Chapter 63
ALEX
Sonny stayed at the marina to deal with his boat while I got into the car with Luca.
My stomach twisted into a mess of nerves until I spotted Marcello behind us in his Maserati, keeping a steady pace.
As we raced through Devil’s Creek, Luca drove like a psycho, whipping around turns like we were on the highway.
I gripped the door handle, fear shaking through me. “What the hell is going on, Luca? You have to stop keeping secrets from me.”
Luca kept his eyes on the road and ignored me, gripping the steering wheel with his jaw clenched.
Lately, he was losing his edge. It seemed as if Luca were unraveling.
Did he care more about me than he let on?
He was so closed off, a mystery even after all these years.
And I was sick of being kept in the dark.
“Tell me why you ambushed our trip and are driving like a lunatic.”
He glanced at me, his knuckles white from wrapping them tightly around the steering wheel. “Okay, fine. You want the truth?”
I leaned closer to him and muttered, “Yes.”
“This shit with the Albanians started close to two months ago. I went to Berat to meet with the Kurti crime family.” He shook his head, lips pursed as he stared at the road.
“My father sent me to make a new alliance for our European counterparts. Everything was going according to plan. We had drinks, made deals, and then I woke up the next morning in my hotel room without my cell phone.”
I rested my elbow on the armrest and looked over at him. “What did they take?”
“They tried to steal encrypted files. Thankfully, Drake’s software was on my phone, and they didn’t gain access to the Salvatore Global files. But they got something else. Naked pictures and videos of you. Of us.”
My jaw unhinged at his confession. “They have pictures of me?”
He nodded. “And sex tapes.”
I covered my face with my hands and sighed. “I can’t believe this.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” He reached over and squeezed my thigh. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I kept you away from Devil’s Creek to keep you safe.”
“Why do they want me?”
“They borrowed fifty million dollars from the Knights and refused to pay the loan.” He swerved around a woman driving at a snail’s pace, his movements effortless. “So I took Marcus Kurti’s wife as collateral.”
“You killed her,” I whispered.
On the day of the shooting, Luca taunted the men with the possibility of the crime boss’s wife being alive and used it to get me away from them.
“He left me no choice. That motherfucker wasn’t paying us back, no matter what I held over his head. He’s in too deep with the psychopaths tied to Il Circo .”
My grandfather insisted that I take Italian lessons after I met Luca. He thought it might help me uncover information about the Salvatores. Il Circo means “The Circus” in Italian, which only piqued my interest more.
I moved my hand to his thigh as he raced up the hill. “What’s Il Circo ?”
“A club where anything goes.” He flew past the guard gate with Marcello behind us in the Maserati. “It’s by invitation only. They hold monthly auctions on the Dark Web. Men from the depths of the criminal underworld will bet on anything from women to the outcomes of death matches.”
My stomach churned at his confession, and I was almost afraid to ask, but I had to know the truth about our situation. I turned in my chair so I could see his face. “Have you ever placed a bet?”
He shook his head. “I have a lot of vices, but there are some lines I don’t cross.”
“Who is trying to kidnap me? The Albanians?”
“If they get their way and list you for sale at the Il Circo auction at the end of this month, we will have many more men to handle. And given the Knights’ current predicament, we don’t have the manpower to fight a war on our own.”
“That’s why you need me to become your queen?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’ve been doing everything in my power to stop the bleeding.
Drake monitors the Dark Web for suspicious traffic that links to you or the Knights.
But it’s only a matter of time. The Kurtis have a long-standing relationship with the men at Il Circo .
If they want you added to the action, it will happen eventually. ”
My heart slammed into my chest, my pulse pounding so hard my ears rang. “What happens if they succeed?”
“I won’t stop until I have eliminated the threat.” He tapped his fingers on my leg to the beat of the song on the radio. “The Knights are working around the clock to ensure your safety. We won’t let anyone hurt you, Drea. I promise.”
“I know you will protect me, but I’m still scared.”
“It’s okay, baby.” He smoothed a hand over my thigh. “We will get through this together. You have the Knights at your disposal, which means you have an army of men willing to die for you.”
“I don’t want anyone to die for me.”
“Knights defend their Queen at all costs. It’s one of our most sacred laws.”
“Luca, you’re not dying for me. I can’t lose you.”
He gave me one of his sly grins that made my heart race. “You saying you’d miss me, baby?”
I licked my lips, my focus on his delicious mouth I wanted to kiss. “Of course, I would.”
“We’re at war,” he said with zero emotion. “Anything can happen to me. I accepted my fate a long time ago. If I have to die protecting you, I will. You are all I care about, Drea.”
I could hardly catch my breath as I said, “Luca, please be careful. After what we just went through with Marcello, it would break me. You think I’m crazy now. There wouldn’t be a single trace of me left if you died fighting for me.”
He patted my hand on his thigh before he switched gears. “I know, baby. And I’m sorry about what I said after the shooting. I was jealous of you and Marcello and shouldn’t have acted that way.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“I was angry about Marcello almost dying,” he continued. “I wanted to kill those fuckers for waltzing onto my estate and trying to steal you away. I should have seen them coming. I’m always ten steps ahead of my opponents.”
“You’re human, Luca.”
He shook his head. “No, don’t make excuses for me. I failed you and the Knights.”
“Your quick thinking got me away from those psychos,” I pointed out.
“They climbed right up your balcony, past the guards. It never even occurred to me to have a guard on your balcony. I should have thought of that. My life doesn’t matter without yours.”
“Luca,” I groaned. “Don’t say things like that.”
“It’s true.” He grabbed my hand and pressed a soft kiss to my skin. “If you die, I’m going with you, baby.”
“No one is dying,” I said with tears in my eyes. “Stop talking about death. It’s making my stomach hurt.”
“Before you lost your memories, you were close to the Knights.”
“I remember what happened that night,” I confessed.
“You wanted to know what Legare would be like,” he told me with a severity to his tone. “I wanted to make you happy.”
“Yeah, I got that much from the flashbacks.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and sighed. “I hate forgetting shit. Fill in the gaps for me.”
“If anything happens to me, you will marry Marcello. I have always known that. So has Marcello. You belong to the Knights as much as I do. I knew I had to let go.”
I sank into the leather seat and stared out the window, taking in the scenery as we blew past the other cars at ninety miles per hour. “I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere, Luca.”
He stared at me out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah?”
“I need honesty from you. If I’m ever going to be your person, we can’t have secrets.”
“You are my person,” he said in that deep, sexy voice that rolled over me in waves. “One day, you will be my wife, the mother of my children, my queen.”
“We should talk about my mom and what she did to yours. You haven’t spoken about it since my grandfather told me the truth.”
Luca shook his head. “No, that’s in the past.”
“Not for me,” I challenged.
He floored the gas and drove onto the property. “I stopped blaming you for your mother’s actions a long time ago.”
“But I feel horrible about what she did. I would have understood why you were so cruel.”
“I tried to hate you.” He parked in front of the massive garage that housed a fleet of cars. “You made it so hard for me. But don’t worry, baby. Your mother will get what’s coming to her,” he promised.
Luca slid out of the car and opened my door. Without another word, he ushered me into the house with his hand on my back. Marcello joined us a few seconds later.
My handsome Devil’s eyes raked over my face, and my heart crashed into my chest. After our heart-to-heart, I hoped for more intimacy from Luca. But as usual, he did the opposite of what I expected.
“Take her upstairs,” Luca said to Marcello before he took off down the hallway. “Don’t let her out of her room.”
“Luca,” I shouted. “Get back here.”
He didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder or respond. Instead, he raised his cell phone to his ear and kept walking.