Trygg’s curse scraped across the earpiece. “Bad fucking time for a reunion with one of your many conquests, man. And if the bitch belongs to our target, you don’t know her now.”
No, he didn’t.
Not anymore.
Hell, not for a very long time.
As Savage watched, Massioni finally released the woman from his possessive hold. He said something to his colleagues, a remark that made them all chuckle. Then Massioni gestured at her dismissively. Her placid smile still in place, the beautiful blonde pivoted away from the men.
It wasn’t until she turned around that Savage’s suspicion was confirmed.
The proof was there on the back of her left shoulder—the scarlet mark of a Breedmate. Only the rarest of women bore the unique birthmark signifying they were something more than mortal.
The small teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol rode this female’s shoulder in the precise spot that Savage dreaded it would.
“Son of a bitch. I don’t believe this.”
It was her.
After all this time—nearly a decade.
Arabella Genova.
Savage snarled as Massioni playfully smacked her ass, sending her on her way. Unfazed, she glided out of the room as elegantly as she’d entered a few moments ago, Savage following her progress with the field glasses held in a grip so tight they should have shattered.
Trygg was right. He didn’t know her now.
How the girl he once adored had ended up in the hands of a thug like Vito Massioni, he could only guess.
And it didn’t matter.
Savage had a job to do.
That’s what he told himself, even as he pulled the binoculars away from his face and hissed a sharp curse into the darkness.
The Bella he’d known as a girl all those years ago was just a memory. This Bella was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and on the dead wrong side of the law.
Collateral damage, just like Trygg said.
Savage knew what he had to do. The Order might never have the chance to get this close to Massioni and his lieutenants again. Everything was in place. The mission was moments away from success. All he had to do was hit the detonator.
He picked it up, staring at the trigger that would erase Massioni and his entire operation from the face of the Earth.
And, now, Bella too.
“Fuck.”
Savage raked a hand over his tightly clamped jaw. His pulse was banging in his temples, his heart slamming against his ribs with each heavy beat.
“Status,” Trygg said, a note of warning in the warrior’s gravel voice. “I don’t like what I’m hearing over there, Savage.”
He didn’t answer. Nothing he said now would put his comrade or anyone else at the command center in Rome at ease.
Savage set aside the binoculars. Then he carefully deactivated the detonator and slipped the remote into his back pocket.
“Stand by, base. I’m going back in.”