The Innocent: A Dark Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 3)

by Mara McQueen

  Gasps erupted all around them. The guests all turned toward the other end of the aisle.

  Ella whipped her head toward the back of the garden. Her beautiful face contorted with fear. "Oh my God. They found us."

  What the hell was going on? Ella wasn't afraid of anything.

  Ava jerked her hands from Darius' and stood up on her toes to get a clear view.

  She froze.

  Dozens upon dozens of black suits were gathering at the end of the aisle, looking as frightening as the rumors warned.

  The Brotherhood. The most fearsome mafia Clan in the world had crashed Ava's wedding—and they'd brought enough weapons to shoot and slice through every single guest.

  Everyone around her—all these vicious assassins and spies and schemers—tensed.

  Ava sighed in relief. The wedding had been stopped. For now.

  A dark figure stepped in front of the Brotherhood assassins, cool, calm, and confident from the tip of his black hair, to the edge of his mighty sword.

  He radiated power with every steady step, every jagged grin he sent toward the petrified crowd.

  He was coming straight toward her.

  Ava sucked in a breath. She'd never met him, but she knew who this was—the Brotherhood Prince. The Dragon. The man she was supposed to marry all along.

  "Ava," Ella whispered, grasping her shoulder tightly. "Listen to me carefully. Turn around right now and run toward the shore. Get on the first boat you see and leave. You do not look back, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me?"

  Ava understood—but she was not abandoning her cousins to save her own hide. They were the last family she had in this world.

  She stood still, watching the Prince prowl closer. A funeral silence fell over the garden as everyone watched him.

  "A lovely little gathering we have here," he said, black, ruthless gaze taking in the garden. Behind him, his Brothers and Sisters tightened their hold on their weapons. Knives, guns, assault rifles. They'd come to wreak havoc. "Our invitations must have gotten lost on the way. We won't hold it against you, though. We got here right on time, it seems."

  Vinnie, a mountain of a man from the Syndicate Clan, who could crush skulls with his bare hands, lunged from his seat just as the Prince passed him.

  The Prince reacted so fast, Ava didn't see him move. One second he was walking, the next, he had his sword against Vinnie's thick throat. If he breathed too hard, he'd get killed.

  "None of that." The Prince tsked darkly. "I know you Syndicate people are brash, but if I have to slash some manners into you, I will."

  Vinnie clenched his jaw, hands fisting at his sides. The tip of Prince's sword dug into his skin; a trickle of blood flowed down Vinnie's neck, staining his shirt collar.

  "I'd hate to make your wife cry over your grave. I hear she'd pregnant. Wouldn't want to risk her losing the baby because of grief, now would we?" the Prince said in perfectly polite viciousness. "Sit down."

  And Vinnie—feared, burly, enormous Vinnie, who'd once fought fifteen assassins on his own and escaped with just a broken rib—sat down.

  "So you lot can be tamed." The Prince turned, continuing his steady path toward the altar. The priest shook so hard, his hat fell with a clank.

  "I didn't come here to cause trouble," he went on. His cruel eyes slashed to Ava's and didn't let go. He trapped her with one glance, making her heart beat out of control. "I came to claim what's mine."

  Ella jolted out of her shock and stepped in front of Ava with all the confidence so many people feared. "I'd rethink that plan if I were you."

  "Step out of the way, Caputo, this isn't your fight," the Prince said calmly, even as the Brotherhood assassins began to stir menacingly. "It would be a shame for the entire Underworld to lose a mind like yours."

  "When it comes to my family, everything's my fight."

  Ava could've hugged the breath out of Ella right now—but she'd settle for getting her out of harm's way.

  She was not letting anyone, especially her cousins, get harmed because of her.

  Ava stepped forward, set on facing this so-called Dragon head-on.

  She didn't get far.

  Darius' meaty hands coiled around her, dragging her back. Before Ava could headbutt him, the cold barrel of a gun pressed into her right temple.

  "One more step and she dies," Darius slurred, his breath reeking of booze. He shook behind Ava; a few more seconds and he'd probably wet himself.

  Her future husband, ladies and gentlemen. Hiding behind her puffy skirt, threatening to kill her so he could save his hide.

  "You son of a bitch. Nobody was allowed to carry a weapon today," Ella hissed, eyes shooting daggers at Darius.

  But her mighty glare was nothing compared to the shadows crowding the Prince's gaze. His face turned angular and predatory, radiating cold fury. It chilled Ava to the bone, even though that rage wasn't directed at her.

  The entire garden froze as Darius dug the barrel of his gun harder into Ava's head, his other hand tightening its grip on her neck.

  Poor, stupid Darius. Now he'd angered the Brotherhood Prince and Ava's cousins. He wasn't walking out of this garden alive.

  But Ava wanted to be the first to make him bleed.

  Chapter Two

  AVA

  Slowly, to make sure Darius didn't notice, Ava's right fingers coiled up, digging into her massive draped sleeve.

  Her nails tugged on the one loose thread she'd sewn herself—living in the mountains meant she'd learned how to mend clothes before she'd hit puberty.

  She pulled on the thread, unraveling it. The pocket she'd stitched inside the sleeve split. The cold handle of her trusty switchblade slid into her palm.

  No weapons were allowed today, that was true—but Ava hadn't planned on jetting off to her wedding night unarmed.

  She had been protected from mafia and Clans her entire life, but Syndicate blood ran through her veins.

  Ava grinned, for the first time in a year.

  Before Darius could draw one more breath, she flicked her switchblade open and impaled it into his hand.

  Darius roared, letting her go. Who needed an orchestra when Ava could hear such sweet music as the asshole's whimpers?

  Darius fell onto his knees. Ava ripped her veil off and spit at his feet; he didn't even deserve that, the bastard.

  The Prince took another menacing step. Ella turned to grab Ava's hand.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The vase next to the altar shattered.

  Bullets started raining down onto the wedding—and they didn't care whose flesh they pierced.

  They hit anyone in sight. Syndicate, Brotherhood, Serpents. They were all targets.

  The garden erupted in chaos. People ran away, screamed, pleaded, fell to the ground, never to rise again.

  Ella ducked away as another vase shattered. She grabbed Ava's shoulders, eyes wild.

  "Get away from here! Don't look back!"

  "I'm not leaving without—"

  The rest of Ava's words died on her lips as her face and Ella's were splattered with blood. The priest's blood. From a gunshot straight through his head.

  His body slumped between them, breaking them apart.

  "A weapon," Ella whispered, horrified. "I need a weapon. Uncle Rossi must have stashed a bazooka here somewhere."

  More people came between them, running, desperate to find cover from the bullets tearing through everything. In the frenzy, Ella vanished.

  Ava wasn't waiting around to get slaughtered. She hiked up her ridiculous skirt and ran down the altar steps as fast as her high heels allowed.

  A bullet hissed past her ear.

  Ava whirled around. Darius, hand bloodied, face contorted with pain, had his gun trained on her. He'd almost shot her. Again.

  Ava hoped he'd die in the most fiery pits of hell.

  "Not so fast, you—"

  Whatever Darius wanted to say—and from the way his top lip curled, it wasn't anything good—he nev
er got to finish and he never would.

  The Prince appeared behind him, sword raised high. The blade cut clean through Darius, bones and flesh and ligaments. The sword split his body into halves, starting from his skull. They crumbled to the ground with a sickening splat, gushing blood and whatever that brown liquid was.

  Ava heaved. Her knees shook. She stumbled to the closest tree, leaning her hand against it to find her breath again.

  What the fuck had just happened?

  Your fiancé was murdered, that's what happened. He'd deserved it.

  Ava hated this. Hated the Underworld she'd been born into. Violence and death at every turn and she couldn't escape it.

  The Prince stepped over what remained of Darius, his dark figure spearing the sea of desperate people running around him. They might've been scared witless, but they instinctively shied away from him. He had that unavoidable presence that warned the senses he was dangerous.

  He stopped in front of Ava, gaze scanning her face. Shit, he was tall. His shadow loomed over her.

  "I'm sorry you had to see that," he said.

  Ava's mouth hung open. That's what he was sorry for? Not for threatening her family of killing Darius, but that she'd witnessed it?

  "Do you know who I am?" he asked, voice low and raspy. As if they weren't in the middle of a massacre.

  Ava nodded. Words weren't her friends today.

  "Do you know why I'm here?"

  Vaguely. Ava was a Clan newbie at best. She had the barest grasp of its rules and hierarchies. But even she knew a Clan as powerful as the Brotherhood didn't attack without a very good motive—if the code was broken.

  And Ava's parents had broken that code when they'd whisked her away.

  "For me," she said, hating the way her voice shook.

  "Good. You have two options, Evana." His right, unbloodied hand rose to her face. Ava was too shocked to flinch away. He wiped her tears away, gentle touch ghosting over her skin. "You can come with me and be protected for the rest of your life or stay here and take your chances with your Clan."

  /Her/ Clan? The one her parents had tried to protect her from? The one whose members had dragged her back kicking and screaming to marry her off to Darius? Who'd threatened to murder what was left of her family if she didn't play along?

  "But," the Prince went on, hand falling back to his side. "If you choose to stay, until our Clans reach an agreement, I can't promise you will be safe."

  A laugh ripped from her throat. It sounded like another sob. "Not much of a choice, is it?"

  "Ava!" her cousin Enzo roared. He carried a bloodied broken chair leg, blood trickling down his forehead. "What are you doing? Get away from him!"

  Enzo looked like he'd rip her away from the Prince himself, but as he marched toward them, a Brotherhood woman jumped on his back.

  "Get off, you she-beast!"

  "Don't worry, she's not going to hurt him," the Prince said.

  Ava couldn't catch a fucking break, could she? She'd gotten rid of Darius, now she had to deal with his murderer.

  Suddenly, the Prince grabbed her waist and rolled them to the other side of the massive tree. A second later, a bullet bit into the tree bark, right where they'd stood.

  "Interesting." The Prince hummed low in his throat, as if he hadn't almost gotten his head blown off. He leaned over Ava, trapping her between his strong body and the tree. "Time's ticking."

  Ava gulped. "Will my cousins be safe if I come with you?"

  "If they survive today? Safer." He watched her like a hawk. "Coming or staying, Evana?"

  Ava looked up at him, at this dangerous man who'd crashed her wedding and killed her fiance. He was dangerous. He was a murderer. He was the enemy.

  But for her family, Ava would sacrifice anything. She'd agreed to marry a man she hated for them today. Who cared who that man was as long as her cousins were safe?

  Instead of recoiling from him and his bloody sword, Ava's lips slashed into a grin as vicious as this violent life she'd been born into.

  She couldn't outrun the Underworld—but maybe she could bend it to her will. "Call me Ava."

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