Chapter 96
LUCA
Alex painted on the floor in my mother’s studio.
She lay on her stomach with her butt in the air, the paintbrush gliding across the canvas.
I loved watching her work. Apart from being inside her, there was nothing better in this world.
She looked so free and in her element. My mother had the same look when she painted, as if nothing mattered while creating another masterpiece.
“Stop staring at me,” Alex said with a sexy smile.
“It’s what I do best.”
She pointed at the plush armchair beside her. “Sit or leave. Make your choice.”
I laughed at her feistiness. No one but Alex could ever tell me what to do and get away with it.
“We both know who is in charge of this relationship. But I hear marriages take compromise to work.”
“They do.” She sat up with her palms on her thighs. “So you better learn how to share the power in this relationship.”
I smirked. “Okay, baby. Whatever you want.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”
“I’m just happy to have you back.”
“I missed you, too,” she confessed. “There were brief moments when I thought I would never see you again. And my first thought was that I wished I had told you how much I love you.”
I leaned forward and held her gaze. “I said it before they kidnapped you. But I was drunk and out of my mind after seeing you with Marcello. I don’t think I understood my true feelings. I just knew I wanted to possess you. That I could never let you go.”
“Because you love me.” A smile stretched the corners of her mouth. “I always knew you loved me, but I never thought you could say the words.”
“What binds us will destroy us.”
“Our love,” she whispered. “Losing it would destroy us. See, you knew even before you could say the words.”
I rolled my shoulders against the chair. “I love watching you paint. Get back to work, baby girl.”
She shook her head, and her curls fell into her eyes, forcing her to shove them away. “When we’re in this studio, I’m the boss.”
“Okay. I can work with that. But in the bedroom, you know your place.”
“I like it when you dominate me.” She rolled a paintbrush between her fingers. “So boss away when we’re in bed.”
I tipped my head toward the canvas on the floor. “What are you working on?”
She glanced at the sketchpad beside the canvas and handed me the book. “A new series. I’m calling it The Devil’s Knights.”
“Babe, it’s called a secret society for a reason.”
“No one will know the truth behind the paintings. Just look at my sketches before you tell me no.”
I glanced at the page. She drew a group of men wearing hoods and long cloaks, their faces blacked out. The man at the center of the group had eyes that shone various shades of red and orange, while the others had X marks over their eyes.
“This is incredible. What gave you this idea?”
“When you woke me up on the DeLucas boat, and I looked over and saw you and the men who helped bring me home, I realized you might be the Devil, but all of you protected me. And this Queen needs her Knights.”
I nodded in agreement, then pointed my finger at the page. “Why did you cross out their eyes?”
“For anonymity.”
“So why are my eyes different?”
She laughed. “Who says that’s you?”
“Please, Drea. We both know the man at the center of this sketch is me. I’m in every one of your paintings. The Devil You Know, The Devil You Hate…”
“The Devil I Love,” she added. “I plan to reveal that painting at my show next month.”
I handed back the sketchbook. “Let me see it.”
“It’s a surprise. Think of it as a delayed wedding gift.”
“I’m buying it. Don’t even try to stop me.”
“Nope.” She pressed her lips together. “I made one just for you, so don’t you think about it.”
“I want the original.”
“The one I painted for you is for your eyes only.”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “Sounds kinky.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “It’s more suggestive than my usual work. We can hang it in our bedroom.”
“I want it now.”
“Good things come to those who wait, Mr. Salvatore.”
“I want to meet all the Knights.”
“You’ve met them.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to meet all of them—every Knight in the country. I want to know everything there is to know about the Knights. I was thinking about your mom earlier. I sat in front of her self-portrait and conversed with her.”
“Crazy and beautiful,” I joked. “I guess I can’t get one without the other.”
She chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’ve never talked to her after she died.”
“Yeah, but it’s different. She was my mother. I knew her.”
“I have always felt like I know her. Her art speaks to me. The way a song would be for others. I don’t need to hear her words to understand her feelings.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I looked at the pieces she created while she was dating your dad and after she married him. And now that I know what she went through to be with him, I can see she embraced being the Queen of the Knights. And I will, too. I told her she’d always given me the strength to be with you.
I also told her I would take good care of you. ”
My eyes stung from her confession. “She would have loved you.”
She pressed her lips to mine. “I love you, Luca. I want to be your wife and your Queen.”
My cell phone rang. She pulled back with a groan as I reached into my pocket.
I raised the phone to my ear. “Yes?”
“Grab your brothers and meet me in my office,” my dad said, hanging up without another word.
I shoved the phone into my jacket pocket. “Duty calls,” I told her.
“Will you be gone long?”
“I don’t know, baby. I’m just going downstairs to talk to my dad and brothers. Dom is outside the room. I’ll send him in after I leave. He won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You don’t have to fear for my safety inside this house. We have more protection than the president.”
I slid my hand beneath her chin and tilted her head until our eyes met. “No matter where you go, a target will always be on your back. People will want to hurt you just to hurt me. But I will keep you safe.”
I sat in the chair across from my father with a glass of scotch in my hand. He puffed on a cigar, the plume of smoke filling his office. Marcello sat on my left while Bastian and Damian took their usual places on my right side.
My dad flicked the ash into the tray on the coffee table. “The auction ended last week.”
“So,” I shot back. “That’s the end.”
“Rumors are going around that the Salvatores make deals they can’t keep.”
“I don’t care who won the auction,” I snapped. “We never made a deal with Kurti to sell Alex. I’m not handing over my wife for some sicko to torture.”
“There are strict rules about auctions,” my father intoned. “You know the rules, Luca.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the rules. Alex is mine!”
“I’m not disputing that, son. I am just reminding you that the worst has yet to come. I spoke with our business associates. They will overlook this mistake since Alex was never for sale. But the man who won the auction expects Alexandrea to be delivered to him this week.”
“We should have won.” I blew out a deep breath, attempting to steady my nerves. “Or, at the very least, one of our associates.”
“Well, we didn’t.” He took another puff, the smoke gathering around his head. “So now, we have more problems to deal with.”
I leaned forward, my hands folded in front of me. “Who won?”
His jaw ticked as our eyes met. “A man they call The Carver.”
“I’ve heard of him.” I set my glass on the table, thinking over my next move. “So that’s why Kurti mutilated Alex’s body. To make her more attractive to the right buyer.”
My father nodded.
Until now, I hadn’t understood why Cal would ruin the merchandise. Was there more to the story? Did the owners of Il Circo rig the auction so The Carver would win?
“No one knows the identity of The Carver,” Dad said sternly, his expression hard as stone. “Until recently, I thought he was a myth.”
“He will come for Alex,” I said with certainty.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to stop him without gathering more intel.”
“So we’ll get some,” I shot back.
“The Carver is a ghost,” he challenged. “I’ve spoken to my friend at the CIA, and they have nothing more than a dark picture of a man they suspect is The Carver.”
I held out my hand, teeth clenched. “So let’s see it.”
“It’s of no use to us,” he said dismissively. “Just a shadow.”
“We’re not in the business of human trafficking,” I countered. “But maybe one of our Sicilian friends could help us track him down. He must have been working with Cal to have an interest in Alex.”
My family dealt with a lot of illegal shit, everything from drugs and guns to colluding with terrorist organizations to take over countries. Still, we had a hard rule about human trafficking. We never wanted to get into that shit, and I never would.
My dad sighed. “There’s one more thing.” His eyes moved from Marcello and me to Damian and Bastian. “The Carver is a known associate of The Lucaya Group.”
Damian’s nostrils flared as Bastian shot up from the chair, enraged by the announcement.
“They killed our parents,” Bastian yelled. “And you’re telling me the same people bought Alex?”
“Yes.”
Bastian moved in front of my father, his eyes wild. “You promised us revenge for our parents. We handed over our claim to Atlantic Airlines for your connections. Damian and I have waited twenty years to get close to The Lucaya Group.”
“I have every intention of following through on our agreement,” he assured an insane Bastian.
“We’re not backing down from The Carver.” He hovered above my dad’s chair, so angry he spat as he spoke. “You promised you would find these bastards. This is our chance.”
My dad clenched his fist on the arm of the chair, holding Bastian’s fiery gaze.
“They’re also the same people who have tried to steal Battle Industries’ artificial intelligence software.
Drake is in danger. So, is anyone connected to his current projects?
This is a precarious time for all of us.
It’s not just Alexandrea’s life that is in danger.
You will get everything I promised you, Bastian.
” He pointed his finger across the room.
“Now, take your seat and let me finish.”
Bastian stepped back, his eyes wandering around the room as if it had just hit him that his outburst was unnecessary and aimed at the wrong person.
My family took Bastian and Damian when they had nothing left but their parents’ airline company.
Dad gave them a home and a family and welcomed them into The Devil’s Knights.
“Sorry,” Bastian said as he loosened his tie.
“It’s okay, son.” He tipped his head toward the couch. “Sit down.” Dad shook his head as Bastian sat on the sofa, unhappy with him. “As I said, the man is a ghost. To find him, we need to bring him to us.”
“I’m not letting you use Alex as bait,” I announced with authority. “No fucking way. She may never fully recover from the shit the Albanians put her through.”
“We can torture the information out of Kurti’s men,” Marcello suggested with an evil grin.
“The Knights stashed Kurti’s known associates at a safe house in Beacon Bay,” Damian added. “Might as well get something out of them before we send them back to Hell in a body bag.”
My father was worried about an enemy for the first time, which shook me to the core. I could read it in his face and see it in his body language. He feared no one.
But The Carver troubled him.
The Lucaya Group vanished from the map nearly twenty years ago, with only a few random appearances. Once they disappeared, they were untraceable. Considered the best in the business, they were a terrorist organization funded by the deepest pockets in the world.
“Get Drake on the phone,” I told Marcello. “See if he can dig up intel on The Carver on the Dark Web. Someone has to be talking about the auction.”
He nodded, then removed his phone from his pocket. His fingers glided across the keys as I looked across the table at my father.
“This complicates matters,” I told my dad. “But I’m not canceling my wedding. If The Carver wants Alex, let him come. He won’t get near her.”
“We can use the wedding to lure him out of hiding,” he suggested. “Someone like The Carver won’t be able to resist the challenge of stealing the bride on her wedding day.”
A shiver ran down my arms. The thought of losing Alex again, and on our wedding day, of all days, made me sick to my stomach. No one would lay a hand on her. I made a promise to her that I intended to keep. If The Carver wanted Alex, he would have to go through The Devil’s Knights.