17. Dangerous Calm
DANGEROUS CALM
RILEY
Ava checked the zipper on her backpack three times as we walked through the quiet courtyard of Ma's senior living community.
"It has my headphones, my lavender roller, and the shell book," she said.
"And your snack."
"And my snack," she confirmed, adjusting both straps until they sat evenly on her shoulders.
Ma was waiting just inside the common room, silver hair pinned loosely back and an ocean puzzle already spread across a nearby table.
"There's my favorite girl."
Ava's face brightened. "You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time."
Ma's gaze moved to me and stalled. For one uneasy second, she searched my face before recognition warmed her own.
"Riley," she said warmly. "You brought her."
"I did. Just for the morning."
A staff member nearby gave me a reassuring nod as Ava crossed to the puzzle. We had arranged for someone to remain close in case Ma became disoriented, though Ava's steady routines often seemed to settle her better than anything else could.
"You remembered the ocean one," Ava said.
Ma tapped her temple. "I remember the important things."
The words sat heavy behind my ribs.
I crouched beside Ava and checked the clasp on her sensory bracelet. "Luca and I will be back in a little bit."
"I know." She fitted a blue piece along the puzzle's edge. "Nonna and I have plans."
"Very serious plans," Ma agreed.
Leaving Ava here felt easier than leaving her almost anywhere else. She loved the community's quiet rhythm, and Ma grew steadier when Ava gave her something simple and immediate to focus on.
By the time I reached the resort ballroom, the crowd was already roaring. Jax hadn't even stepped onto the scale.
He came through the curtain shirtless, grinning into a phone while one of his entourage filmed the livestream. Camera flashes burst across the room. Sponsor banners framed the stage, and the air-conditioning had already surrendered to too many bodies and the Miami heat.
The crowd roared before Jax even stepped onto the scale.
"Look who finally showed up," Jax announced, swinging the phone toward Luca. "The retired legend himself."
Luca stood at the opposite end of the platform in black athletic shorts and a fitted T-shirt, arms loose at his sides. To anyone else, he probably looked bored.
I knew better.
I stood beside Bianca near the media barricade, clutching a clipboard I hadn't checked in five minutes. Luca's gaze stayed fixed on Jax, unreadable, but a muscle flickered near his temple.
Jax climbed onto the scale and spread his arms.
"Two hundred and six pounds of prime violence." He glanced at the display. "Tell Santoro to take notes. Man's been living on bedtime snacks and domestic bliss."
Laughter rolled through the room.
Someone shouted, "Dad bod!"
Jax pointed toward the voice. "Exactly. Somebody's been carb-loading on bedtime snacks and emotional stability."
The chant started in one corner, half joke and half bloodlust.
"Dad bod! Dad bod!"
Heat crawled beneath my collar despite the cold air overhead. Luca had agreed to appear at the promotional weigh-in, not be baited into a circus. But every microphone shifted toward him as he approached the scale.
Jax turned the phone between them. "Anything to say, champ?"
Luca pulled off his shirt.
The room detonated.
There was nothing soft or domesticated about him.
His chest and stomach were carved hard beneath the lights, old scars cutting through the ink that swept across his chest and wrapped both arms. I recognized every tattoo—the ones I'd traced with my eyes, and the ones I'd touched with far less restraint.
The same arms that carried Ava upstairs when she fell asleep had once made grown men bleed beneath arena lights.
My stomach tightened for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.
Luca stepped onto the scale. The numbers settled.
"Two hundred and four," the announcer called.
Jax whistled. "Lost weight. Chasing a nanny around must be good cardio."
My fingers tightened around the clipboard. If he knew exactly how little chasing Luca had needed to do, his livestream might combust.
Luca stepped down and took the offered microphone. For one suspended second, his eyes found mine through the cameras and raised phones.
Then he looked at Jax.
"I'm here for the resort," he said evenly. "Not you."
The crowd booed, delighted by the refusal almost as much as they would have loved a threat.
Jax leaned closer, smile widening. "Keep telling yourself that."
Luca handed back the microphone.
He didn't shove him. Didn't answer. Didn't blink.
But as he walked off the platform, I saw his right hand curl once at his side. The old fighter had heard every word.
Luca disappeared behind the sponsor backdrop before the chant had fully died.
I pushed through the cluster of reporters after him, ignoring Bianca calling my name. The hallway beyond the ballroom was quieter, but not quiet enough. Applause and laughter still leaked through the walls, muffled and ugly.
"Luca."
He kept walking.
His shoulders were rigid beneath the T-shirt he had dragged back on, each step clipped and controlled. I caught up near the service elevators and reached for his arm, then stopped before touching him.
"Hey."
"I'm fine."
Two words. Flat. Final.
The elevator doors opened, but he didn't get in. He stood there staring at the empty car until they slid shut again.
"That looked very fine," I said.
His jaw tightened.
I should have left it alone. He had done exactly what everyone needed him to do. He hadn't taken the bait. He hadn't given Jax the headline he wanted.
But restraint didn't mean the anger was gone. It just meant Luca had locked it somewhere behind his ribs.
"He mentioned me to get a reaction," I said quietly.
"I know."
"And it worked."
His gaze snapped to mine.
Not loud. Not wild. Somehow worse.
"I didn't do anything."
"I didn't say you did."
"You were thinking it."
I folded my arms, more to steady myself than challenge him. "I was thinking you looked like you wanted to put him through the stage."
A humorless breath left him. "That obvious?"
"To me."
Something shifted in his face, the hard edge cracking just enough to let me see the man beneath it. The father who checked Ava's locks twice every night. The fighter who still knew exactly where to place his hands to hurt someone.
He turned away and braced both palms against the wall.
"I hate men like him," he said. "The kind who think every woman is something they can use to get under another man's skin."
My throat tightened. "I can handle Jax."
"I know you can."
His answer came too fast, sharpened by something older than this hallway.
He pushed away from the wall and finally looked at me. "That doesn't mean I have to like him saying your name."
The air between us changed.
The anger was still there, but now it had heat tangled through it, something possessive he hadn't meant to show.
I stepped closer. "Then don't give him what he wants tonight."
Luca's eyes dropped to my mouth for one dangerous second.
"He's not the one I'm worried about," he said.
Behind us, the ballroom erupted again, and Luca never took his eyes off me.
By ten that night, the rooftop had become a living thing.
Music pounded through the pool deck hard enough to vibrate the stems of the champagne flutes.
Blue light rippled across the water. Guests packed the space shoulder to shoulder, glossy and overheated, shouting over the DJ while servers threaded between them with trays of liquor that emptied faster than we could replace them.
Ava was asleep at the house, and Donny had volunteered to stay with her so I could work the sponsor party from start to finish.
He had waved off my thanks like it was nothing, but it hadn't felt like nothing.
He understood what tonight meant to me, and the fact that Luca's brother was willing to protect the quiet parts of their family so I could chase something of my own settled warmly beneath all the pressure.
I moved through it all with my headset pressed to one ear, smiling at sponsors, checking tables, fixing problems before anyone important noticed they existed.
"Security at the east entrance is down to two," Bianca said through the comms. "One of the guards got pulled to the lobby."
"Why?"
"Victor requested it."
Of course he had.
Across the deck, Victor stood beside a cluster of sports reporters, laughing too loudly as one of his assistants angled them toward the best view of the sponsor wall. Jax lingered nearby with a drink in each hand and three phones pointed at him.
Nothing about it felt accidental.
"Get the guard back," I said. "We're over capacity."
"I already asked."
"And?"
A pause. "Victor overruled me."
I stopped beside a high-top table before the irritation reached my face. The event was supposed to celebrate the resort's relaunch and Luca's involvement. Instead, Victor's people were feeding reporters drinks, nudging Jax toward cameras, and stripping security from the exact places we needed it.
"Riley."
Luca's voice came from behind me.
I turned. He had changed into a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. Calm again, at least from a distance. Up close, I caught the way his eyes kept sweeping the crowd.
"You've been circling the deck for twenty minutes," he said.
"I'm working."
"You're hunting problems."
"Same thing tonight."
His hand settled at my waist as a group squeezed past us. The touch was brief, practical, but it pulled my attention straight to him.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Victor cut security and invited half the media in Miami."
Luca looked toward the reporters. "He wants something to happen."
"So do they."
Jax raised a glass in our direction, grin slow and ugly. Luca's hand fell away from me.
"Stay near Bianca," he said.
I stared at him. "That sounded suspiciously like an order."
"It was a request."
"With your command voice."
His mouth almost softened. "Humor me."
Before I could answer, my headset crackled.
"Riley, we've got a vendor issue at the west bar. Now."