Chapter 28
LUCA
I wake up slowly as moonlight streams in the window. My sleep schedule has been fucked since I got shot. I’m just so tired all the time, and if I don’t get sleep it’s like my head is full of bees. I’d acted like an asshole with Diego, twice in one night, and I need to apologize.
I sit up slowly, Sophia still snoring like a logger beside me. I smile down at her as she nearly snorts herself awake. She’d told me once that she didn’t snore. I don’t know why so many people in her life lied to her, because she snores like a long-haul trucker.
I drag my fingers along her bare arm to wake her and she doesn’t stir. I move my mouth to her neck, kissing along her throat, and she murmurs out something incoherent.
“Wake up, pixie,” I murmur against her skin. “Want to play with you.”
“Oh now you wanna play?” She huffs out a breath. “After you accused me of fucking your best friend?”
“Don’t act as if you haven’t lied to me, Sophia.”
She harrumphs and it’s cute. She’s cute and I’m fucking crazy about her. It’s half her fault I got on Diego’s ass, curled up next to him on the couch the way she was. She has to know that drives me crazy, seeing her so close to him.
But she’s right. Diego would never, and I don’t even think she would. She’s never shown any interest in him before. It’s just that everything feels so topsy turvy. Someone is trying to kill me, and I’m beginning to think more and more it does have something to do with my baby brother.
I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that he might put a hit out on me, though. It just doesn’t feel like Nico. He’s never been that organized, always flying by the seat of his pants. I am always the one that plans, not Nico.
But I can’t deny that it’s more and more suspicious all the time.
“M’awake, m’awake,” she slurs as I bite down on her skin, opening her hazy blue eyes. They focus on me slowly. “You’re not supposed to be so active, you know.”
“Active? I’m barely moving.”
I slide my hand across her chest to cup one of her breasts and she gasps.
“Still. Charlie said to take it easy.
“He said no such thing,” I argue, biting down on her skin again.
She yelps and sits up, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a big t-shirt, one I brought over for her, and a pair of men’s basketball shorts that swallow her up. I do my best not to smile at her.
You’re in love with her.
The thought seems to come out of nowhere and my almost-smile dissolves into a frown.
Sophiahuffs out a breath. “I should be mad at you.”
I groan. “No, pixie, don’t be mad at me.”
I twist toward her, wincing as it pulls my stitches.
“You thought I was sleeping with your best friend. You accused me of trying to put a hit out on you. I don’t have a right to be mad?”
“I didn’t say that,” I mumble, feeling guilt hot at the back of my head. I need to apologize to her and to Diego, too, for all that I put him through tonight. He’s always there for me, and I accused him of trying to kill me and getting with my girl.
“You need to apologize to Diego,” she says pointedly, and I nod, hanging my head.
“I know. I will.”
“And in the meantime, you should make it up to me.” She grins wickedly and I raise an eyebrow.
“And how do I do that?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” she chirps, and this time I do smile, unable to help myself, my chest swelling with all I feel for her.
“So you do like me.”
She blinks. “What?”
“If you didn’t like me, you wouldn’t care that I thought you were a cheat and a liar.”
“That’s highly suspect.” She crosses her arms over her chest again.
“It makes sense,” I insist, pulling her into my lap. She drapes across me limply and I chuckle. “You’re really mad?’
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I guess I would,” I say, humoring her. I’m acting like she’s my girlfriend, but I can’t seem to help it. The way I feel about her is somehow the only thing that makes sense these days.
She bites her lip, teasing the edge of my shirt with her fingertips.
“I know one way you can make it up to me.”
“Oh, I’m willing to do anything you want, pixie.”
“Let me take care of you,” she breathes, and trails her hand up my shirt, sliding her fingers across one of my nipples.
I draw in a sharp breath. “I mean, who am I to deny you when you ask so nicely?”
“Don’t start. Don’t get a big head about this. I just…I like giving.”
“And I like receiving,” I drawl, and she smacks me, pouting.
“I said don’t get a big head.”
“Too late.”
I smirk at her and then her fingertips are sweeping under my waistband, her touch taking my breath.
I’m already half-hard when she releases my cock from my sweats, and I look down at her, catching her gaze. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown.
She wants this. Wants me in her mouth as badly as I want to be there.
It’s intoxicating, to know that she wants me as badly as I want her.
She slips down my body, kissing my belly, my hipbone, and my breath is already coming ragged.
I’m at full mast when she takes the head of my dick into her mouth, sucking gently. I groan, putting a hand in her hair. I don’t force her, just guiding, but she’s taking her sweet time.
Her tongue darts out to sweep along my underside and I pant, my wound aching where the stitches have started to pull.
She frowns and pops off me. “Be still. No pulling your stitches.”
I groan loudly. “You can’t just stop, pixie.”
“I can do whatever I want. This is my reward for you being a dick.”
I snort out a laugh. “Alright, baby. Whatever you say. I’ll be careful.”
“Good.” She goes back to her task, taking me deeper in her mouth, her saliva coating me, making the glide into her throat easier.
I grunt as I start to hit the back of her throat, getting a rhythm as she bobs her head.
“Fuck, pixie, not gonna last,” I manage, trying not to arch my back and pull my stitches more as my balls draw up.
She rolls them in one hand and my breath catches in my throat. Her mouth is so hot and wet and slick… I grunt as I suddenly spill into her mouth. She moans around me, licking and swallowing every drop.
“I should make you mad more often.”
“You better not,” she says, coming off me with a pop and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
I adjust myself back into my sweats and she sits up, seemingly satisfied.
“That’s really it? That’s all you wanted?”
“Yep,” she says brightly, smiling. “I’m gonna go see if Diego wants to finish the movie.”
I frown. “Thought you said you wanted me to stay. That you couldn’t sleep without me.”
“I slept,” she answers, and I groan and rub a hand across my face.
“I guess we could all watch your cheesy movie.”
“It’s not cheesy. It’s romantic,” she insists, swinging her legs to the side of the bed.
I look at her and words bubble up in my chest. Words I want to say to her, so badly I think I might have to sew my mouth shut to keep them in.
I love you. I missed you every day for three years. I want you to be mine.
But that’s crazy. I can’t say any of that. She’s my prisoner. She’s a cop, for Christ’s sake.
“Sophia,” I start, not sure where the conversation is going to go.
She tilts her head, looking at me.
“Where does this end?”
She freezes. “What do you mean?”
“This. All of this. Us. Where does it end?”
Despair settles over me like a shadow. There’s no good way for this to end, is there? There’s nothing we can do to stay together.
“That’s…that’s up to you,” she says quietly.
“What do you mean, it’s up to me?”
She huffs out a breath. “You’re the one who took me. You’re the one who keeps me here, aren’t you?”
She’s right, but I don’t know what the end game is, either.
“I guess so.”
“So tell me, Luca. Where does this end? Because I…” she trails off.
I cup her face in my hands, staring into her eyes.
“Because you what, pixie?”
“Because I’m in love with you,” she blurts, and my mouth falls open as I keep staring into her eyes, searching her face. I want to believe her. I want to because my heart is soaring and I feel like I’m ten feet tall.
But can I? Can I trust a single thing she says?
“Sophia, I—”
I realize, too late, that there’s a scuffle in the other room, that I can hear Diego shouting out for help. I scramble to stand up and Sophia looks at me, her head tilted, confused.
“Get under the bed,” I command, and Sophia just stares at me. “Now!”
My raised voice seems to jolt her into action. She does as I say, grabbing my phone before getting under the bed. She scrambles under just before the door bursts open on its hinges.
I reach for my gun, but it’s too late. There’s a pistol trained on me.
The man stands there, oddly familiar, dark hair falling over his face, but I can’t quite make him out. The camouflage mask he wears throws me off.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
Another masked man sweeps into the room, gun drawn, and he kicks open the closet, clearly looking for something.
I grit my teeth, telling myself not to look down at the bed. They’ll know.
The second man comes up behind me, painfully twisting my arms behind me, and I go down to my knees when he pushes.
I don’t look under the bed. I make it a point not to.
“Under the bed,” the masked man in the doorway says.
“No!” I cry out but a third man comes into the room, also masked, and reaches under the bed. Sophia screams when he grabs her ankles, but he manages to pull her out from under the bed. Her index nail breaks as she drags it along the carpet.
Her panicked blue eyes meet mine and the sounds of her muffled screaming as they drag her out sounds like the end of the world. My phone falls uselessly to the floor. I hope she managed to get out to someone. Even if it all ends in me being arrested, I hope she finds a way out.
“If you touch a hair on her fucking head, I swear to God I’ll kill everyone you ever loved,” I spit at him. God, there’s something so familiar about his eyes…
I fight the man holding me back, but it’s no use. My stitches pull and I’m not at my best because I’ve just been injured. They’re going to take her.
The masked man staring at me slowly lowers his mask, revealing a full mouth and…
Nico.
That’s why his eyes are so familiar. They’re just like mine.
“That’s an empty threat, brother. I’ve never loved anything.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re like this.”
He stalks forward and pistol whips me across the face. A ringing starts in my ears. I spit blood onto the floor and Nico just laughs.
“You and Father, both so stupid,” he drawls. “I’ve been off the coke for weeks, and neither of you so much as noticed.”
“Probably because you were still acting like an idiot.”
Nico grins, pointing a finger at his nose. “And that’s why neither of you caught on. I should have been heir to the Rossi empire, Luca.”
I scoff. “Yeah? And why’s that?”
“Because I deserve it. Because I’ve worked for it. Kissing Father’s ass all these years, being his good little soldier.”
I laugh out loud, unable to help myself. “You were spoiled. Babied. That’s all. He never trusted you with anything.”
“And that’s exactly my problem. If you’d only trusted me…” he trails off and I stare up at him, still shocked.
“You expected me to trust you? You tried to fucking kill me.”
“If I’d wanted you dead, you would have been,” Nico says dismissively.
I hear the engine of a car rev up and drive away and I just know they’re taking Sophia. Determination replaces the despair. I’ll find her. I’ll find her, then I’ll kill every man who harmed her. Who dared to take her from me.
“You don’t go down easy, do you?” Nico asks, and he pistol whips me again. I almost welcome the darkness.