Chapter 5

When Mateo realized that Raina was gone, a rush of emotions swept through him, anger and worry topmost. He wasn't used to having emotions like these and he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with them. He was a cold-blooded bastard, a fact that no one who knew him would dispute. Yet from the moment he met Raina in person, from that first moment he touched her, smelled her, he was lost. There was no denying how he felt about her.

Despite knowing that she was it for him, he wasn't entirely sorry when she disappeared from his life two years ago. Though he'd been furious, enough to almost make an enemy of Raina's mother, he had recognized that she was too young to claim at the time. Only nineteen. Old enough in some cultures, legal for marriage, but Raina had been raised in America with the ideal of freedom foremost in her upbringing. The past two years proved exactly how much freedom meant to her. Coming back to her family would be clipping her wings. Yet he had to do it.

It was time for Raina to claim her crown and it was time for him to claim his queen and rise up to take his rightful place in the underworld. He had mentored under the Gentleman Butcher for two decades with the promise of a future in the organization. Sotza's word was as good as gold.

It didn't hurt that a marriage between Mateo and Raina would solidify Mateo's position. He might want the girl more than he wanted his next breath, but he was still willing to use her to gain position.

Mateo touched a smear of blood on the outside of the clinic window where she had clearly pushed herself through and then either dangled or fallen to the ground. Another bolt of anger rushed through him. She was too reckless, couldn't take care of herself. It was well past time for her to come home. Where she would no longer be allowed to put herself in such danger.

Without turning, Mateo said to his people, "Find her."

He didn't need to say more. Though his men were not familiar with the city, they knew enough about the underground workings of Italy to find their way around. To find the people that mattered. To find her.

Mateo walked away from the clinic, his shoulders tense as he thought of all the things he wanted to do to her when he got his hands on her. Of course, she was injured, so any punishment would have to wait. He needed to teach his woman her new place in life.