Chapter 90
LUCA
Alex and Rhiannon were on the DeLucas boat, headed back to Key West with a handful of members of Alpha Command.
I had arranged for my cousins to help with the extraction.
In case someone ambushed the boat, I wanted trained soldiers guarding the girls.
Marcello and the rest of his team stayed behind to help the Knights and me deal with the men who took Alex.
“I found Kurti.” Drake shoved his cell phone in front of me. “And his known associates. I sent a team to collect them.”
“Tell the team leader to keep them at the safe house in Beacon Bay.”
Drake nodded, and then his eyes swept across the room.
“Stop worrying, Battle. We have this under control.”
“I know.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. “But we’re unarmed, with dozens of men watching us. One wrong move, and we’re fucked.”
“We’re at war. It’s not an exact science. You can’t program your way out of here.”
He snickered. “Give me a laptop, a car battery, a screwdriver, and five minutes.”
I laughed. “We’re not shooting our way off this island. There are too many people for us to handle head-on. Follow my lead. Whoever brought us here will bring the fight back to Devil’s Creek. We will deal with them when we get home.”
“You think we’re leaving this island without a fight?”
“Watch me,” I said and walked away.
Drake was on my heels, keeping his pace as I headed toward the back door on the south side of the mansion.
Marcello texted that he’d left us weapons in case of emergency.
I had no intention of opening fire unless it was necessary.
We’d gotten Alex and Rhiannon out of harm’s way, and I intended to live another day to marry my beautiful Queen.
My cell phone dinged in my pocket. I opened the group chat and scrolled through the messages.
Aiden
We’re on the boat.
Cole
Not without getting shot at. Watch your six leaving the island. They have snipers on the roof.
Marcello
Not anymore.
Sonny
Are we clear on the west side?
Marcello
The seaplane is waiting for us. You have 60 seconds max. Move your asses.
Luca
We’re on our way.
Aiden
Has anyone talked to Alex?
Marcello
She’s with the DeLucas, sleeping off the drugs on the boat.
Luca
We’re done talking until we’re off this island.
I shoved the phone into my pocket.
Drake chuckled, holding his phone in his hand. “You don’t have to be an asshole to Aiden. He’s one of us now.”
I pushed open the back door and searched the patch of grass for the hidden bag. “This is not the place nor the time for this discussion.”
“He’s just worried about his sister.”
“We’re all worried about Alex,” I shot back as I slung the hunter-green duffle bag over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
As we power-walked around the building, I reached into the bag, grabbed two guns, and handed one to Drake. Marcello had everything from grenades to machine guns in this bag of tricks. My brother never left room for chance, and with our lives on the line, we couldn’t afford to be unprepared.
“I never thought we’d be leaving this island like cowards,” he commented with a groan.
“This is the smart play,” I assured him. “They left us without a choice. We’re out-manned, outgunned, and not in the position to fight the owners of Il Circo .”
He nodded in agreement. “I want to kill every one of them for what they did to Alex.”
“Me too.” I patted his shoulder. “In due time, Battle. They will come to us. Trust me. The highest bid on Alex was thirty million dollars.”
“There will be an uproar when the club members discover they can’t outbid him.”
“That’s not our problem.”
Sonny, Finn, and Callum waited for us at the jungle’s edge. Marcello was there with a handful of his men. My brother was dressed in black camouflage, and his face was painted, so he was unrecognizable. So you couldn’t tell him apart from the rest of Alpha Command.
But I would know those sad eyes anywhere. Alex called Marcello her Lonely Boy and often sketched him. I’d found dozens of drawings of my brother among her ideas for future Devil paintings. Her feelings for both of us bled into every inch of her work.
“Took you long enough,” Marcello said and then walked into the jungle.
With his help, we got Alex off the island and left in one piece. So I held my tongue and followed my brother into the darkness. The Knights trailed behind me, swatting at the overgrowth. We moved toward the water, where they hid the seaplane.
We boarded the small plane with just enough room to fit the Knights. Marcello’s men were staying behind to deal with security. They’d already killed half of the men surrounding the building and had to maintain the charade long enough for us to leave this palatial hellhole.
Marcello sat beside me with his hand on my knee, reassuringly squeezing it. He was better at communicating his feelings. There was a chance none of us would make it off the island alive, and yet we defied the odds. It was too easy. We both knew the worst part had yet to come.
Twenty minutes later, we landed in the water beside the DeLucas’ boat.
Two men leaned overboard and threw ropes for us to grab.
This was probably a stupid idea, but I couldn’t wait another second to see Alex.
I had insisted the pilot let me off the damn plane.
Of course, Marcello wasn’t letting me go alone.
He was just as desperate to hold Alex in his arms.
I grabbed one rope, and Marcello took the other. Slowly and steadily, we climbed up the side of the boat like Spider-Man scaling a building. More athletic and conditioned for battle, Marcello was already on board, lending a helping hand when I reached the yacht’s deck.
“You’re out of shape,” Marcello joked as he slapped me on the back, draining the air from my lungs. “You should come running with me when we return to Devil’s Creek.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I work out seven days a week. I’m good.”
“Follow us,” a dark-haired man said to us. “Damon is waiting for you.”
I glanced over the side of the boat and waved to the Knights. They were heading home after they landed in Key West. Then, I followed the men into the cabin and down a long hallway. My cousin Damon owned the boat and had decorated the interior like one of his casinos.
He had inherited The Portofino Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City after a rival family murdered his father last year. It was one of many legitimate businesses our family used to launder drug money.
We entered the last room on the right. Damon DeLuca sat behind a long mahogany desk with his younger brothers, Angelo and Gio, in chairs across from him. They dressed in expensive black suits, their dark hair gelled into place. They rose from their chairs as we entered the room.
Damon moved out from behind the desk. “Cousin,” he said as he gave me a one-arm hug. “I wish we saw each other under better circumstances.”
“Thanks for helping us out.” I hugged him back. “How is Alex?”
He tipped his head toward the couch at the room’s far end. “She passed out the second her head hit the pillow.”
I sighed in relief when I saw Alex sleeping on a plush couch, her head propped up on pillows. Someone had covered her broken, bruised body with a blanket.
“She’s a fighter,” Damon said with his hand on my back. “I can see why you chose her as our Queen.”
My cousin was powerful, a ruler in his own right, but he knew his place within The Devil’s Knights. I was about to become the Grand Master, and once Alex accepted my marriage proposal, she would be Queen. No one could handle me or this world like Alex.
“She’s always had that fight in her,” I muttered as I approached the couch with Damon at my side. “Did she say anything before she fell asleep?”
“She tried to punch me.” He laughed. “Thought I was another man trying to kidnap her. I explained that we’re cousins.”
I dropped to my knees beside the couch, studying her beautiful face. She had bruises on her neck and arms, her face free of markings. All the slices into her once beautiful skin made my heart ache.
“She needs water,” I told Damon.
Hands in his pockets, he bobbed his head. “I made Alex drink a bottle before she crashed.”
“She could use more. And something to eat. I’m going to wake her and make sure she’s okay. See if she needs a doctor.”
Damon snapped his fingers at his brothers. “Tell the chef to prepare one of everything for our guests. Get the girls in here with drinks for everyone. And a few bottles of water.”
I brushed Alex’s hair off her forehead and pressed my lips to her skin.
No matter what condition, I would always want her.
She was my girl from the moment I laid eyes on her.
Beautiful and pure, I had dreamed of all the ways I would break her.
But I never anticipated that she would change me.
I never expected her to make me feel again.
“Drea,” I whispered into her ear. “Wake up, baby girl.”
I stroked her cheek with my knuckles, and she stirred. She rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball.
“Luca,” she breathed with her eyes closed.
“Yeah, baby. It’s me.”
Her chest rose and fell quickly as if she were having a panic attack.
“You’re safe now,” I whispered. “I won’t let anyone touch you ever again.”
Her eyes were bloodshot and watery. “Luca,” she sobbed. “Luca, they…”
She couldn’t even get the words out.
“I saw, baby.” I swiped her hair behind her ears. “I know what they did. They will pay. I promise.”
“I want to do it,” she muttered.
“Do what?”
“I want to kill them.”
I tipped my head back and laughed.
“I’m serious,” she fired back.
“You need to eat something first. Can you sit up?”
She propped herself up on her elbow, her eyes on me. I gripped her shoulders to help her, and she groaned as if my touch branded her skin.
“What hurts, baby?”
“Everything.” She slumped against the couch, then shoved the blanket from her thighs.
My mouth fell open at the sight of her skin.
It looked much worse than what I saw in the video from Cal.
She had deep cuts starting at her inner thighs, the gashes long and bloody, spanning down to the ankles.
She had black and blue marks around her wrists from the restraints.
I lifted her shirt to appraise the bruises covering her ribs and stomach.
“Jesus,” Marcello said from behind us. “That fucking bastard.”
“You’re seeing a doctor,” I told her. “Your ribs are so bruised you might have broken them. At the very least, you need X-rays and bloodwork.” She frowned as our eyes met. “It’s non-negotiable. I can’t have you dying on me in your sleep from internal bleeding.”
She lay her head on the couch. “I’ll survive, Luca.”
“For now, maybe. It’s not up for debate. You’re seeing a doctor when we get home.”
“You’ll get your revenge, Alex,” Marcello said calmly. “We tracked down Cal’s men. It won’t be long before we have Cal, too.”
She looked up at him. “Is Cal the one with the skull tattoo?”
He nodded.
“He’s mine,” she said in a murderous tone that thrilled me.
Marcello dropped to his knees beside the couch. “Whatever you want, princess.”
She leaned forward, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek. “You saved me again.”
“It was a team effort,” Marcello said as he released his grip on her. “Luca, the Knights, Alpha Command, my cousins, the Irish… Everyone helped get you off that island.”
She kissed his cheek again. “Thank you.” Then she turned to me and kissed my lips. “Thank you for saving me, Luca.”
“Any time.”
“There better not be another time,” she groaned.
“Never,” I promised. “Just promise not to run again.”
“I won’t.” Alex glanced around the room. “Where is Rhiannon? She came here with me.”
“Down the hall,” Damon interjected. “Those assholes pumped her full of drugs.”
Alex turned to look at Marcello and whispered, “You killed someone for her?”
He sighed. “What did she tell you?”
“You have a history with her. And that I know a different version of you than she does.”
“You do,” he said hesitantly because it was the truth.
“Who did you kill?”
“Not now,” Marcello grunted.
She nodded. “She said you ditched her for me.”
Marcello bit his cheek and looked away from Alex.
“It’s true. Isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Yeah. But it’s not what you think.”
“You like Rhiannon, don’t you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you in pain?” I asked Alex to distract her from Marcello’s drama with Rhiannon.
No one knew about their past. We didn’t need to spill our darkest secrets to my cousins. They were family, but we couldn’t trust anyone. The man Marcello killed to protect Rhiannon was too important to overlook.
Alex glanced at her cuts and bruises and nodded. “I think what hurts me most is knowing I did this to myself. That I could have prevented this from happening.”
“This isn’t your fault, baby. It’s mine.” I cupped her cheek with my hand. “You never should have been in this position. I fucked up.”
Marcello pushed himself up from the floor. “I’m going to check on Rhi.”
I nodded.
Alex held my gaze, looking as if she were seconds from passing out again. “I’m mad at you and Aiden for keeping secrets from me. I wouldn’t have left the house if you two hadn’t conspired against me.”
“We didn’t conspire,” I promised. “Just let me explain everything after you’ve had time to decompress.”
“Do you have any idea what it was like for me? That asshole held me down, slapped me around, and cut me until I passed out. And when he wasn’t doing that, his goons drugged me. They left me chained to the floor in some nasty room on a dirty mattress with nothing to eat.”
“Food and water are coming.” I took her hands between mine and kissed her skin. “I’m sorry, Drea. I fucked up. I shouldn’t have pushed you away last year. If I could go back and change everything, I would. So would Aiden. We thought keeping you out of the loop was best for all of us.”
“Best for who? It wasn’t the best decision for me. I spent close to a year mourning my twin brother, wondering if he was dead. And all this time, he lived in our old Devil’s Creek house as if nothing had ever happened.”
“That’s not true. A lot has happened.”
A tear fell from her eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “Why did you hide my brother from me?”
A few topless strippers appeared with plates of food for Alex. They set them on the table beside us and left the room. Damon had a thing for strippers, creating his harem with the girls who worked for him.
“You need to eat.” I fisted the burger and held it in front of her mouth. “Open up.”
“So that’s how it’s going to go, huh? You still won’t tell me why you and Aiden deceived me?”
“C’mon, baby,” I groaned. “Eat, and I will tell you everything when we get home.”
She sank her teeth into the burger like a good girl.