Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LUCA
A faint buzzing rouses me, and I absently move my hand over my nightstand to find my phone. Renovations had taken all day, and I helped the volunteers until dark. My body is sore and screaming at me because of my efforts.
“Hello?” I rasp, sitting up on the edge of the bed, my feet touching the ice-cold floor to ground me.
“I need you to get to the address I texted you,” Ardesia says, his voice muffled by a car being driven at full speed in the background. He’s breathing heavily and sounds out of sorts.
“What’s happening?” I ask him, pulling my phone away from my face to see the time.
Three a.m.
“Luca, focus. I need you to pull the address and get there. Do you understand me?”
My head comes online, immediately worrying that something’s going on with Sloane.
My heart pounds in my chest. “Tell me she’s okay, Ardesia.”
“Luca, I can’t do that, as I don’t have eyes on her right now. I’m going as fast as I can. Please get to the address I sent, and you’ll have to take a leap of faith for me. I know it’s going to be hard. You might not return to the life you know or even the church.”
I swallow. He expects me to walk away from the church, not knowing if I will come back. Just like that?
My soul feels like it’s shattering into a million pieces that are all flying in an infinite number of directions.
“I know this is hard, but I know you’re falling for her. And sometimes, love is bigger than us, Luca. Sometimes, love is the answer to everything.”
I get that; I do. But I’m supposed to love many, not just one. I’m supposed to safeguard and lead my parishioners, not leave them when it suits me.
This is a moral dilemma of epic proportions, and he’s giving me no time to consider my options.
“I—”
He cuts me off, “Sloane. Luca, it’s Sloane.”
Before I can fathom another option, I’m putting him on speakerphone, getting clothes on, and slipping into boots.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“See you there.” The line goes dead as Ardesia’s mission is over.
Getting into my car and starting it, I look into the rearview mirror at the looming church behind me. Swallowing past a lump in my throat, I turn the mirror upward as I back out. The address Ardesia sent is only on the outskirts of Brooklyn, and at this time, it won’t take me long to get there because the streets are nearly empty.
Racing there, my nerves tangle into a dark web, my brain concocting many scenarios for me to worry about.
By the time I get there, I’m a mess of emotions.
I park near no less than ten blacked-out SUVs in the parking lot of an old, run-down warehouse, rushing inside without a logical thought in my head.
“Good, you’re here,” Ardesia says, rushing me and putting his hands on my shoulders, but I spy Sloane over his left one and push past him.
She’s on the ground, tucked into herself, and rocking back and forth absently. She’s covered in blood.
“Oh, my God.” I run to her, dropping to my knees before her and lifting her arms and shirt to find the source of the blood. “Little dove, are you alright?”
She looks towards me, her eyes vacant and glassed-over, like she’s being held hostage in a nightmare. One she keeps living over and over as punishment for some untold sin.
“It’s not her blood,” Ardesia says, coming up behind me as he looms over Sloane and me.
“Whose is it?” I ask, not knowing if I want to know the answer, but needing it all the same.
“Lorenzo.”
My brows tug together. “Your Underboss?”
What was his underboss doing with Sloane?
He nods once. “He’s been swapping out with Dante to give him a break from watching her.”
Part of me wants to say that Lorenzo is too high on the food chain for him to be watching some girl, but Sloane isn’t just some girl to me, so I keep my lips sealed.
“He’s the best qualified,” Ardesia adds.
“Is he alright?” I ask.
Ardesia motions toward the hanging plastic sheet covering a doorway to my left. “He’s with the surgeon now. We should know soon, I think.”
Sloane continues rocking. “He saved me. Even after he was struck, he saved me.”
I look at her, grabbing her hands and clenching them.
“You saved him,” Ardesia tells her, crouching beside me to look at her. “Look at me, Sloane,” he adds gruffly.
It seems to be what she needs, and she snaps to attention, eyes clearing of fog as she meets Ardesia’s eyes.
“You saved him. You were selfless and brave, and he wouldn’t have had a chance without you,” he says softly, touching her knee.
She nods; the knowledge seems to break something in her, and she cries.
“He was so scared,” she tells me through the tears, and I move to sit beside her, tugging her into my lap and letting her burrow into me.
The scent of Lorenzo’s blood is overwhelming, but I endure.
“What happened?” I ask Ardesia.
“Barone made a move on some of Brynne’s men she had stationed surrounding Sloane’s apartment. She wanted a perimeter around her, and lucky we had one, or the move would’ve been them coming straight through the front door unannounced. The perimeter gave Lorenzo a window to get her out.”
“But left him with a bullet lodged in him, I assume?” I ask, guilt settling into me that this is all my fault. If I had kept my wits and hands to myself, Lorenzo wouldn’t have been at Sloane’s place. Fuck, Sloane wouldn’t have been at her place. She’d have been safely tucked away in bed in the rectory.
“Don’t do that,” Ardesia says. “There’s no blame here. This is our life.”
“This isn’t my life,” I grind out, feeling bad for having said it in Sloane’s presence.
I hold her tighter, scenting her perfume through the fog of blood.
“It is now,” he replies.
“What’s our next move?” I ask him.
“We’re moving you both to an undisclosed safe house. She said she won’t go without you, and I knew you’d agree with her, so once Lorenzo is secure, I’m taking you myself.”
“Well, we can’t… I can’t… I have the church and…”
“Figure it out. Get on the phone with whomever you need to, step down, and do what you must. I don’t care what argument you’re still having with yourself, Luca. I know how you feel about the girl, and I know you want her safe.”
I swallow down a lump of pride and nasty words that won’t help my situation, holding Sloane tighter against me.
“Please,” she whispers, and I nearly buckle from the shake in her voice.
“I’ll handle it.”
Two hours later, Sloane is getting cleaned up with Brynne in the back, and I’m on the phone with fellow clergy members. I find replacements for a sabbatical. The bishop agrees to grant it, and the clergy puts a schedule for fellow priests to take up duties at St. Andrews while I’m away.
Even though I don’t need to give the reason for my sabbatical, I know that when I return from this leave of absence, I might be a man so forever changed in his DNA that my next step is leaving the Catholic church altogether.
When I get back inside, Sloane is listening to Ardesia whisper something to her and Brynne, her hands wringing in front of her. I take up at her side, splaying a hand on the small of her back. She shifts into me as if it’s where she belongs. Under my touch. Next to me.
“Can I see him?” Sloane asks.
Ardesia nods. “He’s weak. But yes, he’s been asking for you.” The smile that spreads on the Grim Reaper’s face makes even my stomach turn in knots as he leads Sloane behind the plastic sheet. I follow, holding the sheet back for Brynne to go ahead of me.
Lorenzo is laid out on a metal table that looks like it’s meant for butchering, not surgery on a bloodied mafioso.
“Oh, God, look at you,” Sloane says, grabbing his hand and holding it to her lips. “Does it hurt awful?”
Lorenzo grins, blood staining his teeth. “I’ve had worse.”
“Please tell me that’s not true, and you’re only saying it because it’s what they say in the movies,” she replies.
Despite the obvious pain he’s in, Lorenzo laughs. “I wish I could, Ms. Sloane. Listen, I wanted to thank you. You broke protocol to save me. You’re the priority, not me. You showed me more about loyalty and love than I’ve ever been privy to before tonight. And you’re not even family. If I’m honest, you’ve renewed my faith in humanity.”
Sloane kisses his hand. “Of course, I had to save you. How would we finish watching Walking Dead if you’re six feet under?”
Lorenzo chuckles again, coughing a bit afterward. Sloane sits on the side of the slab, not caring that his blood is slippery on the metal still from the surgery.
“When all this is over, we’re going to finish the show, right?” she asks him, and I can’t understand why that’s important to her right now, with everything going on.
It occurs to me she might try to get him to make a pact with her so that he lives. Knowing that she has something to return to and finish when this is all over.
“Oh, absolutely, we’re going to finish, Ms. Sloane. You keep yourself safe, and I’ll get better, and we’ll meet at the end of this thing, yeah? But you have to promise me something,” he rasps.
She nods, tucking in closer. “Anything.”
“Don’t run from the priest again. Stay hidden with him until it’s all over, alright? Let us mafiosos do our job to get you safe again, hm?”
Sloane looks back at me, and it’s as if she’s registering that I’m here for the first time, even though I’d been holding her only an hour ago.
“I promise,” she says, turning back to Lorenzo.
It’s odd how quickly she’s integrated into this lifestyle, better than I ever could. Even when we were busting trafficking rings, and I was wavering in my faith, I never felt as solid in this life as she seemed to be as I watched her lean over and kiss Lorenzo’s forehead. Dante is at Lorenzo’s feet, and Sloane hugs him and whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh.
“Will do, Ms. Sloane.”
It’s like she belongs here with them.
And I can’t deny that being in this room with them feels like I’m with family. More so than I ever felt with my own.
It’s Sunday, which means I’ll need to call Mama and give her some excuse for not making our dinner again, as I did last week. And when John finds out I’m on sabbatical, I’ll never hear the end of it.
But as Sloane comes to my side and tucks into me, I instantly know it’s worth it.
Only three hours later, we’re sitting on a private plane, both our eyes front as the plane’s nose tips into the air for take off.
Neither of us has spoken since earlier when I was holding her as she cried.
And I don’t know what to say, either.
So I don’t say a word.
I grip her hand I’ve been holding for hours and stoically let her know I’m here.
I don’t know where we’re headed or what awaits us when we get there, but I know that we have people who care about us both back in New York, fighting for us to return to our lives and return to normal.
But a little voice in my head tells me nothing about our lives will be normal again after this.
Even if I want to ignore it, I know it’s right.
I can feel it in my gut.