I tipped my head up and brushed my lips across Luca’s. His brows pulled together. “What’s that for?”

I forced a shaky smile. “For wanting to risk everything because of me. I don’t deserve you.”

He shook his head, but the ring of his mobile stopped him from saying anything. He raised the mobile to his ear and his face transformed into a mask of shock, then fury.

“Damn it, Romero!” he snarled. I stepped back, my pulse racing. “So let me get this straight—you are in a room with Lily and Benito?”

There was an answer on the other end.

“Damn it!” Luca growled. He hung up and lowered the phone.

Then he turned to me. “Did anything happen to Lily?” I whispered.

He glared. “She and Romero started war with the Outfit!”

LUCA

Aria stared at me uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?” She sounded scared but probably for the wrong reasons. I bet her all her worry was for her sister.

“Romero killed Brasci. He’s with your sister now.”

Aria didn’t say anything, but relief showed on her face. I didn’t blame her. She only cared about her sister’s safety. She didn’t know what that meant, didn’t know that Romero had forced me to make a decision I’d never wanted to make.

“We’ll have to go to them now,” I told her as I gathered my guns and knives and arranged them in the holsters on my chest, back and calves.

Aria watched me with dawning worry. “We’ll have to run, right? If Brasci is dead, Dante will declare war on us.”

I gave a terse nod then I held out my hand for her to take. That was one option. The other was to show Dante I didn’t approve of Romero’s actions. “Come on. We need to hurry.”

She slipped her small hand in mine, and I led her out of our bedroom and down the hallway where Liliana and Brasci were supposed to spend their wedding night.

I scanned our surroundings and listened for suspicious noises, but only the sound of music and distant laughter carried over. The party was still going strong. My mouth tightened. Seven years. That’s how long we’d managed to keep peace between the Outfit and the Famiglia, and tonight the feud would break open again, probably worse than before. Dante was a proud man, and he would have to retaliate. If someone killed one of my men in my territory, I would hunt them down and slice them into tiny pieces.

Aria was surprisingly quiet at my side. Perhaps she’d realized the danger of the situation.

I knocked at the bedroom door and Romero opened it a moment later. Aria unfastened her hand and slipped in, hurrying toward her sister who perched on the edge of the bed.

Romero met my gaze, and he didn’t try to look like he felt sorry. At least he was being honest. I walked past him into the bedroom.

“My God, Lily. What happened? Are you okay?” Aria asked, but I had eyes only for the dead body in the center of the room. Brasci lay on his side, a letter opener sticking out of his stomach. I moved nearer and got down to take a closer look. The letter opener hadn’t killed Brasci. A knife had gone in right below his ribs and pierced his heart. That was Romero’s doing as I’d expected.

I raised my gaze to Liliana, who froze. “What happened here?”

She looked at Romero as if she wasn’t sure which lie to tell. I couldn’t believe them. “I want the fucking truth!”

“Luca,” Aria scolded. “Lily is obviously in shock. Give her a moment.”

“We don’t have a fucking moment. We have a dead Outfit member in a room with us. Things will get ugly very soon.”

Aria turned back to her sister. “Lily, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t have time to hurt me.”

I didn’t give a fuck about any of this. We were in huge trouble. By killing Brasci, Romero had brought down the wrath of the Outfit on us at a time when we were already at war with the Bratva, not to mention a few MCs kept giving us trouble in Atlanta, Charleston and even New Jersey.

“Enough,” I growled, losing my fucking patience with all of them. I glared at Romero. “I want answers. Remember your oath.”

Romero’s gaze was steady. He’d always been a good soldier until now, but this wasn’t a small fuckup. For what he did today, there was only one logical consequence, and we both knew it.

“I always do.”

I pointed at Brasci. “That doesn’t look like it. Or are you saying that Liliana did this alone?”

Romero shook his head. “Liliana is innocent. Benito was still alive when I arrived. She’d stabbed him with the letter opener because he attacked her. It was self-defense on her part.”

Right. “Self-defense?” I echoed. I doubted Brasci had done anything that anyone in this house hadn’t expected him to do. These were the rules of our world. I narrowed my eyes at Liliana. “What did he do?”

“He tried to force himself on her,” Romero said.

“I didn’t ask you!” I snarled. Aria tried to appease me with a hand on my arm, but I had no intention of calming down. This wasn’t a minor transgression. That Liliana had stabbed Brasci would have caused major problems for her because she’d denied him something he had a right to as her husband. “And if he tried to consummate the marriage, nobody in this fucking house will see it as self-defense. Benito had a fucking right to her body. He was her husband, for god’s sake!”

Romero took a step forward but stopped himself. I eyed him, daring him to attack like he wanted to. It would take this fucking decision out of my hands.

“You can’t be serious,” Aria said, eyes imploring.

She knew what was expected on a wedding night as well as I did. Nobody would care that Liliana didn’t want to marry Brasci, that she had fought him. I didn’t make the rules nor did Dante, but neither of us had the power to change a tradition without the support of the other soldiers and their families. “You know the rules, Aria. I’m stating the facts.”

Aria shook her head. “I don’t care. A husband doesn’t have the right to rape his wife. Everyone in this house should agree on that!”

Aria was too soft for this world, too caring, but even she knew that most women were claimed on their wedding night. In the beginning I’d sometimes regretted that I’d spared her on our wedding day, but later I’d realized it had been the best decision of my life. If I’d hurt Aria on our wedding night, she would have never forgiven me.

Romero went over to Liliana and wrapped his arm around her.

Love. Father had always told Matteo and me that it was a weakness, and I had to admit he had been right. It weakened me, it weakened Matteo, and now it weakened Romero, and in consequence it weakened the Famiglia. My uncles would attack like vultures once word got out about this. “I told you this would end in disaster. So let me guess, Liliana stabbed her husband, called you and you finished the fucking job to have her for yourself.”

“Yes,” Romero said. “And to protect her. If he’d survived he would have blamed Liliana, and she would have been punished harshly by the Outfit.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “And now she won’t? They will put her on trial and they will not only punish her harshly, they will also accuse us of having set this up, and then there will be a fucking bloodbath. Dante is a cold fish but he needs to show strength. He will proclaim war in no time. All because you can’t control your dick and your heart.”