44. Luca
44
LUCA
“What the fuck do you mean they’re shooting at the Cockatoo?” I snarled through the phone.
“How the fuck do you not have your own spies in the Costa organization yet?” Dmitri shot right back. “How come I have to be the one to tell you that Boris Tchérnov’s men are shooting at Ana Costa?”
“Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?” I answered, sliding into a pair of jeans before tucking a gun into the waistband. I grabbed a T-shirt and hunted around for my shoes in the dark, my heart pounding with worry.
“She’s on the move,” Dmitri said after a too long silence.
“How the fuck do you know?”
Dmitri laughed, the fucker. “Because I do have spies in the Costa organization. She’s not hurt, and she’s heading toward Valentin Rochefort’s apartment.”
I swore softly, then slipped out of the gate at the back of my parents’ compound. With both of my sisters gone, it made sense to help my father run his empire from here. But fuck , it was time for me to move out. Long since time, especially since Papà didn’t plan on handing the reins over anytime soon.
I waved off the men who looked at me quizzically as I swung onto the back of my Ducati, dressed far more casually than usual, even in my leathers, and after midnight. “A personal errand,” I murmured, indicating I didn’t want company. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going. Especially my father.
The wind beat against my leather jacket, roaring in my ears and clearing my head. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I had to see Ana, had to know she was safe.
Fuck!
She had to be. This was my fucking fault. I let her slip through my fingers. If I’d had the courage to tell her how I felt, if I’d stood up to my father?—
Who the fuck was I kidding?
I couldn’t tell my father now, and I couldn’t have told him then.
I parked my bike two blocks from Valentin’s building. My father wasn’t above tracking my movements, and I didn’t want him to know. He couldn’t know about Ana and my obsession with the beautiful woman whose father had ruined my family over and over and over again.
I waved at the camera outside of the service entrance, then rapped hard on the door. When a night guard opened it, I grabbed him by the throat then knocked his head against the wall, leaving him unconscious. I dragged him into the stairwell, and then entered the building.
Shit security. They should know better.
I followed a resident into the elevator and hit the penthouse floor. It didn’t light up. Shit.
“You need a resident card to get up there,” the man beside me said. I looked him over, noting his polo shirt and khakis, the way his shoulders slumped, even though he was built like he went to the gym—a civilian.
“I’m trying to surprise my girl,” I said sheepishly. “She just moved in with her uncle. Maybe you know him? Valentin Rochefort.”
“Oh yeah, I think I saw her in the lobby this morning.”
“Blonde hair, green eyes, looks like a princess?”
“And legs for fucking days.” The man grinned lasciviously. Ana had better appreciate that I didn’t knock his fucking teeth out for looking at what wasn’t his.
“Luca,” I said, sticking out my hand with a smile that bared my teeth.
“Chad,” he said. Of course he was a fucking Chad. “I can get you to the twentieth floor, and then there’s a service stairwell that’ll take you up to the penthouse. But you’ll have to get past the bodyguards on your own.”
“Thanks, man.”
He swiped his card, pressed the button, then stepped out on the next floor. “Good luck, buddy.”
Yeah, fuck you. Moments later, as promised, I exited the service stairwell on the penthouse level. The bodyguards on either side of the door immediately drew their weapons. Good fucking thing. Security up to this point had been a joke, and I hated the idea of Ana sitting up here, defenseless.
I put my hands up because I wanted to see her, not to die.
“Luca Russo,” I said. “I’ve got a gun in a shoulder holster under my jacket.”
One of the bodyguards approached me, gun pointed at my head, while the other kept his aimed at me from his place at the door.
“Hands on your head,” one of them barked.
I obeyed, and the man closest to me yanked the gun out of my holster.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
“Checking on Ana.” I kept my hands glued to the top of my head.
“Does Valentin know that?”
I scoffed. “He’s pretty fucking busy right now, but sure, go ahead and ask.”
The bodyguards exchanged a long look.
I softened my expression. “Or ask Ana.”
“Your funeral.” He shrugged and pressed the doorbell.
“Who is it?” Ana’s disembodied voice crackled through the speaker.
“Luca Russo is here to see you.”
Her silence breaks my heart all over again. “He can’t come in,” she says, finally. “But?—”
I strode up to the speaker. “Baby, are you okay?”
Her bitter laugh cut through me. “As fine as I can be.”
Longing filled me, and I slid my hand up the door, imagining her doing the same, as if I could touch her through the walls between us. “Please, baby, let me in. I just need to see that you’re okay with my own eyes.”
“I promised Valentin I wouldn’t let anyone in but him and Angelo,” she whispered.
“Since when do you listen to an order like that?”
“Since—” She cut herself off.
“Ana,” I said softly. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right? That hasn’t changed. I promise.”
“I know, Luca.” Her voice came through the door rather than the speaker, like she was sitting on the floor, leaning against it.
I did the same, sliding my back down the wall and camping out on the carpeted floor of the hallway.
“Did you get shot?” I asked her. Fucking hell, this was the first time we’d spoken since the airport, and instead of telling her I missed her, that my life was empty without her, I was asking bullshit questions like this.
“Just a scrape on my arm,” she answered. “I’ve already bandaged it.”
“How bad?” I was sick to the stomach at the thought of Ana in danger. I should have been there. I should have told her how I felt and found a way to keep her here and keep her safe. I should have done anything other than let her walk out of my life and let that asshole Angelo Costa dictate the terms of our relationship.
“Valentin’s done worse.” I thought she muttered, and I sat up straight.
“What the fuck? Ana! Don’t sit there and tell me you’re okay if he’s hurting you.”
Ana’s low laugh hit me deep in the gut. “Mind your fucking business, Russo. You don’t have any right to me, my body, or my life.”
“I know you were engaged to Grégoire Tchérnov,” I said softly.
“I’m—”
I interrupted her before she could continue. “I know it wasn’t your choice, and I’m sorry I didn’t give you a reason to trust me with your secrets.”
We sat in silence for long moments.
“I don’t like the idea of you waiting at home alone, in danger.”
“Our families have been at war for a long time. I don’t think you have any right to be worried about my safety.”
“You were in a shootout,” I said quietly. “Yeah, I’m fucking worried about you. And I’ll fucking worry until Angelo Costa and Valentin Rochefort walk through this door and promise to guard your life with their own.”
“That’s what they did,” she said. “That’s how I got out. And I?—”
Her voice broke, and I wanted to take her in my arms and wipe the ache away more than anything else in the world.
“I need them to come home,” she admitted. “And I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“However you feel, I’m not going to judge you. I’m here, and I’ll wait with you.”
I thought I heard a sniffle followed by a sigh.
The bodyguards looked down at me like I was a damn fool. Maybe I was. But they didn’t ask me to leave.
It was past three in the morning before Angelo and Valentin stumbled out of the elevator, soaked in blood. Valentin’s arm draped over Angelo’s shoulder, Angelo supporting his weight.
“Baby, they’re here,” I murmured. “I’m going to stand up and help, all right?”
I sprang to my feet and shoved my shoulder under Valentin’s other arm. He grunted but didn’t say a word. Angelo glared at me but said nothing as Valentin stumbled between us.
Angelo swiped a card and opened the door to the apartment. Ana met my eyes, dressed like a fucking princess. I stepped toward her, unable to resist the siren call of touching her. Fuck, I’d missed this woman so goddamned much.
Angelo turned to me as Valentin staggered into the apartment. “Tomorrow. Ten. Your office at the port.” He slammed the door in my face.
Fuck!
I scrubbed my face, then stormed to the elevator.
Fine.
Tomorrow.