The Price of Protection

The Price of Protection
Aria's POV

The blast knocked me flat on my back.
Fire spread across the pier as pieces of wood and metal rained down around us. My ears were ringing, and smoke burnt my lungs.
"Aria!" Marco's voice sounded far away.
I rolled over, coughing. Through the smoke, I could see Vincent pulling Isabella toward a speedboat. My father - somehow alive - was right behind them.
"It was a setup," Luca gasped from somewhere to my right. "The whole pier is rigged with bombs."
Another blast shook the ground. This one was closer.
"We have to move!" Dmitri shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet.
But as we ran toward the street, gunfire erupted from three different places. Vincent's men had surrounded us completely.
"This way!" Kai called out, leading us toward a clump of shipping containers.
We dove for cover just as bullets started eating up the concrete where we'd been standing. I pressed myself against the cold metal, heart pounding in my chest.
"How many?" Marco asked, checking his weapon.
"Too many," Dmitri answered grimly. "At least twenty shooters."
"And they have Isabella," I said, watching the speedboat pull away from the dock. "We're too late."
"No," Luca said, his jaw set with purpose. "I'm going after her."
"That's suicide," Marco snapped. "They'll cut you down before you take ten steps."
"Then I better move fast."
Before anyone could stop him, Luca sprinted from our hiding spot. He zigzagged between crates, using every bit of cover he could find.
"Covering fire!" Marco ordered.
All three men started shooting, trying to draw attention away from Luca. I watched him get closer and closer to the dock, my heart in my throat.
He almost made it.
The sniper's bullet got him in the shoulder, spinning him around. But instead of going down, Luca kept running. A second shot hit him in the leg, and he stumbled.
That's when I saw the bomb.
One of Vincent's men pulled the pin and threw it right at Luca's feet.
"No!" I screamed.
Without thinking, I broke from cover and rushed toward him. Behind me, I could hear Marco screaming my name, but I didn't stop.
I attacked Luca just as the grenade went off.
The blast lifted us both off the ground and threw us behind a concrete block. Pain shot through my left arm, but I was alive. We were both living.
"You crazy girl," Luca wheezed, blood running down his face. "What were you thinking?"
"That I wasn't going to watch you die," I said, checking his wounds. The arm was bad, but the leg was worse. Blood was pooling underneath him.
"Can you move?"
"Not very fast," he admitted, trying to sit up and groaning.
More gunfire echoed around our hidden spot. Marco, Dmitri, and Kai were still pinned down, and Vincent's boat was getting farther away.
"We need to stop the bleeding," I said, pulling off my sweater. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything already hurts," Luca said with a weak smile. "Do what you have to do."
I pressed the cloth against the worst wound on his leg. He hissed in pain but didn't pull away.
"Why did you do it?" I asked, adding pressure. "Run out there like that?"
"Because she's family," he said simply. "And because I knew you'd never forgive us if we let Vincent take her."
"I would have understood."
"No, you wouldn't. It's one of the things I love about you - you care about everyone, even when it puts you in danger."
My hands stilled on his wound. "You love me?"
His brown eyes met mine, intense despite the pain. "Since the moment we brought you to the house. Maybe even before that, when I first saw your picture."
The words hit me harder than the blast had. This dangerous, charming man who could have anyone he wanted was looking at me like I was the most valuable thing in the world.
"Luca..."
"I know Marco saw you first," he said quietly. "I know he has the best claim. But I can't help how I feel."
Before I could reply, he reached up and touched my face with his good hand. His fingers were warm despite everything that had happened.
"You're bleeding," he said, thumb brushing across my cheek.
"It's nothing."
"Everything about you is something," he whispered.
Then he kissed me.
It was soft and desperate and tasted like blood and smoke and promise. For just a moment, the gunshots faded away and there was nothing but him.
When we broke apart, I saw Marco standing ten feet away.
His face was a mask of fury and something that looked like grief. He'd clearly seen the kiss, and the pain in his gray eyes made my chest ache.
"The shooting stopped," he said coldly. "They're gone."
"Marco-" I started.
"Save it." He looked down at Luca, who was trying to sit up straighter. "Can you walk?"
"With help," Luca answered, his voice carefully neutral.
"Good. We need to get out of here before the cops show up."
Dmitri and Kai appeared, both looking grim.
"Vincent got away," Kai reported. "But I put a tracker on his boat. We can follow him."
"What about Isabella?" I asked.
"We'll get her back," Marco said, but he wouldn't look at me. "Whatever it takes."
As the four men helped each other toward our cars, I felt the weight of what had just happened. I'd kissed Luca, and Marco had seen it. The careful balance between all of us was cracking.
But there was no time to deal with relationship problems. Vincent had Isabella, my father was strangely alive, and somewhere in the city, people I cared about were in terrible danger.
My phone buzzed with a text message. Unknown number again.
You kissed the wrong brother, child. Marco's weakness will be his downfall. And yours. Check your email.
With shaking hands, I opened my email. There was a movie file from Vincent.
In the video, Isabella was tied to a chair in what looked like an abandoned building. But she wasn't alone.
Standing behind her, very much living and holding a gun to her head, was my mother.
The woman who'd apparently died when I was five was smiling at the camera like she was posing for a family photo.