Mom grabbed my arm. “Be careful,” she whispered. From the way her nails lightly dug into my skin, I knew she was fighting all her instincts to grab me and not let me out of her sight. But I didn’t need her to protect me, and she knew it.

I kissed her cheek and stepped outside. From the vehicle behind ours, Zio stepped out as well, his shotgun already lifted and aimed at one of the men on the wall.

“Just Vitucci,” the guard who had instructed me out of the van called down.

“That’s my daughter in there!” Zio yelled back, the red beam from the sight on his gun marking the guy’s forehead. “I’m coming in for her one way or another.”

“You can try,” the guard laughed, not even the least bit worried about his brains leaving his skull. “But you’ll be dead before you even step foot on this side of the wall without permission.”

I grabbed Zio’s arm, making him lower his weapon. “It’s okay. I’ve got this.”

His blue eyes scanned my entire face for a long moment. “Do you?” he asked. “Or do you have a death wish?”

I straightened my shoulders but ignored the question. Maybe I did have a death wish, maybe I did want to die and join Nova in the afterlife or wherever the fuck she had ended up. My guess was that she was in heaven and I’d never get to see her again, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to get back to her somehow.

Yet, as desperate as I was to see Nova again, I wouldn’t put anyone else I loved at risk to do it. “I’m here to save Ciana.”

Another tense moment passed before he finally gave a stiff nod and stepped back. A door on the huge gate opened, and I walked over to it before ducking my head and crossing over to the other side of the wall.

Three men were waiting for me. One patted me down, disarming me of the three knives I had strapped to my body and the two guns I carried. Once they had all my weapons, one of the others lifted his hand and pointed to the car waiting a few yards away. “Bain is expecting you.”

A driver was already behind the wheel, and two of the three guards got in with me. The drive only took a matter of minutes before we were stopping in front of a house that could qualify as a castle. If Ciana were there under different circumstances, I was sure she would have been all too happy to stay in this fairy-tale–style home. How many times as kids had she told me she wanted to be a real-life princess and have her own castle?

One of the guards got out and waited for me to exit the car. As I stepped out, the front door of the house opened, and Bain walked out, stopping at the top of the stone stairs. His long, dirty-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was dressed in black slacks and a white button-down with the top few buttons undone. He had several days’ worth of scruff on his jaw.