His Ruthless Claim (Devils in Armani Suits #2)

27. Luca

27

LUCA

I pace my office, each step matching the steady tick of the watch face. Twenty-seven hours. Sixteen minutes. Forty-two seconds since Skye walked out.

My fingers trace the silver band for the hundredth time today. The metal's grown warm against my skin, but the comfort it usually brings eludes me. Instead, the watch mocks me with each passing second.

"Boss." Bas appears in my doorway. "She's still not answering?"

The crystal decanter shatters against the wall. I don't remember throwing it.

"Get out."

He hesitates. "You haven't slept-"

"I said get the fuck out."

The door clicks shut. I drag my hands through my hair, ruining its usual precise styling. The reflection in my office window shows a stranger - someone unraveled, dangerous. My ice-blue eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep.

The bed still smells like her. I checked this morning, standing in my room like a fucking idiot, breathing in the lingering traces of her perfume. Now the scent haunts me, along with the memory of her amber eyes when she discovered what I'd done. The hurt. The betrayal.

I check the watch again. Twenty-seven hours. Seventeen minutes. Twelve seconds.

My phone buzzes. For a moment, hope claws through my chest. But it's just Mickey, reporting that she's opened the boutique as usual. Two of my men are watching her, but she knows they're there. Knows I won't let her go unprotected even if she hates me.

The thought of her hating me twists something vital in my chest. It's an alien sensation - this desperate need to fix what I've broken. I've never given a fuck about anyone's opinion of me before.

I check the watch again. And again. The ticking fills my skull until I want to rip it off my wrist. But I can't. Won't. It's all I have left of my mother, and now it's counting down the seconds until I lose someone else.

Twenty-seven hours. Eighteen minutes. Nine seconds.

The control I've built my life around crumbles with each tick of that fucking watch.

At some point, Bas manages to wrangle me from my office, though he has to dodge a swing or two. He thinks work will do me good.

The only thing that will do me good is Skye.

The territory meeting drones on, voices blending into meaningless noise. I tap my finger against the mahogany table, counting seconds. Twenty-eight hours, forty-two minutes, thirteen seconds.

"The Rossi family's pushing into the west side." Bas slides another folder across the table. "They're claiming-"

"That boutique on seventh's becoming a problem." One of the newer enforcers cuts in. I don't remember his fucking name. "Right in the middle of disputed territory. Could be collateral if things get messy."

My hand stills. The room temperature drops ten degrees.

"What did you say?" My voice comes out soft, controlled. Too controlled.

He shifts in his seat, adam's apple bobbing. "The boutique. It's, uh, in a vulnerable position if-"

The table flips. Files scatter. Coffee splashes across expensive suits. I have him by the throat before anyone moves, slamming him against the wall hard enough to crack plaster.

"Say another word about that boutique." My fingers dig into his windpipe. "I fucking dare you."

"Boss." Bas's voice sounds far away. "He didn't know."

The enforcer claws at my grip, face purpling. Someone touches my shoulder. I whirl, ready to strike, but Bas has put space between us to dodge my strike. Behind him, the room's already clearing. Chairs scrape. Shoes shuffle. The door clicks shut behind the last retreating figure.

I release him. He crumples, gasping.

"Get out."

He scrambles away, leaving me alone with the wreckage. Papers float like dead leaves. Coffee drips onto Italian leather shoes that cost more than most people make in a month.

The watch ticks. Twenty-eight hours, forty-four minutes, seven seconds.

My reflection fragments across shattered coffee cups. Ice blue eyes stare back - wild, unhinged. Just like his used to be. Just like my father's when he'd stumble home drunk, raging about my mother's death.

I've become exactly what I swore I'd never be. A man who hurts what he claims to protect.

The watch keeps ticking, each second a reminder of how spectacularly I've failed.

I don't even remember moving after that. It's like I blink and I'm standing in my mother's sitting room, where everything remains frozen in time. Her half-finished needlepoint still rests on the mahogany side table. A book lies face-down, marking a page she'll never finish. The air feels thick with dust and memories.

"I thought I'd find you here." Maria's voice breaks through the silence. Her heels click against hardwood as she approaches. "You only come here when you're spiraling."

"I don't spiral."

"Right." She settles onto the pristine white sofa, her dark curls a stark contrast against the fabric. "That's why you're standing in a shrine to your dead mother at three in the morning."

I trace the edge of a silver picture frame. My mother's smile beams back at me, forever preserved behind glass. "What do you want, Maria?"

"To understand why you're letting her get to you like this." She crosses her long legs, studying me. "You haven't lost control like this since..."

"Don't."

"Since the accident." Her warm brown eyes hold mine, unflinching. "You were eight years old, Luca. Trapped in that car, unable to do anything but watch-"

My fist connects with the wall. Plaster crumbles. Blood trickles down my knuckles. I've…never done anything like that before.

I've never felt so out of control that I don't even recognize myself right now.

Probably because Skye ripped away my soul when she walked out. It belongs to her anyway.

"You think I don't see it?" Maria continues, voice gentle but firm. "The way you micromanage every detail of your life? The way you shut down anything that threatens your control?" She gestures around the preserved room. "This isn't living, Luca. This is existing in a museum of your trauma."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you're terrified of feeling helpless again. So you built walls. Became the perfect soldier, the perfect son. Except now someone's gotten past those walls, and you're losing your mind because you can't control how she makes you feel."

The watch ticks. Thirty-eight hours, twelve minutes, thirty-three seconds since Skye left.

"She makes me weak." The words taste like ash.

"No." Maria stands, placing a hand on my arm. "She makes you human. And that scares you more than anything."

I stare at my white-knuckled grip on my mother's watch, my fingers trembling against the silver band. The same way his used to shake around a glass of whiskey.

"Get out." My voice sounds hollow, even to my own ears.

Maria doesn't move. "Luca-"

"Now."

She lingers another moment before her heels click toward the door. The sound echoes through the preserved room, through my skull, matching the relentless ticking of the watch.

My arm draws back, muscles coiling to throw the last piece of my mother across the room. To shatter it like everything else I touch. Just like someone else. Just like the way he used to throw bottles, chairs, fists.

I freeze.

The watch gleams in the dim light, its face reflecting my wild eyes. Ice blue, just like his. The same eyes that used to burn with drunken rage as he towered over me, demanding to know why I lived when she didn't.

"Fuck." The word tears from my throat.

I've become him. The manipulation. The control. The way I kept Skye trapped by any means necessary, telling myself it was for her protection. Just like he used to say the bruises were for my own good.

My fingers uncurl from the watch one by one. The metal's warm from my grip, the way it used to be warm from my mother's touch when she'd check the time during bedtime stories.

I sink into her armchair, the fabric still holding the indent of her body after all these years. The room spins, or maybe I'm the one spinning out of control. Out of the careful boxes I've built my life around.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to the empty room, to the ghost of my mother, to Skye. "I'm so fucking sorry."

But sorry doesn't fix what I've broken. Doesn't erase the fact that I'm becoming everything I swore I'd never be. A man who destroys what he loves, piece by piece, all while claiming it's for their own good.

The watch ticks on. Thirty-eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, fifteen seconds since I lost her.