think I only mentioned it that first time in Paris," she said.
"I know."
"It's just through this clearing." Patrice tugged on his arm, suddenly excited.
The lake wasn't all that spectacular to anyone other than her, especially in the winter, but she liked staring at the little dried twigs and stems frozen on the edge of the water. The bubbles that somehow always formed in the ice. At the shiny pebbles she uncovered when she sat down on the bank and swayed her feet from side to side.
But most of all, she liked the silence.
The lake was even quieter now. She could hear her and Enzo's breathing melt together. Their heartbeats.
His was a little fast.
"Don't go catching a cold on me." She laughed, letting go of his hand and walking right at the edge of the lake.
Just a moment of stillness, then they'd go back.
She closed her eyes, feeling the wind catch in her hair. She closed her eyes. She wanted to sear this moment in her mind forever.
This was her haven. The place she guarded most—and it felt really good to have Enzo here with her.