Chapter 26
26
LUCA
A mato’s right-hand man had been a man named Julian, until Royal decided that he had taken a disliking to him. Usually, earning Royal’s disfavor would have made me like someone just a little bit. But Julian had always been too comfortable with Amato’s cruelty toward Celia.
So, it was certainly a pleasure to knock on his door and watch the way his face paled when he saw me.
“What do you want?” He blocked the door with his body as he talked to me. “My wife and kid are in the house. Give me a break.”
“No, they aren’t.” His wife had taken the baby and gone to visit her parents. If she were smart, she would stay there. “Come on. Let me in. I just want to talk.”
His face was wary, a spark of hope within his eyes. “Are you here on business for Mal?”
“I sure am.”
My wolfish smile must have given too much away, because he raised his hands. “I might not be working for him anymore, but I’m still loyal. I want to find the people who did that to Amato and help him take them down.”
“Is that so?” I stepped into the door and closed it behind me. “What would you do to them if you found them?”
“Get revenge for Amato, of course. He was a good man. He taught me everything I know.”
“Interesting.”
My fist connected with his stomach. He let out a bark of pain, doubling over. I didn’t give him time to recover, following up with a swift uppercut to his jaw. His head snapped back, and he stumbled against the wall.
“Some people think you might know where Mal’s daughter is.”
He barely managed to straighten up, hand gripping the back of the couch. His fingers dug into the fabric as he tried to raise himself up. “What? No. Like I said, I’m loyal to him.”
“Not to her.”
His face clouded with confusion. Of course, he couldn’t even conceptualize the idea he’d owed her anything.
I advanced on him, my fists clenched. Julian, realizing the gravity of his situation, tried to fight back. He swung wildly, his fist grazing my cheek.
I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. “Where is she, Julian?”
“I don’t know!” he sputtered, blood trickling from his split lip. “I swear, I don’t know anything!”
I drove my knee into his gut, then let him crumple to the floor. As I continued to pummel him, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Celia was waiting for me, back at the house. I mean, not voluntarily. She was still tied up, suspended at my mercy until I returned. The thought made me hard, which might have made Julian uncomfortable if he hadn’t been too busy laying on the floor and groaning.
Julian, in a desperate move, lunged at my legs, trying to tackle me. I side-stepped, letting him crash into the coffee table. Glass shattered, and he cried out as he and the shards became one being.
“You’re making this harder on yourself,” I growled, hauling him up by his hair.
He spat blood, his eyes wild with fear and defiance. “Fuck you, Luca. I would never betray Mal. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
I slammed his head against the wall, once, twice. “Your loyalty is admirable, but misplaced.”
Still, as satisfying as it was to terrorize Julian, I couldn’t stop thinking about Celia. All I wanted was to get back to her.
This was for her sake. I needed to do everything I could to keep Royal and her father from realizing where she really was.
Julian was a mess on the floor, barely conscious. I crouched beside him, grabbing his chin to force him to look at me. “Last chance. Tell me what you know about Celia.”
He mumbled something incoherent, his eyes rolling back. I sighed, standing up. My starlight would be there, safe and waiting for me when I got back.
The doorbell rang.
I opened the door, only to find Royal and Gabriel standing there. Royal looked shocked at my presence. Gabriel, as usual, just seemed mildly irritated by my existence.
I wiped my hands, not very effectively. “Well, Gabriel. You had a lot to say about my competence, but it sure looks like you followed me here.”
“I’m not interested in your banter, Luca. You’re the only one who finds it entertaining.”
I raised my hands to my shoulders. “He’s all yours. I don’t think he knows anything.”
Gabriel cast a disparaging glance over me, as if he were disgusted by the blood on my clothes. He always had a distaste for blood or any other fluids.
“We’ll ascertain that for ourselves.”
“ Ascertain ,” I muttered. “I’ll never understand how you ended up here when you should have gone to college.”
Royal glanced back and forth between the two of us, a dumb fuck grin spreading across his face. It was his usual dumb fuck grin, making it clear he thought he was smarter than everyone else in the room. He didn’t realize that whatever brilliant observation he had was something everyone else already knew. “You two know each other?”
“Of course.” Gabriel sounded bored. He hated people like Royal. “Luca will do anything for anybody. He just happened to land in your father’s employment instead of mine.”
“In my employment,” Royal corrected.
Gabriel gave him the look that he deserved. That wasn’t on my behalf. Gabriel didn’t give a shit. He just found Royal embarrassing.
“Speaking of which.” Royal’s eyes lingered on Julian, sprawled across the ground and then on me. “I’ll be in touch soon with orders.”
The desire to kill him was always strong. It occurred to me that this wouldn’t be a bad place to kill him too. It would look like Royal had gone rogue and found himself in over his head trying to kick Julian’s ass.
Gabriel took a step toward me, trying to drive me toward the door. He patted my cheek condescendingly. “Don’t fuck up.”
Royal let out a little sneering laugh. He had no idea that Gabriel was purposely pushing me away from him, pushing me back. He had no idea Gabriel was rescuing him.
“I’m gonna go find Celia,” I said.
Gabriel’s face gave nothing away. But he patted my cheek again, a little harder than necessary. “You do that.”
His tone was still kind of condescending, but that was just Gabriel. It wasn’t personal. He was smart enough to usually be the smartest person in the room, but not quite smart enough to hide it.
I walked out, furious. My anger died as I thought about Celia waiting for me. God, she’d be pissed off. I couldn’t wait. When she was angry and aggressive…it made me want to tie her up and fuck her until her fiercer emotions faded into her need for me.
She was the perfect woman.
I stopped to sweep the car for trackers, methodically checking every possible hiding spot. I couldn’t risk bringing anything home. I wanted so badly to give Celia a safe place to stay. I wanted to be the only thing she had to worry about.
But when I got home, the wrongness hit me immediately. The house was too quiet. Dead. It wasn’t like Dante made a lot of noise, but I could always feel his presence in the house—the slight creak of floorboards, the soft scratch of pen on paper, the way the air moved differently when someone else was home.
I moved from room to room rapidly, searching for him. Kitchen empty. Study abandoned. Living room untouched. He was nowhere to be found.
I took the stairs two at a time, my heart in my mouth. The house was a blur around me, but I didn’t see any signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture, no broken glass, no blood. Just emptiness.
I wasn’t surprised to find the door to Celia’s room standing open.
But I was devastated.
I stopped in front of the mussed bed. Her struggling, even as constrained as her movement had been, had yanked the silky sheets from one corner. The restraints lay sprawled across the room as if she had thrown them away from her as soon as she was freed.
Was this Dante’s work?
Or had someone else found her? The thought sent ice through my veins.
Then I saw it—a piece of paper ripped from a notebook, placed deliberately on her pillow. I grabbed it up, feeling relieved to see Dante’s familiar handwriting. I might want to kill the asshole right now, but I didn’t want anyone else to do it.
If you hurt her again , I’ll have to hurt you . It’s better if we leave .
The rage hit like a physical force. My vision went red at the edges as I crumpled the note in my fist. The lamp went first—I hurled it against the wall, glass exploding in a satisfying burst of destruction. The bedside table followed, then the mirror above the dresser. Each crash fed something dark and violent in my chest.
How dare he? How fucking dare he take her? Take my?—
I caught my reflection in a shard of broken mirror. Wild eyes, heaving chest, hands clenched into weapons. I looked exactly like my father in one of his rages.
The thought stopped me cold.
Slowly, deliberately, I unclenched my fists. Rolled my shoulders back. Breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth. Control. Control was everything.
I surveyed the damage with clinical detachment. Glass everywhere. Splintered wood. The room looked like a war zone.
This was no place to bring my starlight home.
Moving with precise, measured steps, I retrieved the vacuum from the hall closet. Started cleaning up the mess, piece by piece. Each shard of glass in the vacuum was a breath of control regained. Each broken thing removed was another layer of rage locked back down where it belonged.
When the room was clean, I smoothed out Dante’s note. Read it again with clear eyes.
If you hurt her again .
Again.
The word hit like one of Dante’s punches to my gut. I never hurt her. I’d been protecting her, keeping her safe, keeping her close. But the image of her struggling against those restraints flashed through my mind. The fear in her eyes before it gave way to heat. Had I failed to strike the right balance for my Celia between pain and pleasure, fear and desire?
Had I hurt her? Made her afraid?
Was Dante right?
Well. Whatever. I couldn’t let myself descend into self-doubt.
The world was a dangerous place, and Celia and Dante were out there like the two sweet little lost lambs they were.
I needed to get my girl back.