Chapter Two
Luca
Staying in that room for another second, I was going to scream. I need to be doing something, anything, to feel like I’m helping to find Damian, and sleeping will just get in the way…that’s if I could have even fallen asleep.
The quietness throughout this place is unnerving as I walk to the front of the house…well, the funeral home.
When you're here, the feeling of being watched never stops. The ghosts of those who have passed through still roam this place. Especially the ones that no one even knew departed from here in a fiery end.
Heading to the front door, I look to the right and see The Hall of Remembrance.
Tonight, there isn’t any arrangement, the telltale sign they don’t have a funeral in the morning.
As I walk past, flashes of my mother’s funeral play like a movie, skipping parts, but seeing her lifeless, cancer-ridden body lying in her pearly white coffin, looking nothing like the woman I grew up knowing.
Riddled with sickness and losing her baby girl was etched on every surface of her face at the end.
Having to be a man and watch my father mourn another one of his girls.
He couldn’t even come to her funeral, when all I wanted to do was scream and pull my mother out of her casket, hold her as she once held me. But I just sat there, stoic.
“Fuck,” I exhale as I step onto the porch, shaking the thoughts from my mind.
Running my hands down my beard, wanting to pull at it.
I close my eyes and listen to the night around me, needing to clear my mom and Lauren from my mind.
I need only Damian to take up residence right now.
He is my main priority. He’s still alive; they aren’t.
The darkness calls me, and I walk into it. Surrounded by the dead, I feel more alive than ever. Tonight, it could have gone way worse; I could have lost Rowan. So, I count my blessings for that. She has changed me in ways I never thought possible and given me a reason to be.
As I walk through the cemetery, I try mentally to strategize my plan. We know who has him, but we need to know where. Where do they have Damian?
Touching the screen on my phone, the light illuminates the darkness surrounding me, calling forth the bugs.
Sending a mass text to the guys, I type, *Find every address that is linked to Briggs. I don’t give a fuck who lives there now. We’re going to search it, even if we have to tie motherfuckers up.
I don’t wait for any replies as I pocket my cell and continue my walk around the cemetery. This is not where my mother is buried. We had her cremated, and my father now carries her ashes with him…wherever he is.
I only speak to my father every few months, if that.
It’s a few words and then nothing until the next call.
I’ve tried to find him, but he is the man who taught me all I know, so I won’t find him until he wants to be found.
It pisses me off, but I know that is what he needed to do.
Even if the only place I want him is here.
A mental checklist is forming. I need to find a place for Rowan to be safe. And I guess now is the time to show her my land and house. A place no one knew existed. Only Lauren and Damian.
I built my forever home on the land Lauren is now scattered across. Where our tree sits. The same tree that is tattooed on my back. That home was supposed to be where I retired, but Rowan is more important than anything, and that’s the one place I know she’ll be safe.
Deciding this evening, I’ll take her there after the guys and I formulate a plan.
I don’t want her around anything that can go haywire, even though she thinks she should be right in the middle of everything.
She did what she needed to do with the tomb, and J.C.
Colt and Grant. She got the ending she so deserved. Now it’s time I keep her safe.
Rowan is feisty, hardheaded, and stuck in her ways, but if I have to tie her ass up, she isn’t involving herself in any of this anymore.
It’s time we finally ended this once and for all.
I don’t even want to know how many cups of coffee I’ve had while sitting in the kitchen waiting for everyone to wake up. My nerves feel like there is static running through them.
Turning my coffee cup in circles, I hear a noise in the hallway. Pausing, leaning my head back, I watch as Niko strolls in. He stops abruptly when he spots me, not expecting anyone to be in here.
“Good morning,” I mutter to him.
Niko isn’t anything like Matteo. Where Matteo is brooding, Niko is death. His eyes stare right through you.
Instead of giving me a word back, he just grunts as he walks to the coffeepot.
The chair scrapes before he sits down across from me, not pausing as he sips down the hot coffee.
I can’t help the face I make, knowing he’s burning his taste buds off with each sip.
Niko and I speak only when we need to. Other than that, I do business with Matteo.
I’m surprised when he talks to me.
“I had Catherine write addresses to go look at. It took some convincing, and with a little force, she gave them up.” He smiles, and it makes my stomach queasy. I don’t even want to know what he had to do to get the addresses.
I don’t like Catherine for what she did to Rowan and everything else she lives by, but…
no, he can do whatever he wants. An eye for an eye.
There are no buts about it, Luca, I chastise myself.
Feeling sorry for a woman like that isn’t in our wheelhouse.
For Rowan, Lauren, and every other woman who came before them. She deserves whatever Niko does to her.
“Thank you.” I reach out, taking the paper. Her handwriting is messy, but still legible.
As I read the addresses, none are ones we didn’t know about.
“This is it?” I question him as I read them over, hoping a new one will magically appear.
“Yeah,” Niko says gruffly.
All I can do is nod my head. This piece of paper is trash—nothing new, nothing to help us in finding Damian.
“Thanks,” comes out more curt than I mean. Clearing my throat, I’m interrupted by Niko.
“We’ll find him.” He leaves me with those parting words as he pushes back his chair and exits the kitchen.
Exhaling loudly, I down the rest of my coffee, pushing myself back from the table; my body needs to be doing something. The restlessness pulsing through it unnerves me.
Exiting the back door of the funeral home, I take off running. The cool morning air fills my lungs as I inhale. The dew morning throws scents of moss and dirt. I run around the cemetery, to the gate, back up, and to the crematorium and back again, over and over.
No words ricochet around my mind, only pictures.
Pictures of Damian when he was just a kid, as he climbed the tree with Lauren.
Watching him grow. The broken boy he was the night he knocked on my door, needing a reason to stay alive.
The man he has turned into now, and that’s the picture I keep replaying.
He still has so much more life to live. So much.
Reaching the back of the funeral home, I see her. Rowan stands waiting for me, the sun shining down on her like an angel. My angel of mercy. Before I even make it to her, her arms are outstretched, beckoning me to her. I fall into them. Falling to my knees, and she follows.
“Shhh.” She rubs the top of my head, smoothing my hair back.
My breath hitches. “I can’t lose him. I can’t,” I break. The tears come, and here I am, a grown-ass man on my knees, holding my woman as I cry for the brother that I’m scared I’ll never see again. I’ve already lost too many; I can’t lose him.
She doesn’t speak, only lends me her strength as I catch my breath.
Finally getting myself together, I look up and see the concern on her face as she watches me. “I’m okay,” I promise her, diverting my eyes.
“Don’t.” She grabs my face, forcing me to look at her.
“I don’t need you to tell me words you think I want to hear, Luca.
You’re not okay, and that’s okay.” She smiles softly at me.
“Cry, scream, and fucking lose it,” she shakes my face, “but once you’re composed, then it’s time to make a plan to find Damian. ”
All I can do is nod.
“Come, let's get you cleaned up.” She stands, holding out her hands as if she could pull me up, but I placate her. We don’t speak as she leads me through the halls and to our room; me following her and never letting go of her hand. My fingers rub over her scarred and torn skin.
“Undress.” She calls over her shoulder as she enters the bathroom, leaving me standing in the bedroom.
My hands work as if they're controlled by someone else as I get undressed and head into the bathroom, where Rowan stands, naked and beautiful. Her body is something I’ll worship for the rest of my life and thereafter. Her dark nipples pebble up with just my stare.
She turns and steps into the glass shower, and I follow.
The warm water eases the pain running through my legs.
I watch silently as she soaps up a rag, the scent mingling with the steam. Mint. Breathing deeply, I feel like I can finally breathe. She begins cleaning my neck, leaving suds in her wake as she trails down my body, washing me clean. Slow and easy. Taking extra care of every inch of my skin.
Her eyes trace my tattoos as she cleans my arms. I know she’s still mesmerized by all the hidden names. Still finding new ones.
My dick has a mind of its own and is hard as a rock, just from her bathing me. Even though getting off is the last thing on my mind, my body reacts to Rowan like kryptonite.
My eyes stalk her as she drops the rag, lathers her hands, and gently grabs my cock, a small smile on those perfect lips, eyes locked on mine.
“Fuck,” I groan out, while she tightens her hold. Moving up and down my shaft.
“Got to make sure this is good and clean,” she jokes with me as she speeds up.
My eyes roll back, and my arm reaches blindly out to find the wall, needing to hold myself up.
“We're going to get you clean, get you off, and then it’s time for Luca the killer to get to work.” She has an eyebrow raised when I open my eyes to look at her.
All I can do is nod. She knows what she’s doing to me as she speeds up her tempo.
“Just like that,” I praise her.
She moves to the side, letting the sprayer wash the soap from my dick. I watch her with so much love when she gets on her knees, her hand still stroking me as she opens her mouth, tongue out to take my cum.
That’s my undoing.
My moan bounces around the shower as I cum down her throat and watch as she drinks me down. So fucking sexy.
She smiles up at me as she swallows and stands. Not caring that she just had my cum in her mouth, I seal her mouth to mine, and our tongues dance. Tasting myself on her.
I grab her by the ass, lifting her body, she moans into my mouth, while automatically snaking her legs around my waist, trapping her between the shower wall and myself.
My dick is still hard, needing no time to wake back up, as I sink into her tight pussy.
Her moan is loud and primal as I fill and stretch her.
I pound into her, her back hitting the wall, making her noises come out in spurts.
“Harder,” she pleads, but I keep my tempo the same, not wanting to hurt her.
Her pussy tightens around my cock, and I know my baby is fixing to get off. The thing about Rowan and me is that we’re addicted to each other. There is no need to be primed and ready when her body is so willing to welcome me.
“Come for me, Killer.” I bite her earlobe and grunt with each thrust.
“Oh, God,” she sings as I feel her pussy pulsate around my dick.
“That’s it. Good girl, take it all,” I urge her on, wanting her to take every bit of my cum in her. Marking her only for me. I long to be forever entwined with her in ways that her belly will swell with my own.
Slowly putting her on her feet, her eyes half hooded, her face red, and her smile big, I keep that thought to myself.
One day I’ll tell her, just not right now.
Now I need to get into the mindset of burning everything down until I find Damian.
It’s time to bring him home, but first, I need to take my woman home.