56. Luca
56
LUCA
“Where the fuck is she?” I slammed Enzo against the wall, my worry for my future wife overcoming my ability to have a rational conversation.
The woman I intended to spend the rest of my life with had walked out the door while I slept, and she hadn’t come back.
“If you’d let me the fuck go, I could fucking tell you,” he snarled back at me.
“Why doesn’t she have her phone?” I pointed my finger at the tracking app. “Whose apartment is this? Where the fuck is my wife? ”
“Your wife?” Enzo spat, his lips twisting up in amusement. “Did you grow some balls and ask her to marry you when I wasn’t paying attention? Last I heard, I don’t owe you a fucking thing.”
“Where is she?” I growled, drawing my gun, ignoring the busy thoroughfare, uncaring if anyone saw me. I stepped back, loosening my hold but keeping my gun trained on his chest.
“She’s with Boris Tchérnov.”
I couldn’t identify the emotion that washed over me, leaving me numb, unable to think or feel.
“And if you fuck this up, Rochefort’s mother and Angelo’s father will die,” Enzo continued, “and her sacrifice will be for fucking nothing .”
Her sacrifice. Ana, you brave, sweet woman, putting others’ needs above your own even now, even after three men promised to give you everything and swore we’d protect you.
“Is she—is she okay?” Was he treating her like she deserved to be treated, is what I wanted to ask.
Enzo snorted. “She blew up his boat, and he’s been chasing her for revenge ever since. I don’t think okay even comes into it. She’s agreed to marry him in exchange for freeing the two captives.”
“And how do we stop that?”
Enzo lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, peering at the gun aimed at his chest with contempt. “We don’t.”
That couldn’t be true. There had to be an out. A way we could prevent her from throwing her life away. She’d left me once, and I would never allow her to do so again.
Enzo watched the expressions that crossed my face with sympathy. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your invitation to the wedding. Along with every other major family in Yorkfield.”
“Fucking traitor,” I growled. “You’ve been working for Tchérnov this whole time.”
To my shock, he laughed. “You fucking idiot. Gio Costa was an asshole who didn’t care about anything but making himself rich. Angelo is an asshole too. He doesn’t care about an empire—he cares about his ego. But Ana? Ana would do anything to protect the people she’s responsible for. She might be a stupid slut who’ll spread her legs for any man who’ll give her a little attention, but she’s the heir to the Costa empire. That might mean nothing to you Russos, but for me, it’s everything.”
“And this is what Ana wants?”
“What the fuck do I care if it’s what she wants?” He gently pressed down on the muzzle of the gun until it pointed at the ground. “She gave me my orders, and I’m going to follow them to the letter.” His face softened. “She didn’t take out her chip.”
“I know,” I whispered, despairing as I called up the app on my phone that would show her location. My future wife. Boris Tchérnov’s fiancée now. I traced my thumb over the red dot, then holstered my gun. “What now?”
“Call off her dogs,” Enzo said quietly. “She wants peace this week.”
“Peace?”
Enzo poked his tongue against the side of his cheek, the first sign he disagreed with his mistress. “She wants to show Yorkfield that this alliance doesn’t mean war.”
Angelo didn’t pick up when I called.
Valentin did.
“She traded herself for your mother,” I said, not bothering to soften the blow.
“ Elle a fait quoi ? ” She did what?
“She’s going to marry Boris Tchérnov in a week.”
The silence on the other end of the line matched my shock.
“She chose him,” he said—a pronouncement, not a question. “Because she doesn’t trust us to get our families back and protect her at the same time.”
No. This wasn’t about Ana’s trust. It’d never been about trust. It was about her fucking heart, and I’d been too stupid to see it.
“It’s because we told her she was going to marry me last night,” I said, certainty threading through me. “I fucking should have?—”
I was as big a coward last night as I’d been the first time I’d let her slip through my fingers.
“Instead of telling her I loved her, I told her that marrying her would bring peace, would bring our empires together,” I said.
“It will,” Valentin said.
“But she doesn’t care about that. All Ana’s ever wanted was to be loved for who she is, not what she is, and—” my voice broke. I had the opportunity to tell her that I loved her, and instead, I offered her safety in exchange for her freedom.
Fuck.
“We have to get her back,” he said finally, his voice cracking, the first sign of weakness he’d shown since I met him. “ Merde , Angelo’s calling me.” Valentin hung up.
The sympathy in Enzo’s gaze gutted me. “I’ll send you an invitation to the wedding,” he said softly. “Tchérnov wants to make a splash to humiliate Valentin and Angelo. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”
“You’re in touch with her?” I asked, hating how fucking desperate I sounded. “I, fuck, I need to know if she’s okay.”
Enzo scoffed but wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Accardi,” I growled. “You fucking owe me. Your brother?—”
“I’m not Sergio,” he snapped. “And I don’t owe you shit. But I will tell you that she doesn’t want you to interfere. And if that means stopping you from fucking up her plan, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
My phone vibrated, and when I looked up again, Enzo was climbing back into his SUV.
I held the phone to accept the video call. Valentin and Angelo’s faces filled the screen. Rapidly, I explained what Enzo had told me.
Angelo’s face went utterly blank, all the feral emotion I was used to seeing cross his eyes disappearing into the coldest expression I’d ever seen. “Boris is a dead man.”