Chapter 3 – Luca
LUCA
Someone just tried to kill me at my own fucking engagement party.
Ears still ringing from the gunfire, I ease my body off Sienna, making sure she’s not badly injured as she climbs to her hands and knees, and scans the wreckage of what was, five minutes ago, the most exclusive restaurant in the city.
My restaurant.
Now, instead of a celebration, there’s broken glass everywhere, tables overturned, and blood spilling on marble. The air smells of gunpowder and copper, and somewhere behind me, a woman is wailing way too fucking loudly.
Directing my men to help everyone up and out, I do a quick assessment of the damage. There don’t appear to be any fatalities, but as I rush into the kitchen, there’s Kate, my soon-to-be bride, bleeding out on the floor.
“Stay with me.” I drop to my knees beside her, pressing my hand over hers where she’s clutching her side, eyes scrunched up in pain.
Kate’s warm blood spills through my fingers, and when I lock eyes with Corso, my most trusted lieutenant, I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
There’s too much of it.
I’m no doctor, but I’ve seen enough gunshots to know that. “Paramedics have to be on their way. Where the fuck are they?”
Corso’s gone before I finish shouting.
“Luca?” Kate’s green eyes are already glazing over and losing focus, yet somehow, she still finds the strength to chastise me for being too harsh. “You know how this goes. The police won’t let them inside until they’ve cleared the building and made sure it’s safe.”
Given who’s been shot at, they’ll probably take their sweet time.
“Don’t talk. Just stay still.”
The bodyguard I shoved toward her is on the ground nearby, cursing through gritted teeth as he clutches his leg, bleeding heavily, but conscious and alert.
“Sit the fuck down, Roman,” I tell him as he attempts to struggle to his feet, eyeing the exit. “There’s no getting past the police outside.”
With a reluctant groan, he slumps back down, too weak from blood loss to fight. He’s a good soldier, experienced enough to keep his mouth shut when inevitably questioned by the authorities. I’ll reward him handsomely for this.
If he hadn’t taken that bullet, Kate would surely be dead.
My fiancé’s lips move infinitesimally as her fingers brush my arm. “Tell him… Luca, please, tell him… ” she croaks out, barely a whisper, then pauses, but no more words come out as her hand slips back to her side, limp now, and her eyelids flutter closed.
“Tell him yourself,” I growl, worry giving way to frustration. Her pulse is still there, weak, but there. Not for long, though, if we don’t get her some help. “Stay with me, Kate. Shit.”
“Move over.” Those sharply whispered words are accompanied by the nudge of a knee to my back, and I look up, ready to unleash my anger on whoever dares to give me an order, to fucking touch me, as I tend to my dying fiance.
Sienna drops to her knees on Kate’s other side, a thick wad of napkins and a stack of clean towels already in her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get the fuck out of here, Sienna. You shouldn’t be here.”
Any sane person would be long gone. Pointing to the door, I expect her to flee, but instead, without even looking at me, she hooks her fingers into the hole in Kate’s expensive gown and tugs, ripping the fabric and widening the tear.
“Helping.” She doesn’t wait for permission, just pushes my hands aside and presses a folded towel firmly against Kate’s wound. “You need to apply more pressure than that.”
I should tell her to back off or have one of my men drag her away, but her hands are steady, her actions calm and confident, and Kate needs help.
“You.” She glances down at my crotch, keeping her hands over Kate’s abdomen. “Take off your belt.”
“What?” I snap.
“Come on, Luca. Hurry up.”
In my world, as the soon-to-be head of the Calvano family, only my closest friends get to call me Luca. And nobody tells me what to do.
So I’m very aware of Roman watching this tiny woman casually boss me around and call me by my first name. He’s worked for me for years, knows everyone who enters my world.
Except Sienna.
“Put it around his thigh, as tight as you can, above the wound. This is hardly your first tourniquet, Luca.” She goes back to checking Kate’s pulse now, fingers pressed to her neck, a line appearing between her brows. “Her heartbeat’s weak, she’s lost so much blood.”
Rising to my knees, I yank my black leather belt free and hand it to Roman, who wraps it around his thigh and slips it through the buckle.
“Tighter,” Sienna instructs without seeming to look. “No, even tighter. Luca, help him.”
Grimacing apologetically at Roman, I reach over and pull the belt as hard as I can, ignoring his roar of pain, before handing the length back to him to hold in place.
“Boss.” Corso reappears at my shoulder, making note of Sienna’s presence but saying nothing. “Paramedics are coming in now.”
“About fucking time.” I nod, relieved. “Update.”
I stand, keeping one eye on Sienna while I deal with the mess around me.
“The Don’s secure. Nico got your father out through the front door as soon as the first shot went off. He’s already en route home.”
Sounds about right. Of course, the old bastard made it through another attempt on his life, unscathed. Like the fucking cockroach that he is.
“Was he injured?” I ask, not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved when Corso shakes his head.
“Not yet.”
When I raise an eyebrow, he sighs and elaborates.
“He’s complaining about being manhandled. Threatening to have Nico’s hands broken. You can imagine.”
Yes, I can. My brothers and I know all too well we’re not exempt from his punishments.
“Do we have the shooters?”
Corso’s grim expression gives me the answer. That would be a no, then.
“There were two confirmed. One, out front, on a motorcycle, but he was gone before we could pursue. The other left through the back and vanished. We’re tracking them, but they’re professionals. Clean entry, clean exit. This was well-planned.”
My teeth grind together as I glance at the cameras mounted on the walls.
“Your father requested they be turned off.”
Suspicious of all recording devices after being caught out when he was still a capo, this isn’t unusual for him, but fuck if it isn’t inconvenient right now.
“I want their fucking names by morning. No, I want their fucking heads on a plate, Corso,” I demand, ignoring how Sienna’s posture shifts at my words. This isn’t a conversation she should be privy to. “Get footage from the businesses on the street. Take everyone’s cameras. Find them.”
Kate coughs, a rasping, wet sound, that racks her slim body.
“She’s not going to last long if someone doesn’t help her,” Sienna whispers quietly as I crouch down again.
I look into her concerned face, this woman I haven’t seen in ten years, kneeling in a pool of my fiancé’s blood.
Her white blouse is soaked red, her hands covered in it, but she’s not falling apart. There are seasoned men on my crew who wouldn’t handle patching someone up in the middle of a crime scene as well as she’s doing.
From the main restaurant, the rattling of a stretcher reaches us.
“They’re coming,” I assure her.
Sienna nods, whispering words of encouragement, promising Kate that the cavalry is here as she pleads with her to hang on.
“Do you think the attack was aimed at your father?” Corso asks. “He was on the other side of the room…”
The answer seems obvious, that the mighty Alfonso Calvano, with a list of enemies as long as my arm, was targeted on a rare outing from his isolated mansion, but that he’s alive and unharmed, tells a different story.
“You don’t.” I guess. “You think they were after me.” Meeting his sharp eyes, so dark they’re almost black, I sigh as he stares back unblinking, neither confirming nor denying, but that’s an answer in itself coming from Corso.
This wasn’t a hit on the Don.
“Find out. And Corso? All information comes to me first. If they were after me, I’ll be the one to deal with them.”
Tell me first, not my old man, is the underlying order.
My capo nods and moves off. He’s loyal to me, and he’ll do everything in his power, if not within the law, to bring me the people responsible.
“Here,” one of my soldiers, Tony shouts, leading the wary-looking paramedics across the debris. “Through here.”
They burst through the swinging double doors moments later.
Sienna shifts aside to let them work but stays close, arms wrapped around her middle, answering their questions clearly and concisely.
How long has she been unconscious? What’s her pulse been doing? Where’s the entry wound?
Sienna sounds like a professional because she was supposed to be one. And was well on her way to becoming a doctor the last time I saw her.
“Luca.” My brother, Nico, cuts through the chatter of the emergency personnel and the beeping of the blood pressure cuff as he rushes into the room. “Who’s… oh fuck.”
One hand goes to his head when he realizes it’s Kate being lifted onto a board. He doesn’t bother with stupid questions. One look at her, and you can tell it’s not good.
Then, “Oh shit. Is that? No. No way.” He’s not looking at Kate anymore. He’s staring at Sienna, looking as stunned as I feel. “Sienna?”
She gives the merest tip of her head in acknowledgement, continuing to give the paramedics as much information as she can.
“Yes, it is.” Eyes glued to her, I don’t volunteer any more information than that, because I don’t have it.
“What the hell is she doing here?” He hisses, glancing around nervously, then, eyes going wide, “Did you know she worked here when you bought this place?”
“No, I didn’t know,” I snap. The words taste bitter. I had no idea, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like surprises.
Despite trying to ignore him and to focus on what the paramedics are doing and saying, Nico continues.
“A waitress? Sienna Fox? I thought she was going to be a doctor?”
I give him a look, willing him to shut the fuck up. “I know what she was going to be.”
She was top of her class and on track to graduate early.
Whenever I pictured her life over the last ten years, she had her own practice, and an adoring, if not dull, husband who came home at a reasonable hour and didn’t carry a gun.
Not this.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a waitress, but with her qualifications?” Nico muses, eyeing her with suspicion.
He’s right. It just doesn’t make sense.
“Loading her now.” The paramedic snaps me back to the present.
Kate’s on the stretcher, oxygen mask over her face and disturbingly pale. They’ve got IVs running, pressure bandages packed against the wound, and a defibrillator at the ready.
I move to Kate’s side. “I’m coming with you.”
The paramedic shakes his head. “No room. We need space to work on her. She’s critical.”
Through gritted teeth, I hiss, “I’m her fiancé.”
“And I’m trying to keep her alive.” He doesn’t flinch from my glare, but he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again. I’m sure he’s been warned who he’s dealing with, so he’s either extremely brave or has a death wish. “You can follow us there.”
Taking a step in his direction, already well past boiling point, Sienna’s gentle touch to my arm stops me losing control.
“Let them do their job without you breathing down their necks.”
Nico nods. “We’ll be right behind them.”
Sensing their opportunity, they hurry out, wheeling her toward the shattered front entrance and out into the glare of flashing red and blue lights.
I trail behind and watch the ambulance doors slam shut, sirens blaring as it pulls into traffic, forced to stay behind as it pulls away with the woman I’m supposed to marry inside.
“Get a car. Now,” I order, pulling the unlicensed gun from my waistband and handing it to him to get rid of.
“Two minutes.” Nico’s already moving toward the back entrance of the restaurant, past the cracked, smoky mirrors and booths with tufted leather seats, stuffing hanging out in places.
He leans over the bar as he passes, opening a cash register, pulling out a wad of bills, and stuffing them into his pocket before disappearing outside.
Sienna is picking her way across the broken glass, arms out to balance herself, her white uniform blouse so soaked with blood, it’s more red than white.
When she comes to a stop, looking around, lost, her face is pale, eyes hollow. The competent woman who kept my fiancé alive has vanished, and in her place is someone barely holding it together as shock creeps in.
For a second, I hesitate. I have enough shit to deal with. She’s not my problem and hasn’t been for ten years. But reluctantly, I’m forced to admit that I may actually need her.
Because she watched the shooter leave, and if she saw anything useful, anything at all, I need to know exactly what she knows.