Chapter Eleven
Lucas
Where the fuck is she? The question keeps playing in a loop in my mind.
I grit my teeth until my jaw hurts and clench the glass tighter.
It’s only water. I’ve stopped drinking, but I’ve never stopped looking for her.
The whiskey didn’t kill the ache anymore, it only drowned me.
And after that night where D and Teo had to drag me away from the bar, I swore I wouldn’t let myself sink so low again.
I need to stay focused, so I quit cold turkey, not touching a single drop since that day.
My hands still shake sometimes, especially when my fingers brush over her scarf that I keep in my inside jacket pocket like a talisman, but I don’t need the bottle.
I need her. Chiara. Her name circles my mind like a curse and a prayer.
Since she’s been gone, I’m not the same man. I used to be the bright guy who lit up the room, the one who could laugh at anything, joke with anyone. People liked and trusted me. I blinded them like the sun.
‘Phoebus.’ Her teasing voice brushes over my spine like a caress and the hair on my arms stand on end.
I chuckle darkly at the fucking irony of it all.
Guess what, sweetheart? The sun has fallen, replaced by a dead star that sucks everything and everyone it touches into the black void surrounding it.
Now, when I walk into a room, conversations die and faces shutter.
No one dares to meet my eyes, and people have started whispering behind my back. “Romano’s lost his mind.”
They’re damn right. I’ve lost a lot more than that.
I’ve lost the only person tethering me to sanity.
Those stolen looks, that pang in my chest every time she smiled, what I’d thought was friendship and affection was as a matter of fact something else.
And I hadn’t seen it then. And now, this something has festered into another thing, something dark and toxic.
Obsession is its name. It lives under my skin, slithering through my veins, gnawing at me, clawing me open from the inside.
I see her everywhere, in the crowd, rounding the corner of a building, in the reflection of a café window.
Sometimes I think I hear her laughter or her voice calling out my name.
Every time I close my eyes and inhale her scarf like a fucking lunatic, it feels like she will be standing in front of me with a teasing smile.
Her scent on the scarf had been getting fainter, and I’ve bought a bottle of her perfume to spray on the piece of fabric that has become my lifeline.
Soon she’ll be wearing it again, I vow as I glare down at my glass.
She slipped away once, but never again. I will burn the world to the ground before I let her get away again.
I had been on a rampage like a rabid beast, tearing through the famiglia, threatening, questioning every person I thought could be linked to her, until the mere sight of me showing up has people scurrying the other way in terror.
But I don’t care. If I have to threaten every person, tear apart every building, every city block until I find her, kill every motherfucker who stands in my way, then so be it.
My brothers and the famiglia can hate me for it, I don’t give a damn.
The only thing that matters is finding her.
And when I have her, she won’t fucking leave me again, not this time.
A large hand clasps my shoulder, and I don’t have to look up to know that D has arrived.
He squeezes once and lets go to sit down in his usual chair in our unofficial meeting place in the backroom of Teo’s club.
Then Teo comes into sight and sits down after a short clap on my back.
I nod at them, grateful to have their quiet support.
When the waiter has brought them their usual tumbler of whiskey, I barely wait for him to leave before I lean forward, my hands flat on the table.
“Teo,” I say, “teach me how to hack and track a phone.”
He looks at me with a confused frown. “What?”
“You heard me.” I clench my hands into a fist. “I want to learn how to do it myself. Since you and D won’t help me, and Erin blacklisted me with every goddamn hacker in the country, then fine. I’ll fucking do it myself. But you’re going to teach me how to do it.”
“Luc…” He leans back in his chair, slowly shaking his head. “That’s not something you pick up overnight. It’s more complicated than—”
“I don’t care,” I interrupt him, harsher than intended. My chest heaves and I rake my hand through my hair. “I can’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. I need to actively do something or I’ll go insane.” My voice cracks at the last word and I swallow hard, jaw working.
“Luc.” D’s low voice compels me to look him in the eyes. “We swore to Lily and Erin that we won’t interfere.”
“I know.” I slam my fist on the table hard enough to rattle the glasses.
“You two get to go home to your women, to your family. What about me? I can’t fucking go on like this, it’s a struggle to breathe every day.
Either you teach me, Teo, or I swear I’ll burn this city to the ground or die trying. ”
“Careful,” comes D’s low warning, but I see that he doesn’t mean it. What I see in their eyes is pity and it makes me fucking sick.
“I don’t need your goddamn pity,” I grind out. “I need to find her. And you’re gonna show me how.”
Teo is about to say something, but D’s low voice cuts in.
“What about we…chat for a while.”
I frown at him in confusion. “Now’s not the time to—”
“It’s as good a time as any,” he interrupts, his eyes boring into mine.
I look over to Teo who seems to be equally confused. I turn back to D and narrow my eyes. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not saying anything, I’m chatting. Just a casual chat between friends. Got it?”
“Got it,” I reply slowly, not knowing where this is going.
“How long has Chiara been gone?” he asks in a casual conversational tone as he leans back in his chair, swirling the whiskey in his glass.
“Six months, one week, four days and”— I look down at my watch—“fifteen hours.” My jaw locks. I don’t have time for this bullshit.
“Six months already. How time flies,” he goes on in the same tone, “and to think that I’ve sent you out of town once a month for the last five…” His gaze glides up from his glass, pinning me in place.
I go rigid and my heart stops.
“Looks like it’s almost time to send you out again.”
Fucker. I suck in a breath. He has sent me out on diplomatic missions out of town once a month, roughly around the same date. I thought it was to strengthen our presence outside of Boston. But now… Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
I look at Teo and the slow widening of his eyes tells me he’s putting the pieces together, too. Leaning forward, I imitate his tone. “So… Suppose we’re chatting, and you mention that you’ll be sending me out again. When would that be?”
A small smirk pulls the corners of his lips upward. “Next Monday.”
My heart jackhammers in my chest and my breath goes shallow.
“So…let’s say, purely hypothetically, if I’m out of town next Monday…” My voice drops. “What happens here?”
He doesn’t answer right away. After a beat he raises his glass, takes a slow sip, and says in that same casual tone, “Boston will run as it always does. But sometimes, if you pay attention…you’ll notice who else isn’t where they usually are.”
My breath catches.
He meets my eyes over the rim of his glass, and for a second, the mask slips. I see the exhortation there…the truth he can’t speak aloud.
Then he sets his glass down and leans back with a smirk. “But of course, we’re only having a chat.”