Chapter 2
Two
Ashton
Luca had to be an asshole, toss me out of his car, right in front of the cabin where we were supposed to be surveilling the place.
My fingers are frozen. My jacket isn’t nearly warm enough for this asinine weather.
Turns out, he saved my ass by kicking me out.
Am I ready to thank him?
Not quite.
Am I going to let the bastards beat the shit out of him a little longer?
Yes, but only because I don’t have a great plan to take them all out.
I have one gun, but there are way more men, and while I’ve trained through the years, I haven’t actually had any combat experience.
I grab my phone from my pocket. There’s no reception. I wander deeper into the woods behind the cabin in hopes of gaining a signal.
My phone shows one bar and then nothing. I keep wandering, my footprints leaving an impression in the sludgy snow, and I walk the same path back toward the cabin.
I fire off a brief text to Dante.
Luca captured at cabin. Send reinforcements.
If these men don’t find and kill me, Dante will when he discovers they’ve touched his son.
He’s not a forgiving man.
There’s no immediate response. The text shows that it’s trying to send but fails.
Fuck me.
I have one weapon, a gun that Moreno handed me when Luca wasn’t around. I might be able to take out one or two of the men, but there were at least four that I counted, or was it five? I can’t be certain there aren’t any additional men inside, either.
I creep closer to the cabin, and my phone buzzes.
I glance down at the screen lighting up.
Nova is calling me.
I answer in a whisper, “Can’t talk now. I need you to call Dante. We’re in some serious shit. He needs to send backup. Luca is in trouble.”
Nova is barely audible, her words cut in and out as she answers me, “What. I. Can. Hear. Me?”
Which means she probably can’t make out what I’m saying.
The call dies from lack of reception. I turn my phone on silent. I don’t even want the vibration buzzing and alerting the bastards that I’m coming inside.
One last glance at my texts and the one to Dante finally sent.
At least there’s hope.
I can’t wait for his men to show up. Luca might be dead by the time they get here.
I cock the safety off my gun and quietly sneak inside the main cabin door, careful not to let the door creak as I slip into the darkened foyer.
The cabin is crumbling at every crevice, and there’s no sign of Luca or the men who took him on the main floor. The cabin is one giant room, and then there’s a door, left open, dim lights shining along the stairwell.
The light makes it easier to see the shredded floorboards at my feet, and I try to quietly hurry to the stairs.
The walls around the steps are crumbling, the stairs themselves look in rough shape, and they groan from my weight.
I wince and stop moving, praying that no one heard me.
“You think you’re some tough guy because your father is Dante Ricci,” a gruff voice echoes from downstairs.
Luca coughs. I’m certain it’s him and at least I can breathe a sigh of relief that he’s alive, for now. “He’ll fucking kill you when he finds me down here.”
I give Luca credit for not cowering or begging the man for mercy.
There’s a dark, sinister laugh, and I quietly take the last of the steps, hiding behind the wall, doing my best to get an advantage on the men.
As soon as I take one of them out, the others will be on Luca in seconds.
Two men have guns in their hands, the metal glistening under the harsh lighting. The third man I can’t quite see, but I hear him as he pounds the shit out of Luca.
Fuck.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Luca laughs darkly, and with his attention on them, I sneak down into the basement and find cover behind a stack of boxes.
I have to crouch to avoid being spotted and shuffle along the side of the wall between the boxes and the narrow path, trying to get a better view of Luca without the men spotting me.
He’s hunched over, but his expression is emotionless.
Luca is well versed at hiding pain. But I know him, and I’ve seen that same expression on the ice when he pretends not to be suffering.
“Luca Ricci.” The man standing a few feet away in a flashy suit seems to be in charge. He peruses his phone, which must have a signal via satellite, and smiles. “Congratulations are in order. I see you’ve recently wed and have a son.”
My stomach drops at the mere mention of Harper and Zeke.
Luca takes a sharp breath, and I chance a glance at the two of them from around the boxes. I need Luca to recognize that I’m nearby if he’s going to help me fight off these men.
“If you so much as touch a hair on their heads—” Luca growls and begins to stand from the chair.
He’s not restrained, at least not physically.
The man who has been giving Luca a beating pulls back his fist. It glistens under the light: brass knuckles.
I lift my gun and take aim, firing off a shot at the man to Luca’s right, one of them who holds a gun. The other gun is poised on me, and while I have the momentary advantage, they’re just as quick, shooting two, no, three rounds at me.
Luca fights back, realizing that it’s his chance at escape. He wrestles the man with the brass knuckles, slamming his forehead into the man’s and knocking him momentarily off balance.
Another bullet whizzes by my head as I duck and am forced to follow the path around with one man shooting at me.
“Enough!” The man in charge lifts a hand to indicate for the carnage to end, but the other man doesn’t put down his gun. “Come out. We won’t kill you.”
Doubtful.
“I don’t take orders from you.” I keep my gun poised and lift my head enough to take a shot, hitting him square in the chest.
The armed man releases a spray of bullets, but they’re not anywhere close enough to hit me before he collapses onto the cement floor.
“You can come out of hiding. I have no need to kill you,” the man says. “I’m unarmed.”
I don’t believe him.
I keep my gun poised and hurry around toward Luca as he stands. The man who was wearing brass knuckles lies unconscious on the floor.
Nice one.
“I suggest you move your ass out of the way, or you’ll face my next bullet,” I threaten.
He smiles, holding his hands up. “Tell your old man, Don DeLuca says hello.”
The name doesn’t ring a bell. Is it supposed to? “I doubt my father gives a rat’s ass about you.”
“Not your father. His.” He points at Luca.
“DeLuca?” Luca rasps and clears his throat. “Gino is dead. Has been for decades.” He gets to his feet, quite a bit steadier than before.
“Not Gino. I’m not that old,” he says and smiles darkly. “Massimo.”
“Don’t know any Massimo,” Luca says, but the fact he knows any DeLucas at all has me all the more curious.
“Listen, I’m all for reunions, but we’re leaving. You’re not going to stop us unless you want a bullet in your head.” I usher Luca toward the stairs as Massimo walks backward toward the boxes.
I can’t help but wonder if he’s hiding a weapon, waiting to shoot us from behind. I let Luca lead the way while I keep my back to Luca, facing Massimo, gun trained on him while we head for the stairs.
A handful of boxes topple over, the contents of red and black lingerie tumbling out onto the floor.
Luca’s breath catches in his throat. “You’re trafficking women.”
Don DeLuca grins as Luca stops at the bottom stair.
“Keep moving,” I mutter under my breath. Now isn’t the time for him to get all noble.
“Women. Children.” Don DeLuca tilts his head with a sinister smile. “How about I make you an offer? The wife or the son. Which will you give me and you both can have your freedom?”
Luca brushes past me, charging at Massimo.
I should have fucking shot Don DeLuca when I had the opportunity. He was unarmed. I’m not a murderer.
But now, Luca has him by the neck, blocking his chest, making a kill shot difficult without risking that I’ll hit Ricci.
Massimo’s eyes widen as he coughs and chokes, Luca’s hands tightening around his throat.
Don DeLuca lands a brutal blow to Luca’s chest, where his ribs have taken a repeated beating, and his grip immediately slacks.
Luca doubles over, and I take the shot, firing off several rounds.
Luca is gasping for breath, grimacing, and I know he just needs a minute to recover, but we don’t have time.
“Get your ass up!” I grab him under the armpits, hoisting him to his feet.
He winces and groans.
“Upstairs. Now!” I shove him up the rickety staircase, and I skirt past Luca, opening the door, making sure we’re not about to be surrounded by more of DeLuca’s men.
There’s groaning in the basement. Sounds of men stirring. There’s at least one man who wasn’t shot, and while I got several rounds off on Don DeLuca, I’m not sure I killed him. My aim wasn’t what it should have been.
Adrenaline.
Anger.
Perhaps even a little bit of concern for Luca took precedence. I’ll keep that little bit of information to myself. No sense in boosting Luca’s ego.
“Get to the car.” I usher Luca outside. The wind whips at my face and stings my cheeks.
Luca shivers, and I open the door for him, practically shoving him inside the vehicle. I’m worried that he’s about to go into shock, or maybe he’s already there.
Gunshots fire from the forest behind the cabin.
“Shit,” I curse and duck, trying to avoid getting shot while hurrying to the driver’s side of the car. There’s broken glass on the seat, but I ignore it as I jump onto the seat. The keys are thankfully still in the ignition.
I put the car in drive and slam the gas. Their vehicle blocks the road, but I push it with Luca’s car, tapping it once, twice, and then letting it roll down the mountain.
“Fuck, yeah!”
“My phone,” Luca’s voice is rough, coarse.
I focus on the road, heading down the snowy one-lane path, the same way we came up. “I don’t know where your phone is. We’ll get you a new one.” It’s certainly not the biggest priority. I reach into my jacket and shove my phone into Luca’s hand. “Call Dante. He needs to know what we found.”
Luca grumbles. “Still no signal. And my phone is on the floor, by your feet.”
I glance down but don’t try to reach for it. “Yeah, it’s going to have to wait.”
I’m already cutting the curves of the road too close with the snowy mess under the tires. The last thing I want is to risk us sliding off the road because I’m reaching at the floorboards for his phone.
“There should be a signal when we reach the main road at the bottom of the mountain.”
Luca nods and wheezes.
I briefly glance at him. “You holding up okay?”
“Fine.” He grimaces, and I know that look. He’s in a hell of a lot of pain but trying to mask it.
“Do you need a hospital?” He’s not bleeding out, but I suspect he has several broken ribs. I’m just hoping there aren’t any other internal injuries.
“Don’t you dare. Just drive me back to Dante’s. I plan to have a few choice words with him.”
“Like, who is Don DeLuca?”
He grumbles and shifts uncomfortably in the front seat. “For starters. DeLuca’s my mother’s maiden name. But no one ever mentioned a Massimo.”
“Uncle? Brother? Cousin?” I start shooting off random guesses.
“I don’t fucking know,” Luca growls.
I’m cautious as we descend the mountain, keeping a lookout for any headlights coming up the road.
Nothing yet.
I’m not too concerned about traffic from the rear. We took care of that.
It’s after midnight. I would have expected more cars up at the cabin, but when we showed up, they must have called them off. I did notice Don DeLuca on his phone.
Luca flips through my phone, the dial pad lighting up. “And he threatened my family.”
I inhale sharply. I didn’t miss the threat to Harper or to Zeke. Does he plan on calling Harper at this hour? He’d only worry her.
“Well, I shot him. He’s dead.”
“Is he?” Luca glances at me. “You didn’t shoot him in the head. He was still breathing when we left him.”
I slam on the brakes, and the car skids toward the edge of the road.
“Fuck, Rinaldi. Do I need to drive?”
“I’ve got it.” I gently tap the gas. We’re only about half-way down the steep road. “We can turn around. I can make sure that he isn’t alive.”
“We’re not turning around. Not on this icy shit. Besides, do you remember being shot at when we were leaving?”
“Not something I can forget. Just trying to help. If he’s not dead, we’ll deal with him another day. Right now, we need to regroup and meet back up with Dante, let him know what the hell just went down.”
“He may already know. I tried texting him, and Nova called.”
“Nova?” Luca’s head turns, and I can feel the heat of his anger radiating off him. “Why is my sister calling you during an op?”
“She was probably calling to wish me a goodnight. It’s this thing we do, when we’re not together.
” The smile she brings to my face just thinking about her vanishes under Luca’s scrutiny.
“I tried telling her that we needed her to call Dante, but I don’t know that she heard any of it.
I could hear like every fifth word when she spoke to me. ”
“That’s sweet.” His tone is fueled with sarcasm and disgust. “You having a romantic conversation with my little sister while I’m getting the crap kicked out of me.”
“Nova called me,” I reiterate. “Not that it matters anymore. We need to get ahold of your father, let him know we were ambushed, attacked, and that if they were intending to send reinforcements, to call them off.”
“I’ll get right on that, as soon as we have a signal.” Luca is more than just a bit hostile.
I opt to ignore him. He’s the one who got his ass dragged out of the car and beaten. He’s allowed to be grumpy for one night.