Emilio laughed. “You might clarify, Ricco. You’ve got guests knocking at your front door. It’s rather hilarious. They’re actually knocking. Seven of them. Seven more going into the Japanese garden, and you’ve got seven on the south side approaching the house. Step it up, woman.”

There was no answer, or maybe there was. Mariko appeared behind the third man in line as the second one rounded the sharp corner of the maze. She caught his neck and wrenched, her hands slipping off, and then she was back in the tube to move into the next pathway behind the second and then first man in line. She’d taken out all seven attackers without a single incident. He didn’t have to fire his weapon to alert the others they knew an attack was under way.

“Thank you, Mariko,” Ricco said, steeling himself to let her go. “I want you to go over the wall and get clear. Three blocks down there’s a garage with a car in it. Code is seven, six, two, four, five. That opens the door. Keys are hanging just inside the door. There’s money stashed in the glove compartment. I want you to get out of here. When it’s done, you can come back.”

She stepped out of the shadows, looked straight up at him, shook her head, indicated she was going to the south side garden and stepped back into the shadows.

Emilio burst into laughter. “Rebellion. Ferraro men seem to have trouble controlling their women.”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re a Ferraro,” Ricco was compelled to point out.

“But my father’s Greco blood saved us.”

Ricco strode down the wide hallway to the end, placed his palm on the wall so the panel slid open revealing the armory. He put the rifle in, closed it and took a shadow to the upper story of the southern wing of the house. She was there ahead of him. He cursed as he yanked another rifle from behind a panel that looked just like the rest of the walls. He had them all over the house.

“Slow down, Mariko. I need to get into position to cover you.”

She was already in position behind the first of the seven men making their way to the back of his home. They were closer to the house, working their way through the maze, but having trouble with the various twists and turns. No roses on this side. He had planted dozens of flowering shrubs to make the maze thick and impenetrable. His enemies had to follow the paths if they were going to make it to his house.

He took up his position at the bank of windows. “In place.” She still had not said a word. He brought her face up on the scope. She looked perfectly serene. She might have been drinking tea in the garden, not chasing killers around the property.

“Emilio, keep trying to find out about the others. I want to know the moment you hear if they’re safe.” Ricco was anxious about his family, he couldn’t help it.

At his soft command, Mariko looked up at him through the window. He saw the compassion there. She understood about loss of family. She’d lost nearly everyone, and now her brother was in jeopardy. That was on him as well. Someone had kidnapped her brother to force her to kill Ricco. His family. Her family. What could he have done differently that horrible night so long ago? What should he have done?

Mariko was on the move, sliding into the shadows and emerging right behind the last man in line. She caught his head in her delicate hands and wrenched. He went down. The second man, having already rounded the corner, suddenly turned back. Emilio hissed a warning and she slipped into the shadows just as the attacker crouched beside his companion and took his pulse while he looked warily into the shrubs. Suddenly she was there, right behind him, wrenching his neck and dropping his body right over that of his friend.

The rest of the men turned back at a shouted command from the third man. He stuck his head around the corner and saw the two bodies lying there. They crowded in along the path, standing shoulder to shoulder, five of them when there was only room for three at the most, and that was pushing it. Three faced one way, two the other, and they sprayed the shrubs and shadows with bullets.

Heart in his throat, Ricco shot the three facing him, one at a time, squeezing the trigger in a controlled movement when he had never felt so out of control. “Tell me where she is, Emilio,” he said. “Right now.”

The three men fell while the other two turned toward the house, with what looked like a choreographed, slow-motion dance. Their heads went up, eyes found him, automatics spraying up the side of the house in an effort to get to him.

“At your front door, coming around on the run. Seven more, Ricco. Mariko, get into the house, get out of the gardens,” Emilio warned.

Mariko slipped along the shadows while the sound of gunfire reverberated in her ears. It seemed as if the intruders had forgotten there might be someone in the gardens with them, instead concentrating all firepower on getting Ricco. Bullets tore up the side of the house, but he’d constructed his home with just such an attack in mind and nothing penetrated.

He calmly shot two more times, not even flinching or hesitating while they adjusted their weapons to hit the window he was framed so perfectly in. Mariko wanted to call out, to tell him to duck, to get out of there, but she remained silent, seeing the other men rushing around from the front of the house to the side garden. She was needed there whether Emilio and Ricco agreed. It was just that Ricco didn’t seem to have any regard for self-preservation. The two he’d shot went down as she studied the seven men rushing to help their fallen comrades.

Ricco turned toward those targets. They’d taken care of the seven on the north side and now on the south, but they had more. She was tired, and tired meant mistakes. If she wanted to live, and if she used her brain, she would ride a shadow straight to the car he had stashed in a garage and get clear as he’d insisted. She knew she wouldn’t do that.

She lived by a code. That code demanded she back up her fellow riders no matter how dire the situation. She wanted to think she was staying for that reason, but she knew better. She was staying for one man. Ricco Ferraro. She knew she would never leave him in a situation where he was under attack and could possibly be harmed.

He had declared to Emilio that he was going to marry her, but Ricco wasn’t the marrying kind. He was a playboy and there were all too many women willing to fall under his spell for as long as he would have them. The only women she could see that had survived more than one night were the Lacey twins, starlets of a popular sitcom. He had to have been joking with Emilio. At least he admired and respected her. That was genuine, she heard it in his voice just as there was truth when he said he was going to marry her – in the heat of the moment.

Movement caught her eye. Another attacker. This one crawled on his hands and knees, sometimes on his belly, using toes and fingers to drag himself along the ground beneath the plants and on the pathway. Weaving in and out slowly. Every now and then he’d look up at the window and then adjust his line of travel.

Ricco’s rifle barked twice and two men dropped. He was a damned good marksman. He disappeared from the window and a volley of shots rang out; the attackers that had come from the front were eager to join the battle. She kept her eyes on the man tracking Ricco. He moved quickly right after Ricco shot, and she realized that’s how he’d almost gotten into position. He timed the return fire and made his move. Ricco had no idea he was being stalked.