Chapter Twenty-Five
“Twenty days,” I say as I pull out a chair at the kitchen table. Major runs up to me, resting his head on my lap, while Luca finishes his breakfast from across the table. It’s been an uneventful nine days since the morning we went to the lookout, and now my days revolve around playing fetch with Major in the yard, occasional motorcycle rides, sex, and wondering what’s going to happen when the clock runs out. “Have you checked the news?”
“No,” Luca answers me, setting his spoon beside his oatmeal. “I know it’s died down some though. I try not to check it too much.”
I nod, drumming my fingers on the table. “Do you think… Do you think that they’ve been investigating Jared?” I try to avoid the topic of who wants me dead for my own mental health, but it’s still something that gives me nightmares…
And prevents me from letting myself fall for the man across the table.
He doesn’t know that though. Luca has no idea that I’m still hung up on my ex-husband in a way that I can’t move past. I don’t understand the man I married, and I have so many questions for him. So many.
“They’re investigating everyone more than likely,” Luca’s voice goes flat—just like it does every time my previous relationship is mentioned in any form whatsoever. It’s the wedge between us, stronger than even his attempts to murder me. “I don’t know where the investigation will go, but it’s less than a month until you show your face again.”
“I don’t know how I’ll return to the real world,” I laugh, opting for a change of subject. “Maybe I can tell them I was abducted by aliens.”
Luca shakes his head at me, and then hesitates, meeting my gaze. “I have a pretty good plan for the day this all comes to an end.”
“Oh?” I raise my brow. “And what’s that?”
“I’m taking you to meet my friends,” he says, his tone careful. “I know they’ll be really happy to, uh, meet you.”
I lean against my hand. “What’re they like?”
“Well, you’ve met Jude—and my other friend, he’s a little… Well, he’s a little different, but his wife is nice, I think. I know you’ll like her. She’s the kind of person who’d probably be good friends with you.”
“Such a strange assumption for someone you think is nice,” I giggle, unable to hide my smile. “But okay.” I glance down at my cup of coffee, my mind wandering to the other elephant in the room—the one that I think he’d talk about, but I’m reluctant to bring up. His partner has been dead for over a week now, and I hear Luca’s phone going off at odd hours in the night.
And speaking of, it begins to vibrate again, buzzing against the top of the table. He glances down at it, and I notice it’s another blocked number.
“Who is it, Luca?” My voice comes out in a near whisper. “Who calls you all the time?”
His eyes drop. “I don’t know. It might be Ivan. It might be someone checking on the hit that’s due in twenty days. It’s not Jude, so I won’t answer.” He’s holding something back, and as reluctant as I feel about it, I have to press.
“What is it?”
Luca sighs, his gaze meeting mine. “Ivan knows Manny is dead, and I’m sure he knows I did it or had something to do with it.”
My eyes widen. “When did you find out?”
“At the lookout with you that morning,” he says. “I’ve got Jude looking for him, but he’s disappeared from the face of the earth.
My heart jumps to my throat. “Does he know where we’re at?”
“No—maybe. I don’t know,” Luca answers me, his voice tinged with fatigue that I realize he’s kept hidden. “If he did, he’d probably have shown up by now. I might be dead by now. Hard to say.” The frankness in his words is sobering.
“So, you’re just going to sit around and wait?”
He raises a brow. “Going hunting for Ivan without his actual location is suicide, Emma. He could be skulking out in the woods right now, and the moment I leave you here, you’re at risk. But I can’t take you somewhere to wait it out because Ivan knows my contacts. If he gets a whiff that you’re still alive—which I’m sure he has—he’s coming for you, too.”
“Great, someone else wants me dead,” I snort, picking up my coffee.
“Yeah, join the club, sweetheart,” he shoots back at me with a wink. “It’ll be fine. Jude is like a hound, he can damn near sniff anyone out, and he’s upped his game even more so in the last six months for whatever reason.”
“So, Jude finds him,” I begin, throwing out the scenario. “Then what?”
“Then I go to him.”
I narrow my gaze. “And that’s not suicide?”
“I mean, maybe. I’ve never gone up against Ivan before, but I was taught by the only man who could upend him, so I think I stand a chance, albeit small.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Me either,” he chuckles. He reaches across the table, brushing his hand over mine. “But even if I found out his location today, I won’t leave you here. I won’t move until the time is up and I know you’re in the clear.”
“And we know for certain I’m in the clear then?”
“Jude confirmed the hit is solely for your fortune, so yes, once the divorce is finalized, you’re done, Emma. I’ll take you somewhere safe, so I can handle my business.”
“And that somewhere safe is to your friends,” I put it together. “You’re assuming you’ll have the answer for Ivan’s location by then.”
“Smart woman,” he laughs, giving me a cheeky grin. “They’re gonna flip shit on me though, that’s for sure.”
“Why?”
“No reason.” He smirks and then pushes back from the table, grabbing his empty bowl. It’s painful how attractive he is, especially when he’s shirtless in just a pair of jeans. I run my eyes over the tattoos lining his olive skin, taking in the violent depictions of war covering his body. For some reason, that seems to be an overarching theme. My eyes land on the battlefield on his upper right arm, a warrior standing amidst a gruesome scene, holding his bloodied sword.
The warrior’s back is turned away from the viewer, and I can’t help but wonder if the ink soldier is exhausted or victorious.
“You wanna see something?” Luca’s voice draws me away from the tattoos.
My gaze jumps back to his, and I blush. “If this is a dick joke…”
“No, not everything is a dick joke, but I’m happy to show you that later, too.” He gives me a look that makes me forget he tried to kill me, and I push back from the table, jumping up to join him.
He grabs my hands and leads me upstairs. Somehow, we’ve fallen into this state of bliss, and I have this longing to call it ignorant, but it’s not ignorant. That would provide the assumption that we don’t know what we’re doing—that we don’t know that this won’t last. I mean, how could it last?
I know it won’t. It’s only happening because I’m here.
The reality causes me to frown, but I tell myself it’s fine. How much heartbreak can happen in twenty days, anyway? I can handle it. The man who vowed to love me in sickness and in health promised someone three million dollars for me to end up dead. If I can handle that, I can handle Luca kicking me to the curb.
But can you? The voice echoes in my mind as Luca punches in a code on a locked door. It’s only because you’re still hung up on Jared.
I shake my head at myself. I’m not hung up on Jared. I push it away and follow Luca into the dark room. “What is this?” I blink a few times to adjust my eyes to the dimness.
“It’s a cave,” Luca answers.
I laugh. “Okay…” My eyes take in the desk in the corner, and multiple computer monitors. Other than that, there’s a couch and loveseat in the corner. It’s like a…hacker lounge. “I don’t know if this is creepy or impressive.”
Luca glances down at me, meeting my gaze. “It can be both, but… How good are you with computers?”
I furrow my brow. “I… I don’t know. I’m a millennial so…”
“I have no idea what that has to do with anything,” Luca chuckles, leaving me standing as he switches on the computer. The monitors light up, and I’m left squinting to adjust. But when I do…
On the top right screen, an article pops up—and then more follow it on each screen.
Missing Woman is Rumored to have Mental Health Disorder
Nightingale Heiress Reported Missing by Lawyer
Nightingale, The Lonely Heiress
My gaze stops on the last one, disgusted by the tabloid, however, before I can even begin, the words disappear—and the screens go blank.
“You don’t need to see those,” Luca grunts. “Sorry.”
“I thought you said you weren’t keeping up with the news on my disappearance.” My voice waivers as he pivots the chair to face me. “You said it was dying down.”
“It is…”
“Did you not read that shit? I don’t have any—”
“It doesn’t matter what they write about you,” Luca says calmly. “And you’ve been in the tabloids before with your family.”
“Yeah, with my family. I’ve never had it all centered on me like this. They’ve never really said anything bad about me before. I don’t understand where they’d even get their information from.”
“I don’t know, probably the asshole that’s trying to paint you in a light that will make sense when you show up dead.” Luca levels with me, completely unamused or unsympathetic to what I’m feeling. Tension rises, and the strong urge to lash out washes over me.
I fold my arms across my chest, brushing against the material of my soft, black T-shirt. “Are you trying to say Jared is the one who’s feeding them this kind of information?”
“Oh, here we go,” Luca mutters, shaking his head at me. “Yeah, probably, and at this point, I don’t even know why you act like he wouldn’t. You’re being so fucking stubborn over this—over him.”
“Well, it’s a lot to come to terms with,” I say through my jaw tensing so hard that it cramps. “I don’t live in the same world as you, where everyone just fucking kills people they know and care about.”
Luca’s face darkens. “What’re you trying to say?”
Unwavering, I hold his gaze. “You killed your partner—someone you’d known for most of your life—with a fucking screwdriver!”
Luca jumps up from the chair, and is on me in seconds, his fingers wrapping around my neck. “Would you have rather me let him live? Let him do what he was going to do?”
I swallow hard against his grip, my mind reminding me of the two times he did it with some amount of intent to kill. How would I know the difference now? My shoulders begin to tremble, my eyes dropping away from his. “Let me go.”
“What?”
“Get your hands off me. You might be a brute to the rest of the world, but you’re not going to do it to me.”
As if I had scalded him with hot water, he winces. But he doesn’t move. “You shouldn’t get mouthy knowing that your hit is still live,” Luca’s tone darkens. “I can still make my three million and wash my fucking hands of you.”
“Then do it.” I don’t know where my courage comes from. Maybe it’s the fact I don’t believe he’ll do it, or maybe it’s just the craving for a distraction from the glimpse I had of the outside world—one I’ll have to face, eventually.
He tightens his grip and then backs me up, leaving me to stumble into the shadows blindly. My ass hits the wall first, and my heart rate picks up, thrumming against his fingers laced around my throat.
“Have I been too nice, Little Red?” Luca growls, pinning me and leaning into my neck. “Do you really think I’ll let a guest in my house berate me?”
“I’m a prisoner, not a guest.” My hands fly up to his finger as he gives another squeeze. Fear mixed with excitement funnel to my core, and as fucked up as it is… I want more from him.
His lips brush my earlobe. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
My body tingles. Yes. Yes, I am. I open my mouth to answer, but the sensation of his hard cock brushes against me, and I suck in a sharp breath instead.
And he laughs. “You’re too easy.”
“You’re too easy.”
Luca growls in response, and in a flash, he flips me around, the side of my face hitting the wall. His hands tear at my leggings and his jeans, within a few seconds, he plunges deep inside of me. I let out a cry and dig my fingernails into the wall.
“Such a good little whore, aren’t you?” he rasps from behind me. “Always wet and ready for me.”
I whimper with his heavy thrusts, losing myself in the pleasure of his cock ramming into me, momentarily erasing the pain of betrayal I’m still battling in my chest. Luca grunts over me, his violent ways lessening as he wraps his arm around my waist and buries his face in my hair.
“Oh fuck, Emma,” he groans, his fingers slipping between my legs. His breaths grow ragged and my thighs clench as my orgasm washes over me with only moments of his fingers on my clit. No one has ever made me come as hard and fast as him, and it’s not his method.
It’s just him.