Chapter 23
La’Nova snored peacefully, unaware of who sat across from her still as stone. Luca watched her chest rise and fall, he observed that she was in a deep sleep which only meant one thing. She felt safe.
The dim light inside of her camper seemed to soften everything about her.
Her heart-shaped face looked younger while she rested.
There were no worry lines creasing her beautiful facial features.
The scar that ran down the center of her face didn’t crease with each breath she took.
La’Nova was in rare form in front of Luca.
To him, she looked like a sleeping angel. He stared at her hard, never blinking his eyes. There was so much confliction pumping through him, his thoughts were fuzzy. From the moment he stepped inside of her camper, his will to end her life got replaced with a bunch of what ifs.
La’Nova’s hair had shrunk into a thick, short fro with tight curls sitting close to her head.
Luca studied her for hours. He noticed the slight changes like her weight loss.
She also had bruises on her thighs and upper arms that made his jaw tick.
The purple nightgown she wore clung to her body in soft folds, and it rose up her thighs each time she shifted in her sleep.
She looked good to him and that irritated him. His grip on his gun tightened as he leaned forward and eyed the markers and sheets of paper she colored before she fell asleep. He rested his forearms on his thighs as his eyes stayed on her.
Luca tracked her for a week and watched her from a distance. He made sure that there was no one else she was working with to go against him. While he had strong feelings for her that he no longer cared to deny, Luca didn’t trust La’Nova at all, given the circumstances of everything.
He always knew what to say and what to do when it came down to his enemies. From the moment he learned of his father being murdered in cold blood, he imagined all the ways he would avenge him. What he’d say to his father’s killer, and how many times he’d pull the trigger.
Now as he sat in her space, breathing in her air, and listening to her snore like it was something that normal men did, he had no clue how he would go about this. It was the number one reason why he decided to travel close to eight hours away from home to see about her, alone.
His gaze dropped to her hands resting over her stomach. Her fingers slightly curled as she shifted again with a small frown covering her face. Luca eyed the extra gun that he put close to her head. Tonight would be a game of Russian roulette.
“You ran…” he whispered.
Luca ignored the pain that zapped down his throat. His chest thumped with raw emotion while the back of his eyes burned.
“I still fucking found you, La’Nova.”
He leaned back in the plastic folding chair, letting his head rest against the wall behind him, eyes never leaving her.
Outside, the canyon stretched wide and endlessly. The mountains surrounded them with a lake nearby that barely moved. Peace lived in the Grand Canyon, and La’Nova fell in love with the scenery alone as she got her thoughts together on the next place she planned to travel to.
Luca understood they were enemies. He even understood now, how she tried her hardest to stay away from him since the beginning. Him being so determined to get her almost brought him to his own ruin. What he didn’t understand was after finding out everything he knew now… he found himself bothered.
Bothered by her running even though he knew she didn’t have a choice.
The universe had a sick way of doing things.
It aligned two individuals who truly couldn’t be together without overlooking the facts of what brought them together in the first place.
It all felt like betrayal and contradiction.
Luca cursed himself while sitting there, feeling too weak to pull the trigger hours ago when he first broke into her camper.
La’Nova was the culprit, the one person who ended the life of a man that taught, nurtured, and loved him unapologetically.
Luca shut his eyes to rest and reset them from the intense burning that stabbed away at his sight. A minute later he opened them to see La’Nova pushing herself up slowly. Her breath caught once their eyes locked. He eyed the thin purple nightgown sliding against her skin as she sat upright.
For seconds that felt like hours they stared at one another, saying nothing.
Finally, La’Nova’s eyes moved over him, taking him in, piece by piece.
He looked too good. His hair was freshly cut clean into waves that looked intentionally brushed to perfection.
He wore a fitted black button-down, sleeves pushed up, exposing his thick forearms marked with tattoos that told stories she hadn’t heard of yet.
His black slacks were tailored perfectly to his build.
Luca didn’t look like he came to beg her for any understanding.
He looked like he came to end something.
Her eyes dropped once more to the gun securely in his hand.
Her gaze dropped further to what she already knew was ginger and lemon tea sitting on the floor right beside his shoe.
Her stomach tanked again as reality sunk into every vein inside of her body.
I’m not free after all… he came to fuckin’ kill me…
When her eyes locked back with his, his gaze didn’t waver. His woodsy scent traveled into her senses just as he licked his full lips and cleared his throat.
“Russian roulette…” he whispered, nudging his head in the direction of the gun that sat on top of her pillow.
A charged silence fell over both of them. La’Nova looked down at the gun, her mouth dried up as she willed herself to trace the cold metal with the tip of her fingers.
“Russian roulette,” Luca repeated as if she hadn’t heard him the first time. He leaned down slowly, to retrieve his tea.
“It reminds me of us.” He waved his gun back and forth between the small amount of space between them.
La’Nova’s brows pulled together in confusion.
She frowned before picking up the gun on her pillow; her index finger instantly curved around the trigger.
Luca was toying with her nerves with each second that passed between them.
He moved slow and precisely, eyes peeking over the rim of his cup as he took deliberate sips.
La’Nova suddenly thought about an earlier conversation the both of them had in her camper.
“If I ever have to show my face outside of a meeting with my table,” he went on. “It means something already went wrong.”
“What happens when you show up alone?” She asked.
“I’m coming to kill… they’d never see me coming.” His jaws clenched tight.
Reality slammed into La’Nova before she licked her lips and asked.
“Are you here alone, Luca?” She raised her brows, hating the fear that crept inside of her.
He nodded once and smirked smugly in her direction, indicating he knew exactly where her mind tracked back to.
“There was a risk I was willing to take in the beginning with you…” He cleared his throat, ready to fight through the pain in order to whisper out his grievances.
“Now there’s a risk of two people sitting across from each other, not knowing who will walk away.
” He cracked his neck from left to right.
“There’s only one thing left to decide,” he said.
Her gray eyes pierced into his, and Luca saw the hesitation as La’Nova picked her gun up and pointed it in his direction.
“Decide what, Luca?” She tilted her head slightly to the side.
“Who lives after today,” he whispered harshly.
Silence crashed into the room, making it hard for La’Nova to breathe through the thick tension.
Her chest rose hard, breath catching as the weight of his words settled deep inside her.
She hated that tears now burned at the brim of her eyes instantly, but she fought them, blinking hard as she continue to gaze into his dark pools.
“I don’t want you to kill me.” She licked her dry lips.
Luca scoffed lowly and shook his head no, fighting hard at his own emotions.
In this moment, La’Nova didn’t care if it sounded like she was begging for him to spare her life.
The past few weeks were the best to her, she wanted to continue to enjoy the freedom that she waited so long for.
Her New Year resolution finally came true after years of praying hard for it.
“I could have killed Lucille, there were plenty of times I had the chance, Di Luca—”
“Don’t call me that shit,” he spat, shooting her a nasty glare.
“I could have killed you the first time we were alone, but I didn’t!” She confessed, heart nearly beating out of her chest.
Seconds later, a small sob escaped her lips.
La’Nova was tired of keeping it all together.
Always appearing strong when on the inside, she wanted to let it all go.
She fought through the pieces of her brokenness for years just to feel an ounce of freedom.
The hardest task was fighting through rare feelings that she felt for the man sitting across from her.
It hurt her each time she was near him, having to build strong walls to stop herself from falling for Luca already knowing the outcome.
This.
What happened in the dark, always came to the light no matter how long or hard a person tried to conceal the ugly truth.
Luca was the first man besides her father that she felt comfortable enough to break down in front of.
Kentrell used her emotions against her, so she learned early on not to show them.
She knew now was the wrong time to let her tears flow free.
None of it mattered because she was officially tired of fighting for her own survival.
“Why didn’t you?” Luca whispered quietly.
“Why did you let me—” He cut his own words short, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, holding back a confession that he was sure she was aware of.
You let me fall for you… He thought.