Chapter 29
29
LUCA
W atching Celia walk toward me felt like an honor. She looked so proud, her chin held high, even with my handprint still red at the base of her throat and her clothes soaked and clinging to her body. She looked like a queen, even if the men in our world had been able to convince her that she wasn’t one.
But I could see who she really was.
She walked past me toward the motel, which was why Dante, coming around the corner, saw her first. A goofy smile came over his face. God, he was so taken with her he wasn’t even aware enough of his surroundings. That really did make me want to kill the motherfucker.
Then he saw me, and consternation came over his face. He might not be able to speak in front of Celia, but the look on his face clearly projected: Oh shit .
I slung my arm over Celia’s shoulders as I caught up to her, and Dante tensed, his hands knitting into fists. She glanced up at me with apprehension, but then we reached Dante. I threw my other arm around him in a hug.
“It worried me to come home to an empty house,” I said.
Her gaze flickered to Dante, and I knew she wanted to ask how I had found them. She must be suspicious that Dante had told me where to find them.
“We have a lot to talk about,” I began.
Then I saw the car rolling in front of the motel. Another black SUV swept in behind it. I knew who it was even before I saw Gabriel climb out of the driver’s side. Unfortunately, he was obviously accompanied by Royal and several of Royal’s assholes.
“You led them to us,” she whispered.
I’d swept the car for trackers. It wasn’t me. But I wasn’t going to get drawn into a conversation about it when we had a lot of shit to do.
“We can’t go back into the motel,” I said, all three of us backing into the shadow of the building. They wouldn’t see us, but I knew they would find us eventually. “And we can’t go back to the cars. Our way out is blocked.”
Celia had been willing to run into the ocean to get away from me, but that wasn’t actually a plan. The vastness of the ocean seemed to stretch behind us, as foreboding and unhelpful as the tallest wall.
“If we go into that hotel, will they follow us? Knowing how much attention it would draw?” Celia pointed down the beach to a luxury hotel. There was a bamboo arch covered in flowers planted in the sand, and people were moving around busily preparing for a wedding.
“They might,” I said steadily. “Gabriel is careful, but your brother is fucking stupid and therefore a wild card. But I’ll bet the hotel has valet parking. If we can get down the beach without them catching up to us, and get some space, it’s a good chance for us to steal a car and get out of here without being seen.”
She jerked her head in a nod.
Dante’s gaze caught mine. He mouthed to me, “You take her. I’ll distract them.”
I usually wouldn’t have gone for this plan. But Celia hadn’t seen his silent communication. If she knew, she would put up a fight—we all knew that she liked Dante more than me at the moment—and Dante owed me after he had spirited off our girl and disappeared.
“I’ll take care of her,” I mouthed back, knowing that was all he would really care about.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me. She went with me, easily, as I drew my gun out from under my jacket. It was wet, everything was wet, and I hoped it would actually still fire.
Dante caught my eye and gave me a meaningful look. I nodded. She was luckily intent on her plotting as he slipped away from us.
“You should give me a gun,” she whispered.
“I’ll give you three fucking guesses why that’s never going to happen,” I said. “For three fucking incidents.”
We moved on the beach. It was only when there was gunfire behind us that she twisted. I looked back too. Dante was nowhere in sight, and neither were any of the men who might have seen us running. She let out a gasp as she realized he wasn’t there. “Dante!”
“He’ll be fine,” I promised. I pulled her with me, the two of us breaking into a run. Now we had to cross an open stretch of sand. It was the biggest danger we faced. We could be gunned down as we raced across the sand.
But Dante had bought us time. I hoped to hell we’d see him on the other side. For now, I just had to make the best use of the time he bought us to get her to safety.
The wedding guests were blaring music so loudly down the beach that they were still smiling and happy, unable to hear the gunshots. It felt as if we stumbled into a whole different world, where staff in starched white and black were circling hors d’oeuvres.
I caught a glimpse of the bride, glowingly happy in white. The two of us wove through the happy, formally dressed wedding guests, splattering them with sand and salt water and earning a few shocked exclamations.
Then we went into the quiet of the hotel lobby. This was full of people, too, and we slowed down, trying to look as if we belonged there.
“I’d like to see you wearing white someday,” I told her.
She gave me a shocked look. “You’re thinking about marrying me after what you did to me?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t do that to just any girl.”
I wouldn’t have expected that Celia could look so shocked.
The doors to the lobby opened behind us. I twisted back to get a glimpse through the lavish lobby and saw that one of her father’s men had walked in. His eyes scanned the room, his hand tucked inside his jacket.
I didn’t have time to wait and see if he caught us fleeing. I steered Celia toward the door and threw it open, and the two of us entered a lavish pool area.
We needed to get to the valet parking. Although…in the distance, just a little further down the beach, I could see a marina with power boats and sailboats bobbing in the waves. If we could get there, maybe we could steal a boat.
“Come on.” I grabbed her, still holding her hand as the two of us raced across the concrete floor.
A gun discharged, and one of the elaborate flower arrangements in a blue pot to our left exploded. I pushed Celia behind me, trying to get her out of the way as I fired on our attacker.
She stumbled into a line of lounge chairs.
At least she was out of the way when the next shot went off and punched through my shoulder, throwing me back.
The force of the gunshot took me off balance, and I fell backwards into the pool. My head cracked against the side, and for a second, the world was bright and blinding. I clung desperately to consciousness, feeling myself come close to the edge, and then I managed to swim up and draw a desperate, shocked breath.
He was still focused on me, not seeing Celia. A grin spread across his face as he pointed the gun at me in the water. I was struggling to swim with the gunshot wound, and I frantically treaded water, trying to figure out how to escape the next shot.
Then Celia hit him brutally across the head with the pool skimmer. He tumbled unconscious into the pool beside me.
“Luca, are you all right?” she called frantically. She jumped into the water alongside me and tried to pull me toward the side of the pool.
“You’re a wonder, starlight,” I told her as she tried to draw me out of the water. Of course, she weighed so much less than me that it was ineffective, but it didn’t matter. I felt a renewed surge of strength just because she tried.
One-armed, I heaved myself out. For a second, I lay on the concrete pool deck, shocked and wounded, water streaming from my clothes.
I had to get us out. The shot might have alerted Royal. And in a place this nice, it would almost certainly call the police down on us. I didn’t want to be stuck with the other side of the law.
Frantically, she pressed one of the clean towels from the loungers onto my shoulder. “We’ve got to keep pressure on it.”
“What we’ve got to do is keep moving.”
She scooped up a fallen gun from the pool deck and pressed it into my good hand. “ Can you keep moving?”
I nodded and rolled over onto all fours, pushing myself up with effort. I stumbled, but then I was on both feet and moving. My left arm dangled, more or less uselessly, but I was able to grip the gun with my right.
“You can lean on me,” she said, sliding one arm around my waist.
It was futile, but God, she was cute.
The two of us crossed together and she threw open the gate out of the pool deck. We limped together toward the marina. With every step, I could feel some of my strength draining out of me. It seemed as if I were leaving it along with the pool of blood behind us.
We spotted a luxurious yacht idling in one of the slips. I glanced back. We didn’t see anyone pursuing us…yet. We needed to get out of here.
“We should find Dante,” she said, but we both knew it was just wishful thinking. I was sure from her face she could tell that there was no use doubling back. We were more likely to find Royal and his men than we were Dante.
“He’ll already be hiding. He distracted them so he could buy us time, and we can’t waste it.”
“You’re sure he’ll be hiding? That he’s not dead?” Her voice caught on the word dead .
“You know I’m not sure. So don’t fucking waste his effort.”
We obviously weren’t boarding the boat in any normal way. It didn’t have a gangplank down anyway, so I quickly scanned for the occupants but didn’t see anyone. After sliding my gun into my jacket, I offered her my good hand.
I helped her cross onto the yacht and up over the railing. She made it and then reached back for me, struggling to help me up.
We desperately tried to catch our breath.
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice asked behind us.