Chapter 49 Chiara
Chiara
Luka’s on edge. He’s chatting, flirting, like he always does. A cheeky smile here, and some muscle flexing there. But it’s all surface level. He’s playing a role. One he hates.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to see how much he despises being on display, like a pretty but vacuous Ken doll. I suppose it’s part of being a model slash influencer. Still, he’s a real person with actual feelings, and the way these bitches are pawing at him makes me sick.
It’s pretty fucking obvious they see him as a hot piece of ass, nothing more.
I spot a woman in a power suit who I assume is Luka’s manager, Nolene. She stands back watching him while tapping away on a phone. Is she really on board with this? I have to assume so. Luka is her asset. A valuable asset. One that earns her a shit ton of money in commission.
There's a brand partnership he told me about; one with the high-end watches. I asked Fina about it. She told me he’s being paid a seven-figure sum over a two-year period.
The Di Rossis are worth billions, so a million or two is pocket change for him, but for Nolene? A deal like that is serious money for her. She won’t want the fans inconvenienced, which means she’s happy to stand by and let them sexually assault him.
I understand how parasocial relationships work. It’s all part of being in the public eye. But Nolene can get fucked if she thinks I’m biting my tongue while my man’s being groped by thirsty bitches who should know better.
And yeah, he is my man, even if he’s been off the radar for the last week. I’m still hurt about it, but having seen what’s happening here tonight, I suspect he’s stayed away because he’s ashamed.
Luka’s a people pleaser at heart. He lacks self-esteem for some stupid reason, even though he’s gorgeous and intelligent and the sort of guy every woman needs in her life.
With me, he often lets me take the lead, so I bet with a strong older woman calling the shots, he naturally submits, even if it’s not what he wants.
As I watch him with these bitches, my fury simmering away like a volcano about to blow, an older woman touches his abs. He flinches. Not obviously, but it’s obvious to me.
Kane is still behind me, but when I check if he's paying attention, he’s talking to Angelo. My mind made up, I stride forward before either of them can stop me.
Luka sees me coming. From the way he avoids my eyes, he’s mortified.
But he needn’t be. I don’t blame him for this.
He might be tall, hot, and catnip to all females over the age of eighteen, but he’s not a fucking slab of prime rib.
These bitches might not have read the memo yet, but there’s a thing called consent, and I’m pretty sure Luka hasn’t agreed to being pawed and groped in a public space.
“Isn’t he divine?” One bitch slides her fingers inside Luka’s waistband. He freezes like a deer caught in a hunter’s scope. From the glazed look in his eyes, he’s close to shutting down.
I recognize that expression. Trauma has many triggers. For me, it’s a whiff of stale sweat that sends me back to a cramped truck cab where a rough hand forced my thighs apart.
The bitch trying to touch my man’s dick goes down hard when I punch her in the tit. The other women jump away immediately.
“Back the fuck off,” I hiss as one of them pulls her phone out. Nolene hustles over, caught between horror and fury.
“Ladies, I’m so sorry about this.”
“We paid for VIP access!” the woman on the floor cries, still clutching her fake boob. I half-wonder if her implant’s ruptured, then decide I don’t care.
“VIP access doesn’t mean you get permission to fucking sexually assault him!”
Luka’s hand touches my waist.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“And as for you,” I snarl, turning on Nolene.
She’s vibrating with anger as the women congregate and mutter about refunds and lawsuits.
Bring it on, bitches. If any of them want to file a fucking lawsuit, I’ll let Kane handle it.
Pretty sure he’d make it go away. “You should be protecting him, not standing around while women grope him!”
Nolene sniffs. “He’s paid good money for fan meet-and-greet VIP events.
“Meet and greet?” My blood boils with righteous anger.
I see Kane striding toward me out of the corner of my eye and realize I have about five seconds to wrap this up before he tears me away.
“Meet and greet doesn’t mean they get to touch his dick, Nolene.
” I pause. “Unless you’re pimping him out, which as I’m sure you are aware, is illegal. ”
Nolene almost chokes at the suggestion she’s pimping out her client.
“Consider yourself sacked,” I add.
“Excuse me?” she hisses. “You can’t sack me!”
“Kitten, are you causing trouble?” Kane’s husky voice rolls over me like a warm summer breeze, and some of my anger fades. “Do I need to hurt someone on your behalf?” His hand rests on my lower back, spreading delicious heat through my bones.
Some of the hovering women check him out, and I growl. Kane chuckles.
“Calm down, kitten.”
Turning back to Nolene, I say, “I have the authority to sack you. If you have a problem with that, speak to my husband.” Angelo has finally noticed I’m the instigator of this small but vocal scene. Needless to say, he’s mid-coronary.
Nolene glances at Angelo and does a risk assessment. She’s not stupid. Like everyone in this room, she knows who Angelo is, and also his connection to Luka. No doubt she figured Angelo wouldn’t care much about Luka, given the background to their relationship. But that was her first mistake.
Angelo and Luka aren’t close, but I know for a fact Angelo does care about Luka, even if he isn’t happy about my relationship with his brother. Blood is always thicker than water, and Angelo won’t stand by and let Luka be taken advantage of.
Her second mistake was thinking she could manipulate Luka while I’m here.
Not fucking happening.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer on Monday,” she snaps before storming off. I watch her leave while hoping her skyscraper heels snag on a loose tile and she suffers an unsurvivable brain injury. Sadly, that doesn’t happen.
The woman I punched in the tit mutters something about a personal injury lawsuit.
“Go fuck yourself, bitch,” is my pithy response.
Luka smiles.
“You didn’t have to intervene,” Luka tells me once we’re back in the car minus Angelo, who was waylaid by an investor he needed to talk to.
Kane steers us back into the slow-moving downtown traffic. There’s a country music station on, but his eyes catch mine in the mirror, so I know he’s listening to Luka and me.
“Does that happen a lot?”
There’s a pause before Luka nods. “Yeah. The older fans are feral.”
“And Nolene hasn’t thought to put security in place when you do ‘meet and greets’?”
Luka shrugs. “She says it’s part of the gig. The fans pay for access, and I have to be available.”
“Just because you post thirst traps online doesn’t make you their bitch, Luka,” I point out. His quiet acceptance of the situation annoys me. Luka isn’t a shy ingenue. He’s a flirty, confident guy with a long list of conquests under his belt.
He shrugs again and stares out of the window as we pass hotels, stores, and bars. It makes me sad. The life of a carefree twenty-something is out of reach for me.
“What triggered you?” I ask when it’s obvious Luka doesn’t want to talk about it.
He tenses, but I’m not letting this go.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” Burying bad things only makes the poison fester. I should know.
The car slows at a busy intersection. Kane turns the music up as Patsy Cline sings about falling to pieces.
“When I was sixteen, there was a party at my friend Jacob’s house.
” Luka’s voice is barely above a whisper when he begins his story.
He doesn’t want me to hear this. “Just a few of us, drinking and goofing off. We raided his dad’s tequila and got absolutely hammered.
I fell asleep on the sofa. The others left me there and went to bed.
“It was still dark when I woke up, so the middle of the night. Nancy, Jacob’s mom, was sitting next to me, and she had her hand down my pants.
I froze. I really wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t move.
It shouldn’t have been a shock, really. I kind of knew Nancy had a thing for me. She’d not exactly been subtle about it.
“All summer, she’d paraded around in bikinis and shit.
I mean, I was a teenage boy, horny as fuck, so it was flattering, yeah?
She was kinda hot. But this? This felt wrong.
So fucking wrong. She hadn’t asked if I wanted it, and honestly, I fucking didn’t.
After drinking all that tequila, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.
Anyway, there was a noise from upstairs, and she left.
I waited until I knew she wasn’t coming back, and then I stumbled outside and walked home.
” He sucks in a shaky breath while his fist clenches.
“Tonight, when that woman stuck her hand down my pants, it took me right back there. I felt like a teenager again. Powerless.”
“She was a fucking pedophile, Luka.” Martina McBride’s "Concrete Angel" comes on.
“I should have shoved her away,” Luka says. “Said no. Yelled or something.”
“Luka, it wasn’t your fault. She was the adult, and she shouldn’t have crossed that line.” Kane meets my eye in the rearview mirror again. He’s heard everything, and from the tight clench of his jaw, he’s fucking homicidal. Like me.
I’m half tempted to get this woman’s address and go pay her a visit. There have to be some benefits to being married to a mobster, right?
I figure the family must have an efficient system for disposing of corpses.
Luka says nothing more, but he lets me hold his hand all the way back to the mansion.
“What the fuck?” Luka’s mouth gapes at the sight of Coco yapping her little heart out. “Has Angelo been to the shelter again?” Again?
“Coco is my dog from before, when I lived at my father’s house. Fina found her for me.”
“Cute little rat dog.”
Luka eyeballs Coco. She ceases yapping long enough to sniff his leg. The two of them have a standoff before she settles at my feet.
“My dog isn’t a rat!” I glare at Luka’s blatant insult, but he just smirks in return.
Kane rolls his eyes and pulls a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. He pours two glasses and slides one over the counter to Luka. I narrow my eyes at being excluded from the drinks party, but he ignores my pout.
“No alcohol, kitten. Not until you stop needing pain relief.”
“Pain relief?” Luka spins around and frowns.
“Why would you need pain relief?” He must not have heard about the near-accident, which makes me feel better.
In my head, his lack of contact meant he didn’t care.
Rational me knows that’s my insecurities talking, but that bitch refuses to shut up sometimes.
“We got ambushed on the way back from the city by assailants unknown,” Kane tells him. “The car ended up pretty beaten up, so Chiara’s had some neck pain. Nothing serious.”
I shrug, eager to minimize any impending meltdown from Luka. He has his own trauma to deal with.
“I’m fine. The massage Kane gave me helped.”
At the mention of a massage, Luka’s eyebrows shoot right up to his hairline, and his worried expression morphs into amusement as he gives Kane some serious side-eye.
“Does my brother know you’ve added masseuse to your job description?”
Kane grunts. “Nope. You gonna tell him?”
I stare longingly at the bottle of whiskey that’s just within reach. Some alcohol would help cool my embarrassment. Even though I have nothing to be embarrassed about, I don’t want Luka to think any less of me. Which is ridiculous given he’s had women all over him tonight.
Since I went to great lengths to reassure him he had no reason to be ashamed, why would I shame myself when Kane and I are both adults and I’m not in a monogamous relationship with Luka?
My cheeks heat despite my motivational pep talk to myself, so I hustle over to the refrigerator to search for snacks. Coco has decided Luka isn’t worthy of her attention and has gone to lie in her bed by the fireplace, even though there is no actual fire.
The cool air blasting from the refrigerator helps to cool my cheeks. After a few pointless minutes staring at condiment bottles, I close the door.
Luka’s busy winding Kane up about what Angelo’s going to say if he finds out Kane gave me a massage, but Kane gives no shits.
“Angelo and I have an agreement.” He swallows the rest of his whiskey and refills the glass. I’m gratified to see Luka’s mood has lifted since the debacle at the gala, but I have a feeling he’s using this discussion to deflect attention away from his own mess.
“An agreement? About alternative therapies?”
“No.” Kane slants a sideways glance at me before sighing.
“About women we decide we both want.”