Chapter 13 #2
There’s a soft breeze blowing as we make our way along the Grant Park promenade.
There are others people here doing pretty much the same thing—walking hand in hand, occasionally glancing up at the stars or sneaking looks at each other.
It’s peaceful, it’s soothing, and it’s something I’m sure Luca has never done before.
“This almost feels normal,” I tell him.
“A walk in the park, right?”
“Right. Almost, that’s the key word,” I chuckle and look back at Eddie and his colleague, our security detail keeping a decent distance behind us but always watching us. “I guess it’s the best I’m going to get.”
Luca takes my hand in his and squeezes it gently. My heart skips a beat. His touch sends an overwhelming surge of heat through my body that softens my nerves at the same time.
“When the storms pass, it’ll get better. But in the meantime, Valentina, your safety is paramount,” he says, keeping me close.
“I never asked for any of this,” I remind him.
“It doesn’t mean I can just let you…” His voice trails off as he looks at someone passing by.
I follow his gaze and I see them, too. A man and a woman. Seemingly unremarkable, wearing dark clothes. But the way they look at us sends a shiver down my spine, making me want to tighten my grip on Luca’s hand. He fixes his gaze on them.
Eddie and his colleague also notice his sudden attentiveness.
Once the couple passes them, too, they go on just beyond the alley’s curve. Less than a minute later, however, they’re tailing us. Luca pulls me closer.
“Do you trust me, Valentina?” he asks.
“Why do you ask?”
“Do you trust me?”
Every bone in my body screams yes despite my rational side screaming the opposite, but an answer is needed, and honesty has always taken me further in my relationship with Luca than anything else.
“I’m trying my hardest,” I tell him.
“I guess it’ll have to do for now,” he mutters.
“I don’t understand.”
“Just stay close, and don’t let go.”
We pick up the pace, leaving Eddie and his colleague farther behind.
They don’t seem to mind. On the contrary, they shift their focus immediately on the suspicious couple, turning around to question them.
By the time the four of them clash, Luca and I have already turned down a side path, leading deeper into the park.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, my heels clicking furiously against the hard pavement. The heels are not exceptionally high, but at our current pace, they’re getting uncomfortable.
“I promised I would keep you safe,” Luca says.
A man of few words when he’s focused, he leads us farther down through the shadiest parts of the park.
At one point, there isn’t a single soul around us.
I hear the birds and the squirrels rustling through the trees and scuttling across the grass, but there isn’t another voice close by, except ours.
We hide behind an ancient oak tree, its trunk thick enough to conceal an entire car. Luca wraps his arms around me, and I soften against his chiseled chest, his heartbeat thudding in my ear and his breath brushing through my hair.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. He sees things I can’t from where I’m standing.
I’m too busy trying not to lose my cool. Perhaps I should be more fearful of the people who were chasing us, but oddly, between Luca and the bodyguards, I feel safer than ever before, even more so now that Luca has a hold of me.
We hear rushed footsteps.
“Which way?” a man asks.
“I’m not sure. Let’s split up. You take the left, I’ll take the right,” a woman replies.
They must’ve slipped past our bodyguards, or maybe they talked their way out of it.
Or maybe they’re different people on the same mission.
Either way, tonight was supposed to be a simple and hopefully romantic date night.
Instead, I’m hiding out in the middle of Grant Park.
But thinking back, it’s not the worst date night I’ve ever had either.
“Let’s go,” Luca whispers.
We move away from the oak tree and across a grassy field. Once we reach the water, we hurry along the shoreline until we reach the southern tip, with its street markers. Luca never falters, and I have a hard time taking my eyes off him, watching him make his decisions in real time.
No hesitation.
I’d be a fool not to follow his lead, because we end up back in the city, nestled in the booth of an old Irish Pub, with a couple of drinks at our table.
The lights are reddish and dim, and the jukebox is playing some old anarchist punk songs while a handful of local patrons linger by the bar, drinking beer and watching a soccer game.
“We’ll stick around for a little while longer until Eddie catches up,” Luca says. “There’s only one way in from the main street. We’ve got the back door if we need to slip out the other way.”
“It’s not the first time you’ve had to shake people off, is it?”
He takes a deep breath, and I watch his chest rise slowly. “No, but it’s the most important time.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve got you with me,” he says, his arm snaking around my shoulders. “We’ll make it back home alright, Valentina.”
“I know we will.”
“So you do trust me,” he says with a soft chuckle.
I offer him a wry smile. “You haven’t disappointed me so far.”
“This can’t have been your first time either,” Luca says after a while. “You were raised in the Mancuso family. That man always had enemies.”
“True, but he didn’t let me go out much. Besides, I was always the stepdaughter, not his blood, technically speaking. I guess his enemies didn’t think I was important enough for them to use me against him. I really don’t know.”
He kisses the top of my head, and there is a kindness, a sweetness in his gesture that makes time stand still. I don’t want to leave this spot—ever. I want us to stay here in this booth, surrounded by the smell of old vinyl and stale beer and dried-up peanuts, until the sun forgets to shine.
It’s just the two of us in our rawest form.
His soul and mine, reaching for each other. No consequences, no risks, merely two people staying close because we want to, because we need to. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.
“You’re important to me, Valentina. Perhaps the most important thing in my life,” Luca says, his voice trembling slightly.
“No, that would be my son, your heir. And I’m perfectly okay with that,” I reply. “Because if you’re keeping my baby safe, you’re doing right by me, too.”
He cups my cheek and pulls me into a deep kiss, the kind of kiss that tells me I’m the most important creature in all of his existence, and nothing will ever change that. The kind of kiss that doesn’t need words to convey how deeply I’ve burrowed into his heart—not that I ever planned to do it.
“You have a way about you, Valentina, a ruthless force I know Michael will inherit. The day that boy rises at the head of the Petrucci table will be the day everything changes in the Camorra.”
“Luca, no, I don’t want him involved in your business,” I plead, my heart suddenly aching. But he soothes my pain with another fleeting kiss.
“It’s alright, I promise. He’ll be different. Better. Stronger. That’s why your stepfather is so eager to get his hands on him. He understands, on a deeper level, what kind of strength runs through the boy’s veins.”
“I know that’s supposed to be a good thing, but under these circumstances—”
Suddenly, he whispers, “Don’t move,” and his embrace tightens, his body stiffening against mine.
My pulse starts racing, and I become restless, worried. I’m reminded that we’re not safe yet, that the world beyond the pub’s frosted glass window is still a dangerous place. “They caught up with us,” Luca adds.
Before I realize what’s happening, we’re running along a dark, narrow corridor, heading for the back door of the pub. We stumble out into a side alley and wait a few moments—just catch sight of the same couple we saw before in the park. They walk past us and down the street.
They’re still looking for us.
“What the hell do they want?” I hiss.
“They may or may not be Mancuso’s people, but their job is to get into our heads,” Luca replies.
I give him a befuddled look. “Why?”
“It’s a scare tactic designed to keep you in a panicked state and to throw me off my game. Whoever is doing this knows how important you’ve become to me, which is interesting, to say the least.”
“Interesting?” I scoff and shake my head. “Try frightening and a little infuriating.”
“It tells me the person behind this has some intimate knowledge of my business and personal affairs.”
“You think it’s someone from your inner circle?”
“Or close enough,” Luca replies, then turns to face me. “Valentina, this won’t last forever, that much I can promise you right here, right now.”
It’s strange to hear under the flickering light of an old street lamp, wedged between two brick lanes at the far end of a musty, smelly alley on the lip of Chicago’s Southside.
It’s even more strange to hear when there are at least two people actively looking for us in some kind of psy-op attempt to scare me.
Luca’s phone pings. “Eddie is on his way.”
“Good, because I really want to go home now,” I grumble, crossing my arms, but Luca chuckles softly and holds me close. “This was supposed to be our date night, remember?”
“It was, despite its ups and downs,” he replies.
“Well, I’m glad you’re still enjoying it.”
“Of course, but you just said you can’t wait to get home,” Luca says, clasping my chin between his thumb and index finger. He beckons me to look up at him, only to kiss me again.
This time, he’s hungry. Possessive and merciless in his conquest. His tongue makes promises of mindless debauchery and absolute devastation, and my core responds almost instantly with liquid fire, heat making me clench with the excitement of anticipation. Tonight, he’s going to ravage me.
And I’m going to welcome every glorious climax.