Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
VIVIANA
“Ugh,” I groan, squinting as I swing my legs out of the passenger door. “It’s too bright. Tell me again why we’re doing this?”
Luc chuckles, rounding the hood of his personal car to fetch me on the other side. “Because you need to eat, and this place has the best hangover cure.”
“Wanna know what else is a hangover cure?” I take his hand and allow him to pull me up. We parked in a little lot behind a small cafe in Brooklyn. “Sleeping in until noon.”
He slots a pair of his own sunglasses onto the bridge of my nose, immediately relieving a fraction of the headache behind my eyes, and places a hand between my shoulder blades to guide me to the cafe’s entrance. “You can go back to bed after breakfast.”
When I woke up this morning, I’d been shocked to find Luc still in bed, a pair of reading glasses perched on his angular nose and a tablet propped on his abdomen. When he noticed me watching him, the smile he gave me stirred the butterflies that have taken up permanent residence in my belly. It wasn’t until a few moments later, when the memories of last night crashed over me like a tidal wave, that the embarrassment settled in.
That nausea-inducing mortification has followed me all morning. I tried to avoid this breakfast, but Luc insisted.
He holds the door open, and the scent of freshly ground coffee beans and greasy bacon washes over me. I’m hungover enough that my stomach grumbles at the smell, and, for a moment, I seriously consider abandoning all of my vegan ideals for one morning. “Oh God, that smells good.”
“I told you.” Luc’s big hand sweeps a circle over the center of my back. “Gio and I used to come here to nurse our hangovers. It’s the best of the best.”
“We’ll see. I might be its biggest challenge to date.” I wince as I slide into one of the open booths. I’m sore. From dancing. Dancing. I need to get to the gym.
Luc wears an amused smile as he takes the seat opposite me and slides a menu in my direction. He’s been unnaturally attentive this morning, and I have a sneaking, humiliating suspicion why. He pities me.
I remember enough of last night to know I made a fool of myself. He touched me. Played my body like a damn instrument, and I asked— begged —Luc to have sex with me. When he refused, I made an even bigger fool of myself. If I think about it too hard, my head hurts from the overbearing humiliation of it all.
I thought if I ignored what happened between us last night, it would naturally slip away and we’d be able to continue living in the state of semi-marital-bliss we adopted over the last few weeks. In reality, it’s eating me up from the inside out.
“The Sweet-Tooth Oatmeal is good, if you wanted something vegan. They also have meatless sausage-patties.” He doesn’t look up as he speaks, eyes scanning the expansive menu in front of him.
“ I’msorryforlastnight! ” The words explode out of my mouth without warning. Embarrassment flames my cheeks, and I have a near-undeniable urge to hide behind my menu. What the hell, Viviana?
Luc’s brow furrows, and he sets his menu flat on the table to gain an unobstructed view of me. “What are you talking about, Vivivana?”
Really? You’re going to force me to say it out loud? I want to plead.
I force a small, sheepish smile instead. “I got drunk and accosted you. Then I threw a tantrum when you rejected me.” A shudder racks through me at the memory. “I’m sorry.”
One corner of his mouth twitches, Otherwise, he hides his amusement well. “I’d hardly say you accosted me. I’ll have you remember I was a willing participant up until the end.”
“When you rejected me,” I remind him, stressing that key detail.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Because you were drunk.”
At that moment, a waitress arrives to take our orders. If she senses the tension draped over our little booth, she doesn’t show it, never taking off her too-chipper-for-the-morning smile. I haven’t looked at the menu yet, so I order the oatmeal and an extra-large cup of iced coffee. Luc orders the exact same, folding our menus and handing them to the young woman.
When we’re alone again, we stare at each other for several long breaths, as if deciding whether to launch back into our previous discussion or brush it under the table. Eventually, Luc takes charge, resting an elbow on the table and leaning in to lower his voice.
“You were drunk, Viviana,” he reiterates, stone-cold serious. “I never should have let it go as far as it did.”
Despite my burning cheeks, I cock a brow. “You’ve never had sex with someone who was drinking? Really?”
His mouth pinches into a thin line. “That’s different.”
“It’s fine. Really, it is. At the time, I was just embarrassed, I think.” I focus on picking a barely-there hangnail, scared that if I meet his gaze, he’ll see the truth behind my unaffected mask. “You’re seeing someone, I get it.”
“Seeing someone?” He echoes, and there’s no missing the confusion in his voice.
I look up and shrug. “Yeah. You came home the other night smelling like some stranger’s perfume. It’s fine. It’s great actually—”
“Viviana,” Luc interrupts me, a bemused expression twinkling in his dark eyes. He folds his hands neatly in front of him.“That wasn’t what you think. I haven’t been with another woman since we got married. That perfume was from an Antanova spy that our men caught trying to sneak into Mirage. I spent a considerable amount of time… interrogating her.”
I’m sure I don’t want to know what he means by ‘interrogating,’ but silly relief bubbles in my belly, nonetheless. I shouldn’t be relieved. I shouldn’t care. And yet, I have to bite back my smile. “Clearly she should take a page out of my espionage field guide.”
Luc laughs, wagging his head, and the tension dissipates like a puff of smoke. “I never should’ve let you speak to Detective Bright. You’re letting it get to your head.”
“It’s your fault. You never should’ve admitted that you like when I run my mouth.” I finger the little paper binding wrapped around my silverware. “Now I’ll never stop talking.”
“That’s not the threat you think it is.” His voice is warm—a tender caress that smooths down the barbs and spines I try to protect myself with.
I feel… safe with Luc. Physically, yes, but emotionally safe, too. For the first time in a very long while, I don’t fear degrading insults. I’m not constantly bracing for snide comments that chip away at the self-respect I’ve spent years building and rebuilding. He soothes the damage inflicted by my parents’ disappointment—their indifference.
Swallowing down the tightness in my throat, I conjure a smug smirk and wiggle my brows. “Well, if you like hearing me talk so much, ask me anything. I have just enough alcohol still in my system. I’ll probably answer anything.”
Inwardly, I hope he’ll accept my offer and ask me about myself. Besides Mrs. Ajello and Carlo, not many people do. I crave the attention—someone’s genuine interest.
Luc’s smile grows, and I almost melt at the small dimple that appears in his cheek. How have I never noticed that before? He relaxes deeper into the red-leather seat, and I do the same. “In that case, I’d better hurry. Why are you vegan?”
“The animals. I’m not a health-nut or anything. I just watched a documentary in high school that scarred me for life, and I’ve never looked at a chicken nugget or milk the same way.”
He nods slowly. “It helps that the food tastes good, too.”
“You like it?” My brows lift. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure if you did. I mean, Carlo always says that you eat the dinners we make, but I wondered if he just tells me that to spare my feelings.”
“Well, if you ate more of your dinners with me, you’d know that I always clean my plate when you cook.”
He’s teasing me. Poking fun at the fact that, in Bedford, I almost always go to bed before he finishes work for the day. But his words hold an invitation, too. Like he’s asking me to spend more time with him when we return to our main home.
My feet flutter beneath the table, and I grin. “I could teach you to cook a few of my favorites, if you want?”
“I’d like that.” The waitress arrives with our iced coffees, and Luc murmurs a ‘thank you,’ though his eyes never leave mine. When she’s gone to check on our food, he jumps right back into the conversation. “You enjoy cooking?”
“Love it. My aunt in Florence taught me. I’m not the type that can improvise in the kitchen, but following a recipe is easy enough. My aunt has this uncanny ability to make up recipes on the spot, but I tried that once and ended up with a soup that tasted like ocean water.” I laugh at the memory of that day— of my aunt spitting the broth out and rushing to the sink to gag.
Luc’s graphite eyes drink me in, pupils dilated, with a small smile stuck on his lips. He hangs on every word that leaves my mouth. I can’t help but wonder if he’s as starved for human connection as I am.
He leans forward. “What else do you love to do?”
I take a sip of my sweet coffee and shrug once, suddenly quite aware of my mundane interests. “Well, I like walking Biggie. I try to practice yoga at least once a day, unless I’m on my period. Then, I stay in bed and catch up on my favorite shows. I like studying art…”
“But what do you love? ” He probes, and I swear it feels like he’s staring into my soul. “If you could do one thing, every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
I pause, considering his question. I know the answer in an instant, but I can’t decide whether to share it. My favorite thing in the world also happens to be my biggest failure.
Holding Luc’s gaze, I see the sincerity shining in those slate depths— beautiful and calm and, despite everything I told myself weeks ago, kind. I take a deep breath and, with my exhale, reply. “Painting.”
“Painting?” Luc echoes.
Warmth crawls up my neck, and my fingers fidget with the straw wrapper. I nod. “I love to paint. I’m not very good at it. In fact, I’m downright bad at it. But I love it. It’s what made me want to study art history. I thought studying the masters might help build my skills.”
“Did it?”
I answer without missing a beat. “Nope.”
He laughs, and it’s devastatingly beautiful. “You’re exaggerating. I’m sure you’re better than you give yourself credit for.”
“Luc—” The black pits of his eyes expand when I say his name. I lay both hands flat on the table and lean in, utterly serious. “I suck. But, I own my suckiness. I paint for myself and no one else.”
And I am proud of that fact.
“What about me?” He wields a challenging smirk so sexy it should be considered criminal. “Will you paint something for me?”
My stomach somersaults.
I’ve never painted anything for someone else. Not since middle school art class, when every student was required to submit a piece for the art show. I painted a still life of lemons and a teapot and received a big fat B-minus. I’ll admit, my painting was no worse than a majority of the other students’ in my class, but it paled in comparison to the true artists . The boys and girls who possessed a real, raw talent for art, for composition and shading and brushstrokes. That is what I lack— talent.
I pinch my lips together. The thought of painting for Luc… It frightens me. There’s a reason I’ve kept my love of it private. I’m scared of what might happen if I share this part of myself with him and he ridicules me for it. For some reason, I care about what Luc thinks about me.
“Please?” he prompts.
Too aware of the blush burning my cheeks, I concede, if only to save myself from the power of his disarming stare. “Fine,” I groan, tilting my head back. “But only because your taste in art is so questionable, you might actually think my painting looks good.”
That severe brow furrows, and he recoils with a chuckle. “My taste in art is questionable ? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I fight my grin. “Two words, husband. Jackson. Pollock. ”
An hour later, my stomach is full, my hangover-induced headache has faded into a dull, barely-there throb at the back of my head, and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
“I wrote an essay comparing Titian’s Venus of Urbino to Manet’s Olympia that my professor loved. He invited me to one of his lectures on the 1865 Paris Salon, and that’s when I realized I might actually like studying art,” I explain, taking a sip of my second iced coffee of the morning.
Luc gave me his after he didn’t touch it during breakfast. Although he didn’t say this explicitly, I have a hunch he only ordered it for himself so that he could give it to me to sip on later. That thought makes my stomach swarm with butterflies.
Our conversation hasn’t stopped flowing, from the booth at the cafe to the front seat of Luc’s car. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, and the other rests on the center console between us. My fingers itch to bridge the small distance and twine with his, but fear and uncertainty keeps them in place.
“What the hell is a Salon ?” He takes his eyes off the road long enough to shoot me a questioning glance.
I smirk. “Only the greatest art event in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Have you ever been to an exhibit at the Met? ”
Luc shakes his head with a smile, shifting in his seat to pluck his cellphone from his back pocket and rattling off the passcode. “Go ahead and book us tickets to an exhibit of your choice. Though you should know, my so-called questionable taste in art—”
He stops abruptly, smile fading as his gaze focuses on the rear-view mirror. His eyes harden, jaw tightening.
“Luc?” I prompt, glancing over my shoulder to see what could’ve possibly caused such a reaction. There’s a dark SUV behind us, not any different than the other dozen cars who’ve trailed us on the drive back from Brooklyn. I face forward again. “What’s wrong?”
His grip on the steering wheel tightens, veins popping along the backside of his tan hand. “Nothing. I’m just being cautious… Don’t look back, yeah?”
My stomach knots. Though his words tell me not to worry, his eyes speak a different story. I lean forward an inch, just far enough to see the SUV in the side mirrors. The glare of the midday sun obscures the features of the occupants, but I count the outline of three passengers in the vehicle.
Suddenly, Luc veers onto an off-ramp, exiting the interstate just before we reach the Queens-Midtown Tunnel back into the city. My seatbelt hugs my hips and chest, holding me flush against the seat in a fight against inertia.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Luc reaches across the center console to squeeze my leg twice, eyes continuously flicking between the rear-view mirror and the unfamiliar road ahead. “ Fuck,” he growls.
Unable to help myself, I glance over my shoulder to find the same SUV swerving off the exit ramp. They regain control, nearly running a poor taxi cab off the road in the process, and accelerate behind us.
“Are they following us?” Hysteria creeps into my voice.
He doesn’t answer my question, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he maneuvers the car between a bus and an old van. I clutch the seat beneath me. “Viviana, I need you to call Freddy and Lex. Let them know we have some company.”
When Luc first announced that he wanted to go to breakfast just the two of us, I’d been happy that he’d given his bodyguards the morning off. Now, I would’ve given anything to have the two beefy brutes by our side. I nod and scramble to scroll through his contacts. Luckily, Freddy’s number is at the top of his speed dial. It starts ringing.
Luc makes another sharp turn that nearly sends me careening into the door, and he extends his arm across my waist. “Lock your seatbelt, sweetheart,” he demands when we’ve evened out again, though the clipped words are softened by his use of this new nickname.
Sweetheart. It shouldn’t make me feel as good as it does— especially not at a moment like this. I pull the belt all the way out, and, when it retracts again, I’m practically harnessed to the seat. At the same moment, the phone’s ringing stops and Freddy’s deep, groggy voice comes over the speaker. “Boss?”
“Freddy, it’s Viviana. We’re being followed.”
There’s a low curse on the other end of the line, followed by the sound of rustling blankets. “Where are you?”
Luc lets out a growl of frustration when he fails to lose the SUV at a red-light. “We’re heading toward Queens. We’ll be at Citi Field in a few minutes.”
“Did you get that?” I check, extending the phone over the center console so that Luc can speak to Freddy himself. I don’t think I’ve ever stepped foot in Queens, so I’m useless in this situation.
I hear loud footsteps over the line, then Freddy barking for Lex to ‘wake the fuck up.’ When he speaks to me again, his voice is calmer. “Got it. Think you can take the Whitestone back to the Bronx? We can meet you on the other side.”
Luc glances in my direction, and I swear something like fear flashes in his murderously fierce eyes. A muscle in his jaw twitches, then he shakes his head. “No. No bridges. If this is Bratva, they’ll try to run us off.”
My eyes bulge out of their sockets. Run us off… the bridge? In broad daylight? They could make it seem like an accident, just like Elenora.
For the briefest moment, my mind shifts to my older sister, and I wonder if she experienced a similar flare of panic moments before her car crash. Inwardly, I hope she had no idea what happened, if only so that she didn’t spend her last moments on earth afraid. Regardless of whether her death was murder or an accident, I pray she did not suffer.
“We’re on our way to your coordinates,” Freddy reports.
“Great,” Luc grinds out, slamming on the brakes to avoid a collision with a slow car ahead. “We’ll just enjoy a drive around Long Island until you get here.”
Is he joking? I blink over at him in disbelief.
Freddy huffs a harsh laugh. “Your best bet is to lose them.”
“Easier said than done. This fucker is good.” Proven by the fact that the SUV still tails us despite Luc’s desperate attempts to evade.
“Can you engage?”
My heart thunders to a halt. Engage. As in fight. I’m not so naive as to believe that Luc doesn’t have guns hidden throughout his car and on his person, but I do question his ability to use them to kill three—maybe more—adversaries. Even the most skilled marksman can only do so much.
Luc looks at me again, and I know he’s considering it—fighting. There’s a tenacious gleam in his gaze that promises violence, but it softens just a moment later. His nostrils flare on a deep inhale, and he speaks with quiet certainty. “No, I can’t.”
“Then your only option is to lose them.”
A scalding laugh escapes Luc’s mouth, and he accelerates into an intersection, earning a blared horn from the other cars. “Kind of hard to outrun someone in Queens, Fred.”
His maneuver through the intersection gives us a momentary reprieve. The SUV got caught in the mix, delaying their pursuit by a handful of seconds. We veer onto another road, speeding past roadsigns that advertise the Grand Central Parkway and... LaGuardia Airport.
“Luc, what about the airport?” I grasp his forearm.
Lex’s voice chortles in the background of the call. “That’s one way to outrun the Bratva. Hopping on a fuckin’ airplane.”
I roll my eyes. If this weren’t such a terrifying experience, I’d tell the bodyguard to fuck right off.
“That’s not what I mean,” I hiss, another sign for the airport flashing past. “It’s a busy, confusing airport with lots of terminals and drop-off points. We could lose them there.”
Freddy is quiet for a moment. “LaGuardia is a fuckin’ maze. And it has multiple exit points.”
If Luc likes the idea, he doesn’t say. He just looks over his shoulder once, checking his blindspot as we race toward an exit sign that reads ‘ La Guardia: Arrivals and Departures.’
“Hold tight.” With the precision of a getaway driver, he threads our vehicle between two taxi cabs and slips onto the exit at the last second.
The dangerous lunge forces cars behind us to slow down, and we leave a cacophony of screeching tires and blaring horns in our wake. I crane my neck in time to see the dark SUV slam on its brakes to avoid a collision. I bite my lip to keep from shouting in victory.
“What’s the status, Viv?” Luc grinds out, making the decision to veer our car toward the ‘ Arrivals’ gate.
After recovering from the initial slowdown, the SUV manages to follow behind us again. My stomach twists. “Uh, the good news is they’re further behind us. The bad news is they’re still behind us.”
Luc hisses a curse. The bottom of our sedan scrapes against a speed bump, and my iced coffee spills over the center console. The traffic increases as we approach the airport’s entrance, where dozens of cars park across multiple lanes, waiting to pick up their passengers.
“Can you see what the driver and passengers look like?” Luc asks, focusing entirely on weaving through the stop-and-go traffic. A security guard shouts profanities at us.
I look over my shoulder again. Fortunately, the pick-up sector falls beneath an overpass that blocks out the sun, so I’m finally offered a proper view of the men in the front seats. “Dark hair. Tan skin. Big. They…” I pause, doubt curdling in my gut. “Luc, they don’t look very Russian to me.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t ask anything else.
“It could be the Algerians,” Lex murmurs, though my heartbeat between my ears muffles his voice.
We pass by the pick up area, and he steers us toward the exit, but the traffic light dictating the flow of cars exiting the ramp switches to yellow, then red.
“Fuck!” Luc growls. At least five cars sit between us and the traffic light, positioned in such a way that we can’t pass them. Behind us, our enemy draws closer, and the small advantage we gained dwindles.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
A moment later, he wrenches the steering wheel in the opposite direction, and the car lurches as we accelerate back into the fray of Ubers and taxi cabs. They have a separate pick up area, right next to the buses. The SUV follows, and I’m painfully aware of the fact that the airport might’ve been a terrible mistake.
“Luc—” I gasp his name and point toward a second exit ramp a short way up the road. Two large, city buses block the exit, but there’s a sedan-sized gap between their massive bodies and the guard-rail. “Think we can fit through that gap?”
He narrows his eyes, analyzing the fast-approaching exit plan. “Fuck, I hope so. Otherwise, we’ll have to fight.”
One last time, we swerve toward an exit. The closer we get to the buses, the more I fear that I overestimated the size of that gap. Our pursuant’s SUV certainly won’t fit through it, but we might not, either. Regardless, it’s our only chance at escaping—at going somewhere that our enemy most definitely cannot follow.
We reach the exit ramp, and Luc slows down just enough to avoid barreling into the guard-rail. The terrible screech of scraping metal fills the car, and I clamp my eyes shut, unable to watch as Luc threads us like a needle through the gap. Then, we break free.
Half a second later, a CRASH explodes behind us.
Smoke billows in our rearview, and I twist in my seat to view the carnage of the wreck. The entire frontend of the SUV is a mangled, twisted mess in the guardrail, where they foolishly attempted to slide through the gap behind us. Airbags deployed, half of the car is embedded in the crunched metal, whereas the other half is lodged in the lower portion of the unfortunate bus.
A man climbs from the backseat of the SUV, a gun raised in his hand as if he plans on chasing us on foot, but we’re already speeding away.
“Luc? Viviana?” Freddy’s concerned voice breaks through the blanket of tension.
“We’re okay.” Luc answers, strained. He still white-knuckles the steering wheel. “We lost them.”
Sirens blare in the distance, but we’ll be long gone from the site of the wreck by the time emergency services and police arrive. We rejoin the parkway, and it’s only then that I realize I’m trembling, overcome by the harsh reality that a handful of inches separated me— us —from possible death.
My throat is tight, a mercy considering the bile threatening to make an appearance. I struggle to pull air into my lungs, which only contributes to my spiking panic. In the background, I’m vaguely aware of Freddy instructing Luc on where to drive next to meet our bodyguards for an escort back to Manhattan, but my still-pumping adrenaline prohibits me from truly hearing anything beyond the thrashing of my heart.
Alive. I’m alive, I promise myself, though I don’t entirely believe it.
Not until Luc takes the cellphone from my lap and presses the big red button on the screen, abruptly ending the call while Lex is listing directions. I look up to find my husband already staring at me.
“Hey.” The word is gruff and gentle, all at once. “Look at me. We’re safe.”
I nod, still unable to form words. His dark gray eyes scan my body, as if searching for any sign of injury, but he’s right: we’re safe. We both escaped unscathed, though his sedan will certainly need a new paint job.
He sets the cellphone aside and, with his spare hand, twines my fingers inside his own. His palm is sweaty but strong and steady, especially as his thumb sweeps over my clenched knuckles. The warmth of his touch reassures me that he’s alive and here, and I’m overcome by the force of the gratitude swelling in my chest.
“Viviana?”
“Yeah?” I croak past the lump in my throat.
“I’m proud of you,” he whispers. “You did a damn good job.”