All Chapters of Falling for My Biker Stepbrother: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Candice's P.O.V.I woke to the sound of gunfire.Not the far-off pop-pop of a range. True, near, knocking on the windows of the club-house as hail on a tin roof.The next moment Mantovani pulled himself to his feet naked and deadly, half-closing his eyes and with a gun in his hand. Moonlight parted the curtains and left silver streaks on his mutilated back as he went to the window.Stay down, he said ice-cold.I scrambled to the floor yet, heart beat to my ribs. This was followed by a second eruption of automatic fire that cut through the night, there was then an Italian shout, and the bikes were gearing.He turned back, with flaming eyes, and looked at me. "Sheriff's men. They hit the gate."My stomach dropped. His undercover job, upon which he had been despatched, the brother of the sheriff at my school, now came raping at the door with bullets.Mantovani pulled up trousers, thrust a second gun into my hand (somehow heavy, and black, and terrible). "Safety's here." He clicked it o

Candice’s P.O.V.Dawn broke over the scorched compound like a bruised apology.Smoke still curled from the blackened skeleton of the clubhouse. Brothers moved among the wreckage in silence—covering the fallen with club cuts, salvaging weapons, loading bodies into vans for the kind of burial the law never saw.I sat on an overturned crate near the gate, Mantovani’s hoodie pulled tight around me, AR slung across my lap. My hands had stopped shaking hours ago, but the adrenaline crash left me hollow.Mantovani walked the perimeter with Conti, voice low, planning retaliation. Every line of his body was coiled for violence—until he looked over and saw me watching. Something softened in his eyes. He said something to Conti, then came straight to me.He crouched in front of me, blood-crusted hands gentle as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.“You should sleep,” he said quietly.“I can’t.” My voice was raw from smoke and screaming. “Every time I close my eyes I see you getting shot.”H

Candice’s P.O.V.Two weeks of fragile peace.Two weeks of cautious family dinners, late-night strategy sessions in Sanna’s study, and stolen moments with Mantovani where the world felt almost normal. Mom had started speaking to me without tears. Sanna and Mantovani had even shared a drink without arguing. Conti taught me how to strip and clean a handgun on the kitchen island while Mom pretended not to watch.We knew it couldn’t last.It ended on a Tuesday morning.I was in the garden practicing cello—something I’d picked up again because Sanna had quietly moved my instrument into the sunroom. The bow felt foreign after so long, but the notes were coming back, slow and sweet.Mantovani leaned in the doorway watching me, arms crossed, small smile on his face that he only ever wore when he thought no one was looking.Then his phone buzzed.The smile died.He stepped outside, listened for ten seconds, face going stone-cold.“Get inside,” he said q

Candice's P.O.V.On the afternoon following my birthday the house was silent in that stilted manner it adopts when they are all faking that the war is not breathing down their necks.Mantovani and Sanna were cogitating in the study, with Conti and two capos, over the scheme against the brother of the sheriff at my new school at L.A. I had been there hours but at length justified myself--too much testosterone and cigarette smoke.Of all places I found Mom in the sunroom.She sat in the window bench looking out of the garden, with her knees drawn up, and gazing upon the white lilies, which had now opened again. On the sill next her a cup of tea had grown cold. She was smaller than I expected--her hair is loose and she has no makeup on and is wearing a plain linen dress like she wants to melt into the cushions.I hesitated in the doorway.She sensed me anyway. "Come in, sweetheart."Her voice was soft, almost shy. Not like the harsh performative tone with which she had spoken during mont

Candice's P.O.V.We took commercial to L.A.--first, but still commercial. No airplane caravan, no armored train. The instructions of Sanna: low profile at the last moment.Mantovani hated it. He was sitting next to me throughout the flight time, and his mouth was tight, and his hand was holding mine as though the plane was about to be boarded by storms. Conti sat across the aisle and was pretending to read a magazine as he scanned every passenger. Mom had left me at the villa--somebody must hold the fort, I tell you, Mom, said the hugging.We landed at dusk.It was a big, palm-filled hillside campus of a school- rich kids, trimmed lawns, smelled of money and privilege. The Lacrosse practice by Ryan Harlow concluded at 7.15pm every Wednesday. He had a silver Audi A5 parked in the same distant part of the lot, as it was nearest to the field exit.We had practised it a dozen times.I was the bait.Not because I wanted to be but because i