Chapter 25
SOPHIA
He told me he looked for me in every woman after me. What does that mean? Was it just a fever dream, something he said when he thought he was dying?
It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. I can’t let it mean anything, because I’m already on the verge of falling in love with this man. This man who kidnapped me. Who gave me Rosa.
I’m conflicted, and him being injured isn’t helping.
“He’s out,” Diego says, relief in his voice.
“Should we wake him? He—”
Diego shakes his head. “No. Let him rest. He’s been through a lot. I’ll keep watch.”
He walks out of the door and the sound of the deadbolt clicking reminds me that Diego still doesn’t trust me. That Luca doesn’t, either, despite what he said.
I bite my lip, looking down at Luca. I start to get up from sitting on the edge of the bed and Luca grabs my wrist, pulling me back down.
“Stay,” he mumbles, barely coherent.
I can’t say no to him, not like this, not when I just stitched him up with a belt between his teeth. I climb into bed next to him, curling up close.
He puts an arm around me, pressing his lips to my temple, and fresh tears stream down my face.
He’s not just a mobster. What no dossier could ever tell me is that Luca Rossi is a man, too, maybe a good man. Maybe the type of man I want.
I can’t think that way, especially not now. Especially when he’s lying injured and vulnerable next to me. I still need to formulate a plan to get out of here, but the idea of using this upset, this rift, for my own good makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Luca is fighting for his life in more ways than one, and all I can think about is getting back to Rosa. She needs me, but I’m starting to realize maybe he does, too.
No, the voice of reason in the back of my head protests. No, he kidnapped you.
And he did. But what choice did he have? I am lying to him, telling him I’m no longer a cop, telling him that Scott’s dead when he’s very much alive.
I put my head on Luca’s chest, listening to his heart beat. It’s too fast at first but it evens out as he drifts into sleep, and I let the sound of it relax me.
I don’t even know I’ve dozed off until the bed starts to shake and I realize Luca is trying to get up. I grunt, pushing him back down in bed.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I ask, exasperated, and he blinks at me.
“To work,” he barks, but when he tries to get up again he winces and I push him back down again, hands on his chest.
“Stop it. You were nearly killed less than twenty-four hours ago. You have to wait for the medic.”
“Charlie will take his sweet time getting here,” he mutters. “I’d be better off going to him.”
I shove at his chest a third time, determined.
“You’re not getting out of this bed until you see the medic.”
“What right do you have to boss me around?”
He gets up again and I throw up my arms, defeated.
“Fine, but if you fall on your face don’t come crying to me. You’re going to rip out your stitches.”
Luca grunts, swinging his legs to the side of the bed. He’s already winded.
I frown at him, crossing my arms. “You could take it easy for just a few hours, you know. Just wait for the medic.”
He groans low in his chest, almost a growl, but his grumpiness doesn’t scare me. I know he won’t hurt me. Not physically, anyway. He could always say something cruel again, but I think I’m developing a thicker skin as time goes by.
“Fine. I’ll stay.”
I smirk. “Is it because you can’t get up?”
He glares at me. “Only partially.”
Luca gingerly lies back down and I huff as the deadbolt clicks open. Diego walks in with another man, a ginger, probably Charlie.
“What have you done to yourself now, man?” Charlie asks, loud and boisterous and I can’t help but smile. I like him already.
“It’s just a scratch.”
“It’s a gunshot wound,” Diego pipes up and Luca’s glare does nothing to stop him. “But the bullet was through and through. On his side.”
“I stitched it up, but I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit.
“She did okay,” Diego says, and it’s probably the most praise I’m ever going to get from him.
Charlie walks closer to the bed, and he hisses as he lifts the sheet up to see the jagged wound. The edges are closed together and it’s no longer weeping blood.
“She did do okay,” he says, sounding almost impressed, and I can’t help but be proud. “Wound seems clean. No infection setting in. I’ll have to pull the stitches in a couple of days. What’d you use, fishing wire?”
Diego nods.
Charlie hums. “That’s good enough. I’ll come back and check in a couple days. I’ll give you a few painkillers—”
“Give them to her.” Luca jerks his head toward me.
“Me?” I put my hand to my chest. “But I—”
But Charlie is already pressing a few pills into my hand.
“No more than one every four hours, okay?” he chirps, and looks at Diego. Diego pulls out his wallet, pressing a wad of cash into Charlie’s hand. “I’ll be back in two days. Until then, no driving.”
Luca curses under his breath but Diego looks determined.
“I won’t let him drive.”
If looks could kill, Diego would be dead on the floor. So would I. But as it is, Luca’s glare is useless. He knows me and Diego won’t let him rip his stitches.
Charlie examines the wound one more time then leaves, leaving Diego standing in the bedroom.
“Keep him still. I’ll make some breakfast.”
Luca grumbles but doesn’t try to move and I nod as Diego leaves, locking the deadbolt behind him.
“Now you’re locked in here with me,” I tease, some part of me liking the idea of him being stuck here with me. Now he will know how bored I’ve been. “Are you in pain?”
“Some.”
“Take one of these.” I hand it to him with a half-full glass of water I keep by the bed.
He swallows it down easily enough and I smile.
“See? Wasn’t that hard, was it?”
“Don’t you start being Nurse Nightingale.”
“What, you wouldn’t want to see me in a little nurse’s uniform?” I shake my ass and his eyes follow with a spark of interest. He reaches out to grab me around the waist, but I dart away. “No funny business. You’ll pop a stitch.”
“You could always sit on my face,” he drawls, and heat travels up my body, settling in my lower stomach.
“What would you get out of that?”
“More than you know, pixie,” he says, smirking at me, and I roll my eyes but I’m also fighting a smile.
He can be so…different. Fun, actually. Just like he was that one night all those years ago. That night that gave me Rosa.
It’s hard to reconcile the smiling man on my bed with the murderer from the dossier.
That’s why I’ve been so confused. It isn’t because I’m in love with him…is it?
It can’t be.
I can’t even think about it too long.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
I freeze. “I think they’re worth more than a penny.”
“Maybe. Depends on what you’re willing to tell me.”
I sigh. “What do you want to know?”
I have to give him something. I just pray he doesn’t ask me about work, about my dead partner…
“Who was that guy who came to pick you up?”
I blink at him. After all that, that’s what he wants to know?
“I told you. He’s just some guy.”
“Some guy. Likely story,” he grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest, looking for all the world like a petulant boy instead of a scary mobster.
“A friend, okay? Not a boyfriend.”
“So you’re single?”
“Last time I checked,” I drawl, and I can’t help but notice the dimple in his cheek when he smiles at me.
God, he can be so handsome when he wants to be. Who am I kidding? He’s always handsome, but it’s times like this, when he looks almost boyish, that make my heart do backflips in my chest.
“That’s really all you want to know?”
“No. I want to know what else you know. What the cops know. What’s my dossier say?”
I rattle off some of the juvenile records the dossier shows, and he seems surprised.
“Thought those were sealed.”
“Not to the Chicago P.D,” I say, with some amount of pride in my voice, but it’s not the pride I once had.
“And you left? Willingly?”
“After my partner died, nobody wanted me on the beat anymore,” I say flatly. Because I can imagine that if I had lost Scott, nobody would want to be around me. He was probably the second most important person in my life, next to Rosa.
“And what about him?”
I pause. “What about him?”
“Was he your…you know,” he says, like he can’t bear to say the word.
“My boyfriend? God no. Scott’s…he was gay.”
Luca barks out a laugh. “So you lost a friend and decided to give up your whole career? Doesn’t exactly sound like you, pixie.”
“And what do you know about me?” I ask, curious. “You said you looked for me.”
“I did. Didn’t even know your last name. I talked to some of the guys you arrested, though. They said you were a good cop. Fair.”
“Bianchi.”
“What?”
“My last name. It’s Bianchi.”
“So you are Italian.”
“I told you so,” I say with a pout, and Luca chuckles, his arms relaxing at his sides now. He seems about a hundred times more relaxed, and I feel like it probably has more to do with the pain medication than me.
“Diego says that you talk about your father a lot.”
“What else does Diego say about me?”
Luca’s green eyes shoot to mine. “Why do you care?”
I want to roll my eyes, but his obvious jealousy also makes me want to squeal like a schoolgirl, so I’m torn.
“Diego seems like a good guy. He’s your friend, right?”
“Damn straight.” He pauses. “My best friend.”
“I didn’t know mobsters had best friends.”
“We don’t. As a general rule. But I got lucky with Diego. Mama took him in after his parents took off.”
“They just left him? How old was he?”
“Fifteen? Something like that.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“We don’t all have pretty childhoods like you cops.”
I know he’s joking, but it makes me bristle anyway.
“I didn’t have a pretty childhood. Found my mother dead in her bed when I was ten years old.”
Luca swallows visibly. “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t know that, Sophia.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“And whose fault is that?” He looks at me curiously. “Wanted to take you to breakfast the next morning, you know. Thought I’d show you around the city.”
“You mean…you wanted to see me again? After that night?”
He nods. “Of course I did. But you were just…gone. I even went to the precinct hoping you’d show up, but you didn’t.”
I think back. I took a few days off after that night, feeling ashamed of myself for having a one-night stand with a potential mobster. I didn’t know exactly who Luca was then, but I knew he was probably a criminal, and I slept with him anyway.
“So you were raised by your dad?” When I nod he hums in the back of his throat. “Me too.”
“But you don’t get along with your father?”
“It’s not that we don’t get along. We see eye to eye on most issues. He’s just always favored Nico.”
“Your little brother.”
“One and the same.” He pauses again, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “What do the dossiers say about Nico?”
I hesitate and he frowns, sitting up into a sitting position instead of lying prone on the bed.
“Not much.” That much is true. Nico’s dossier is just his arrest record—which is impressive—and a few pages detailing his complicated relationship with Luca.
“I need to call him. Fill him in on what’s been going on.”
I bite down on my lip, wincing when I taste iron. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“What do you mean? He’s my brother.”
“Luca…what if…what if Nico’s behind this? All of it?”
Luca frowns deeper. “He can’t be. He might skim money, but he wouldn’t have me assassinated.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
Luca draws in a sharp breath. “What right do you have to talk about my brother like that?”
“I just thought—”
“You thought wrong, little cop.” He scowls, sitting up with effort at the end of the bed. He’s still shirtless, but he’s wearing a pair of slacks we didn’t take off him last night.
“Luca, don’t—”
“I’m going to shower. Unless you want to join me…”
He trails off and he won’t look at me. I know it’s not a real offer. He’s just saying that to deflect, to get his mind off what I know to be true: his brother is a rat. And he probably tried to kill him.
I go silent and Luca leaves the room, slamming the door and clicking the deadbolt shut. I jump at the sound, bursting into tears.
God, I wish I could call Scott. He’s my best friend. The only one who really gets me. He knew that I was still hung up on Luca. He tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen.
I miss him terribly, him and Rosa and Agnes, but at the same time, I don’t know if I miss my old life. I don’t miss the old me, naive, too trusting. I don’t miss the endless nights spent as a beat cop, chasing perps who’d done nothing worse than sling a little weed.
I have to stop thinking this way. I have to stop thinking I mean something to Luca.
When this is all over and his brother takes over, what happens to me?
He doesn’t care about me, and I’d do well to remember that.