I know it would be smart to be suspicious. But my instinct is to believe him. Even if we only shared a short time together in the office, it felt so significant, so vital, like we transformed each other in some way.
And now he’s saved me.
If he’s telling the truth and he doesn’t want to hurt me, why would he risk everything for me?
“So my parents, they didn’t….”
“Your parents were good people,” he says. “I never knew them personally, but my father always talked well about the Bonetti Family. He said they were honorable. They always did the right thing. They never hurt innocents. You don’t have to be concerned there.”
“So that was it, really? You were tricking him?”
“I was trying to.” He lets out a shuddering breath through his clenched teeth. “But now Conor’s going to know it was me. Those men back there, they were right. I should’ve killed them.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Jackson whines and twitches in my hands, squirming as though he wants to climb into Luca’s lap.
“Hey, boy, come on.”
“It’s okay.” Luca glances at me, lips twitching. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“Are you sure? I think he would like to say hello, but only if you’re….”
Luca chuckles when Jackson leaps from my lap and springs into his. Keeping one hand on the wheel, Luca reaches down and runs his hands over the small dog’s fur. Jackson whines and rolls over, presenting his belly.
“He’s a resilient little one, isn’t he?” Luca says, scratching him. “I thought the gunshots would’ve freaked him out.”
“They used to,” I mutter.
Luca cocks his head.
“Conor likes his scare tactics,” I explain. “One of them was to take Jackson and me out in the woods and watch his men practice shooting guns. I’d spend the whole time covering Jackson’s ears. You know, it’s not good to scare an animal like that. But he’s strong. They don’t bother him anymore.”
“Fucking Conor,” Luca snarls. “He’s lucky he wasn’t in that room with you. I would’ve snapped his neck. I should’ve done it a long time ago.”
My heart whelms, my pulse quickening.
I want to ask him if he cares for me the same way I do for him because he sounds protective as hell right now.
“I can’t believe it,” I whisper as the full force of the situation hits me. “I don’t have to marry him? I don’t have to…you know, with him?”
“Never,” Luca growls. “You fucking never have to do anything with that bastard. I would never let that happen.”
Jackson rolls over and clambers across the car, returning to me, but he then decides he’d rather be in Luca’s lap again a second later.
Despite the anger in Luca’s voice, he chuckles. “Indecisive little son of a gun, aren’t you?”
Luca laughs again when Jackson clambers into his lap.
There’s so much I want to ask, so much I want to say. Yet suddenly, it’s like all the energy has seeped out of me.
Luca isn’t taking me someplace to hurt me.
He lied. My parents didn’t help kill his parents.
Which means he saved me because…The tattoo means something.
Everything we shared in the office was real.
A sob rises up my throat, choking me. I let it out and then lean forward, pressing my forehead against my legs, letting out another jagged sob.
Luca places his hand on my shoulder, his touch sending warmth traveling through me, claiming my entire body and emanating to my heart, like it’s making it beat quicker, harder, with a more compulsive need to claim.
“It’s okay,” he says in his gruff voice, squeezing my shoulder firmly. “I promise, Lena, everything’s going to be okay.”
I nod, trying to believe him, but then more tears attack me. It’s like I can’t stop.
I’m safe. Jackson’s safe.
The gunshots ring through my mind, seeming louder in memory than they did in reality.
And then the sound becomes the flapping of a bird’s wings, my bird’s wings, taking us away.
We’re doing it now. We’re flying.
Sitting up, I look at Luca through tear-blurry eyes.
“Thank you.”
He smirks, his eyes brimming with intensity. “You don’t have to thank me. There’s no way I would let him hurt you.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Luca
“So it’s all arranged,” I say, letting out a long breath.
I’m standing at my desk in the safe house, leaning on my clenched fists, looking over at Patton. It hurts knowing Lena is elsewhere in the house with her dog, waiting for me to come and see her.
But there wasn’t time.
After getting her here, making sure she was safe, I had to arrange protection for my men. I had to put the word out that the Irish may retaliate. I had to try and arrange a meeting with Conor to see if we could rectify this peacefully.
“So far, we’ve succeeded in alerting most of our men to the new danger,” Patton says in his careful way. “Most of them want to stay in the city out of loyalty. But they’re sending their families out. Those who can’t will probably take up your offer. It’s…”