Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
“Did you get all the cash from the traps in the car?” Zec asked, his voice tired on the other end of the line. Always paranoid and planning for the absolute worst, Zec ensured every vehicle in their fleet had hidden compartments of cash that could be used in emergencies.
“Yes.” Luka paced the small balcony of the cheap hotel room they’d rented. For thirty euros a night, he couldn’t complain. It was clean, secure and only a few blocks from the beach.
“You may need to stay hidden for a while so be careful and ration it out.”
“I will.” He leaned against the balcony railing but instantly straightened when he felt the metal rock unsteadily. He eyed the rickety old bolts tying the railing to the balcony. This thing was a deathtrap.
“Did you dump the car?”
“Yes.” He backed away from the deadly ailing. “Right after we stopped for shoes and other supplies.”
“Shoes?”
“Elona left hers in the grass.” He’d been replaying the night over and over in his head. Dafina’s revelation. The argument with Besian. Chasing Elona through the palace and out into the grass. The bomb. Fleeing the scene. He wiped a hand down his face. Fucking nightmare.
“You should have dumped her with the car,” Zec said rudely.
“Hey!”
“Luka, she had information on our warehouses and operations in her carry-on. She also had twenty thousand dollars in cash in her luggage plus a few thousand leks and five thousand euros! She didn’t come here to be a wedding guest. For all we know, she’s the one who placed the bomb.
She was on her phone right before it went off. ”
“She was receiving photos of me and the two dancers back in Houston,” Luka corrected and shifted uncomfortably.
Zec was silent a moment. “I have what’s left of her phone. I’ll know if she’s telling the truth.”
“She is.” Luka couldn’t explain it, but he knew she wasn’t lying. “Maybe you can find out who sent them to her. Someone was following me in Houston. Someone wanted to make trouble here.”
“Someone like your bride-to-be and her family?” Zec simply refused to let his theory go.
“Except that Artan is dead,” Luka pointed out. “It doesn’t do them much good to kill off the family patriarch.”
“Unless they have another waiting for his chance.”
Luka reflected on that. “You think that this was a play by Aleksander?”
“I think we kept that kid locked up like a prisoner for too long. I think we left him in the care of a family that might not want us to stay in power.” Zec repeated things Luka had heard dozens of times.
It had been no secret that Zec felt strongly about keeping the Dushku scion a hostage all these years.
He’d been even more irritated about the fees paid out to the Raffaelli family for acting as Aleksander’s jailers.
“The Raffaellis aren’t stupid. They know that Skender could never hold power over—.
” He stopped talking as he realized how stupid he sounded.
Of course. “The Raffaellis want us fighting each other so they can swoop in and take us all out. They want to keep the trade corridor for themselves and the money.”
“Now you’re talking like a boss,” Zec remarked in that sarcastic asshole way of his.
“We have to be absolutely sure that’s the case before we do something we can’t take back.”
“Give me some time. Until then, stay hidden. Stay alert. Don’t trust that woman. And don’t fuck her either,” Zec warned.
“I’m not going to fuck her!” As much as he might want to fuck her, the odds of her letting him even touch her were practically zero.
“I mean it, Luka. She’s not who she pretends to be.”
Before he could ask what the hell Zec meant by that, the line went dead.
He stood on the balcony in the dark, looking out over the surprisingly quiet city.
It was only a little after midnight, but the streets were mostly empty and dark.
Probably due to that lightning in the distance and the faint rumble of thunder.
The sliding door behind him opened. He glanced back to find Elona, freshly showered and scrubbed and wearing the gray shorts and blue T-shirt he had grabbed from the shopping center where they’d dumped the car. They fit her well. Too well.
The shorts barely skimmed her upper thighs.
They were tight and almost obscenely short.
If she bent over, he was going to learn how she preferred to handle her personal grooming.
The matching shirt was made to be oversized and long-sleeved, but her ample breasts stretched it out in the most wicked way.
That V-neck would be troublesome if she wasn’t careful.
She’s nervous. He noticed it in the little tug of the shirt’s hem as she stood there in the open doorway. “Are you coming inside? It’s going to storm.”
“Yes.” He let his hungry gaze roam her bottom and bare legs as he followed her back into the small hotel room. There was only a bed, two hardbacked chairs and a tiny bistro table. He glanced between her and the bed, wondering how they were going to make this work.
“I’m not sleeping on the floor.” She pulled at her shirt again.
“Neither am I.” He toed off his shoes and placed his phone on the table. “I paid for it.”
“Only because I didn’t have any money with me.”
“Maybe you should have stuffed some of the cash you smuggled in your luggage into your bra before the ceremony.”
“You had them check my luggage?” she asked, outraged.
“Zac is very thorough.”
“Except when it comes to bombs,” she shot back nastily. “Unless he was in on it.”
“He wasn’t.”
“So you say.” She pulled at her shorts, tugging them down between her thighs.
All thoughts of Zec betraying him fled. His brow furrowed. “Stop pulling your shorts down like that. I like what I see.”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes and huffed at him. “Cellulite? Dimples? Bruises and scrapes from you chasing me like a lunatic? You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I’ve seen what you like, remember?” She wrinkled her nose with disgust. “How drunk or high were you to let yourself get photographed like that in public?”
Shame twisted his gut. “It wasn’t my finest moment.”
“You have a lot of those?”
“Not usually.” He didn’t care for the holier-than-thou way she stared at him. “We all make mistakes. I’m sure you have a few in your past you’d rather not have thrown in your face.”
She paled. Actually, paled. The blood visibly drained from her face, and she gulped. She looked like she wanted to bolt from the room, maybe even go right out to the balcony and jump.
Worried by her reaction, he took a step toward her. She took two quick steps back. Startled by her fear of him, he held up both hands. “Elona, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Did he tell you? Is that what your secret phone call was about?” she asked accusingly.
“Who? Zec? He didn’t say anything about you other than to warn me to be careful and not trust you. Or fuck you,” he added crassly.
She glowered. “Like I’d give you a chance! There’s literally nothing you could offer that I want.”
Irritated by the assured way she rejected him, he snapped, “Dozens of women have wanted what I offer.”
“Dozens of women you’ve paid, probably.”
“Not all of them.”
“And the rest of them? Did they actually want you or your money? Your name? A taste of the powerful mafia boss?”
Fuck me. She was good. She stabbed right at the vulnerable heart of him, calling out his own doubts and fears. “If they did, they were no different than your sister, trying to trap me in a marriage with another man’s baby.”
“She didn’t trap you, and I’m glad she found someone else. She would have been miserable with you!”
“And I would have been happy with her?” He laughed harshly.
“If you had any sense, you would have been! My sister has her MBA! She works in the front office of a major NBA team. She’s not only beautiful.
She’s also smart.” She ticked off her sister’s qualities.
“If our families hadn’t signed that stupid marriage contract, you would never have had a chance with her. You’re so far beneath her it’s a joke!”
She was right, and it killed him. He hadn’t done anything to earn a woman like Dafina or Elona. He was a high school dropout, a nepo baby who had only barely managed not to fuck everything up.
He could acknowledge that to himself, but he didn’t want to hear it from his enemy.
“You’re cruel, you know that?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You look like this sweet, kind woman, but inside? You’re mean. You’re fucking surgical with your insults.”
"And you’re not?” She dared him to deny it. “You called me a pig.”
“After you called my father a pig,” he pointed out unhelpfully.
She clicked her teeth. “I guess that makes it okay then.”
“No, that’s not what—.” He exhaled roughly and closed the distance between them. To her credit, she didn’t try to run. She stood her ground, her gaze narrowed and mistrusting. “I’m sorry, Elona. I am truly sorry for what I said. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”
“And?”
“And we’re stuck together, trying to survive, so I’d like us to not be at each other’s throats!” This close, he could see the vein in her neck jumping to the beat of her heart. He wanted to place his hand on her throat, to let his thumb glide over her pulse.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “Whatever. You’re forgiven.”
He doubted that very much.
“Can we please just go to sleep? I’m exhausted.” She exhaled tiredly, letting her shoulders slump. “I just need a break.”
Feeling guilty, he stepped aside and gestured to the bed. “Sleep on the side closest to the balcony.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to be closest to the door,” he explained matter-of-factly.
She raked her scrutinizing gaze over his body. “I think we’d be safer with me closest to any bad guys who come crashing through that door.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “I’ve seen you hit a softball.”
She seemed surprised. “Really?”
He nodded. “I looked you up after you gave me that shirt to wear.”
“I’d like that back, by the way.”
“Sorry. I left it in Houston at Devil’s place.”
“I’m not even going to ask who that is.” She got into bed and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. She turned toward the balcony, ending their conversation.
He stood there for a moment, just looking at her. Fighting the urge to get into bed with her, to reach out and draw her into his arms. To kiss her. Touch her. To brand her body with his mouth and teeth and show her that he could be so, so good.
She hates me.
Or, at least, she disliked him. Distrusted him.
Not that he could blame her.
I cheated on her sister.
I am such a fuck up.
In everything. Relationships. Family. The business.
What the fuck am I doing with my life?
The question dogged him as he trudged to the bathroom.
He peeled out of his clothing, all the way down to his boxer-briefs, and splashed water on his face.
His stomach was surprisingly calm, but he worried it would erupt again in the middle of the night.
He took a double dose of the antacid he’d picked up at the store earlier.
With his clothes in hand, he left the bathroom, shutting off the light and closing the door.
He draped his clothing over a chair and walked to the empty side of the bed.
Elona was perfectly still, breathing slowly, but he didn’t think she was asleep yet.
She was pretending so she wouldn’t have to talk to him anymore.
Fair enough.
He carefully got into bed and stretched out under the covers. He rolled onto his left side, a position that seemed to keep his heartburn from spilling into his throat when he slept. Eyes closed, he tried to relax. Too soon, the sun would rise, and he would have to face all his problems.
One thing he couldn’t forget so easily.
The look on Elona’s face when he made that dig about her past.
That wasn’t the expression of someone who had made a little mistake. That was the terrified face of a woman who had done something awful, something shameful.
What are you hiding Elona Dushku?