Chapter 30
LUCA
When I come to, I’m tied to a post in my father’s mansion, my wrists zip-tied painfully behind me. Fuck. This is worse than I thought.
I squint in the dim room, the only light the moon streaming in through the window. I’m pretty sure this is the east wing, because it smells like dust and disuse. My father shut off the east wing of the mansion a few years ago, saying he needed it for storage space.
And now Nico’s using it as my prison cell.
I clear my throat and call out “Hey!” experimentally.
“Caputo,” a raspy voice answers me.
“Diego,” I call back, my heart racing with excitement. “Never thought I’d be so happy to hear your voice.”
“Don’t celebrate yet. I’m tied up. They roughed me up pretty bad. One of my eyes is swollen shut.”
“Nothing Charlie can’t fix, yeah?”
Diego hawks and spits.
“I think that was a tooth,” he says flatly, and I have to bite my lip not to laugh hysterically. We’re in a fucking mess. A pickle, as my father would say.
“Nico!” I yell. “If you’re going to kill me, do it now. I’m tired of waiting for you.”
Nothing. Just the sound of Diego coughing and spitting again. How bad is it? Does he have a concussion? He won’t be much good in an escape if he can’t fight.
I arch my back experimentally, testing for injuries. There’s the pull of my stitches, but that was there before. Other than a nagging headache, I seem to be alright.
Nico steps into view, wearing a big smile. His camouflage mask is nowhere to be seen.
In the background, a woman screams. My shoulders stiffen.
“That’s her. Your girl. Your cop,” Nico says, his voice lilting like he’s teasing me. Like this is some children’s game and not our fucking lives.
“Father doesn’t know about this.”
Nico snorts. “What Father doesn’t know can’t hurt him. I’ve been planting seeds for weeks now, having Alfonso show up late, skimming money from the fights.”
I set my lips in a hard line, glaring at him. “You did that on purpose?”
Nico shrugs. “Had to play up the playboy angle, didn’t I? Had to have you two thinking I’m hooked on that shitty coke you get from the Columbians. Had to have you two thinking I’m useless.”
He’s been planning this for a long time. Years.
“Why?” I ask, and it’s a simple question, but Nico whistles like I’ve asked him the meaning to life.
“Because I want what you have,” Nico whispers. “I want to rule the empire, to follow in Father’s footsteps. You’re not special because you’re older.”
“I’m not, Nico, but we could have talked about this.”
“Talked about it?” he asks incredulously, frowning. “Yeah, sure. Father would have instantly said I’m too young, to let you carry the burden. That’s what he always told me.”
“It’s not as fun as you think it is, Nico. It’s work.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I’m ready for it, Luca,” he insists, pointing at his own chest, pacing around.
I breathe in slowly through my nostrils, carefully. Now isn’t the time to fly off the handle. Now is the time to wait.
Be quiet. Still. Like a stone.
The one thing my father taught me that stuck.
It’s like for the past couple of weeks, Nico and I have switched places. I’ve been the loose cannon. He’s made it seem like that to everyone who knows me.
“I’ll have to kill Diego, of course,” Nico says, as if that’s a given. My eyes shoot to his.
“You don’t have to kill anyone, Nico.”
“Of course I do.” He scoffs. “I can’t leave Diego or the cop alive. They know what I’ve been planning.”
“I know what you’ve been planning. What do you plan to do with me?”
He smiles. “That’s the beauty of it, Luca. Father won’t believe you. I’ll tell him it’s you who’s been skimming, who’s had sticky fingers with the coke.”
“He won’t believe you.”
“Won’t he? When I tell him you’ve been using Mama’s old cottage as a safehouse to store a cop?”
I grit my teeth. Nico’s right. My father would hate that I’ve kidnapped a cop, hate even more that I was using Mama’s house for storing her. He’d tried so hard to keep her separate from the life, even after her death.
“This all could have been avoided.”
“Yeah, it could have,” Nico agrees, and for a second I think maybe he’s not completely insane. “If you and Father would have taken me seriously, it all could have been different.”
“You’re not going to kill me,” I say, my tone more confident than I feel.
“Probably not. We’ll see. You gonna beg me for your life, big brother?”
I look up at him with a cool gaze.
“Come here and find out.”
Sophia has stopped screaming and I’m starting to panic, my heart galloping away in my chest. I rub my wrists together, trying to use the weathered wood of the post to get some slack. Splinters stick into my skin, but I grit my teeth and ignore it.
“You don’t want to pick a fight with me now, Luca,” Nico warns, but there’s a fire in his gaze that makes me think I can provoke him.
“That’s because you know you’ll never win a fair fight with me,” I taunt, and Nico sets his mouth in a hard line.
I get my hand free just as he comes toward me. When he throws his fist out, I grunt and take it, my jaw absorbing the blow. My brain shakes around inside my skull, rattling against the bone. It was a hell of a punch, but I have to keep going.
I sweep my free hand out and catch him behind the knees. Nico goes down with a yelp, cracking his knees on the hardwood floor.
I hit him again in the solar plexus, wrenching my left wrist free, too, my hands bleeding from the jagged wood. Blood blooms on his white t-shirt, but it’s mine, not his.
I jump on top of him, my breathing ragged as I rain punches on his face, his throat, his body. By the time I come back to myself, Nico has one eye swollen shut and he’s unconscious. I groan and roll off him, my body hurting everywhere.
I could kill him. I could snap his traitorous neck right here. I’d be better off. Father would be better off.
But all I can think about is Nico, after he got in trouble, sniffling and wiping the back of his hand across his nose, wide eyes looking up at me.
“Are you mad at me, Luca?”
I swept back his shaggy hair from his face. “I’m not mad at you, buddy.”
I grit my teeth, hating myself for being unable to do it.
I stand up unsteadily, bracing my hand against the post I was tied to.
I stagger for a moment but then get my bearings, rushing over to Diego.
I want to go to Sophia, want to find her, call out to her, but I know I can use Diego if more of Nico’s men show up.
And they will. There’s no way he did this all on his own. I know at least Alfonso is involved, probably Johnny, too, some others.
I help Diego to his feet and he spits out more blood. Nico’s guys really did a number on him.
“How many men?”
Diego snaps back to reality even though he looks dazed, jerking his head around to scan the room.
“I only saw two, other than Nico. I recognized Alfonso’s voice, but not the other guy. Might be a newbie.”
I nod sharply. “We have to find Sophia.”
Diego’s eyes shoot to mine. “She was screaming. Luca—”
“I know,” I bark. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t know if they’ve hit her, hurt her. All I know is anyone who laid a hand on her is going to see the business end of my gun.
“Stay here, near the exit. If you see anyone, holler.”
Diego chuckles mirthlessly. “I can’t do much else.”
I clap a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get you fixed up after all this is over.”
Diego nods and I walk out of the large foyer and into the hallway. There are three doors on the right. One is a bathroom, the other two bedrooms.
“Sophia!” I hiss, not wanting to yell too loudly and alert the rest of Nico’s men.
A muffled sound comes from the second door and I rush to it, fumbling with the doorknob before I just yell and kick it down. It takes one kick, two, then the wood splinters.
Sophia’s hands come through the broken wood before I can even get the door open. She melts into my arms, wrapping them around my neck. I bury my face in her hair, breathing her in.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
She slowly shakes her head. “I don’t think so. You? Diego?”
“I’m okay, but Diego is pretty roughed up. We need to get him medical attention as soon as we can.”
She nods quickly. She’s not tied, just trembling. I caress her face, looking for bruises, but I find none.
She’s okay. She’s really okay.
“We have to get out of here,” she says frantically, gesturing wildly. “We have to leave and Luca—”
The sound of more splintering wood jerks me back to reality and I whip my head around.
What’s next?