just fall | ✓

20.

"Maybe we shouldn't be concerned with who gave her the gun and instead should be grateful that she saved il nostri culi,"  Salvatore replied sardonically. "That was excellent work, cara mia. Perhaps you should give us lessons."

I felt an arm wrap around me, and under the smell of metal and gunfire, I recognized Alexander's cologne. "I can't believe you gave her a gun," he said, and I didn't know or care how he knew. "She's still a Selected, regardless of your theories." Although he should've sounded pissed, he didn't. Alexander wasn't stupid, and I had a feeling he was thinking that regardless of how theoretical Salvatore's prior statements had been, it had saved their asses. 

"And she clearly has more experience with a gun than any of us ever will." Liev's deep voice came out of the darkness somewhere to my right. "Thank you for assisting us, my lady." I could almost picture him doing a little half-bow in the narrow, dark corridor.

"Cassiana," I corrected him without thinking. "And there's nothing to thank me for. I did what I needed to do. I think we should maybe be less concerned with me and more concerned by the lack of guards. They shouldn't have reached us at all."

"Agreed," Mason said. I heard him fumbling around in the dark. "And they wouldn't have, had most of our guards not been killed, tied up, or otherwise rendered incapacitated. That's what those two guards were coming to tell us." I heard a match strike, and a small flame lit up the narrow corridor we were standing in.

"And do you five often stupidly throw yourselves into danger like that? Are you fulfilling some sort of vigilante daydream, or are you just acting without thinking?" I didn't mean to sound so chastising and angry, but I couldn't help it. It had been stupidly reckless of them to throw themselves in the line of fire like that when they were the ones that should have been protected. Did they not realize that most of them were the only heirs to their families' thrones, especially since a few of them were the only men, and their sisters were already promised to princes from other countries? Did they simply not think?

"When the danger is such a direct threat to our families, yes," Alexander replied coolly. "And I hadn't expected you to handle all of this as easily as you are."

Mason lit two candles and passed one to his brother. I opened my mouth to answer, but Salvatore answered first: "This is just a regular day at the office per il nostro capo, sì?"

Five sets of eyes settled on me. My heart threw itself against my ribs before attempting to claw up my throat; I swallowed to force it down. "I wish you would stop calling me that," I said rather than answer. "I don't even know what it means. I don't speak Italian."

"Capo means boss," Liev explained. "The Italians used to use it in their criminal empires as a way of recognizing the person at the top of their hierarchy."

Great. Just what I needed, five princes thinking that I was the queen of some goddamned criminal empire. "Well, it's not fitting, so stop calling me it."

Salvatore laughed. "Said with such certainty, yet what we just watched says the opposite. You're quite a match for our Alexander." He winked at me. I had no idea what he'd meant by his final statement, and quite frankly, I didn't have the patience to even consider asking. I was a few stupid comments away from turning into the irritated, knife-waving leader I was when people were too busy focusing on what didn't matter to discuss the problem at hand. It was more common than I liked to admit, but hey, nothing communicates exasperation quite like an annoyed girl waving and gesturing with a sharp knife. 

Alexander nudged him with his shoulder. Most of them, especially Liev, had to stoop down to fit in this hall, and it was an awkward movement. "Leave her be," he chastised.