“Get in the car.”
Luca pulled his SUV over to the side of the road with a loud screech. Damn woman storming out of his apartment. Did she not realize Frankie and his crew were on the street just waiting for an opportunity to prove she couldn’t be trusted? He’d already explained to her that they needed Nico’s approval to move ahead with the plan to catch Garcia. What he hadn’t explained was that it was also up to Nico whether he lived or died. He’d broken the rule about associating with a cop, and by now Nico would know about his relationship with her and would have made a decision about what to do.
Gabrielle ignored him and continued to walk down the residential street with Max sniffing bushes by her side.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as the midday sun blasted into the car. “Gabrielle. You can’t walk all the way home. It’s too far. And I told Frankie you would stay with me until the meeting with Nico.” He gritted his teeth at the hint of pleading tone in his voice. Capos didn’t plead. He didn’t plead. But dammit, she’d left him no choice. Although tempting, picking her up and tossing her in the car wasn’t an option, especially if he ever wanted to have another kid. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would go for his jugular if he tried to manhandle her; she would get him where it would hurt the most.
Max looked over and barked, but when he tried to pull Gabrielle over to Matteo, now waving from the back window, Gabrielle tugged him back.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”
How had he fucked this up so badly? One minute they were kissing in the kitchen, and the next Gabrielle was walking out the door.
“I think she’s mad at you,” Matteo said from the back seat. “She sounds like Nonna and Auntie Angela when they’re mad. Maybe it’s because you shouted at her.”
“I didn’t shout.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, cursing himself for losing his temper. Gina seemed to have that power over him even from the grave.
“You were very loud, Papa. And you were angry. I’m sorry I don’t look like you.”
Fuck. He’d hurt Matteo, too. He’d forgotten how kids picked up on everything. He was usually very careful about saying or doing anything that would make anyone think Matteo wasn’t his son. But Gabrielle had a way of getting past all his walls and exposing his vulnerabilities.
Just because she wasn’t the perfect mom, doesn’t make him any less your son.
His son. Unlike many of the wiseguys he knew, he had been there when Matteo was born, held him, changed him, and fed him. He’d heard his first word, seen his first tooth, and caught him when he’d taken his first step. He sat up with Matteo at night when he couldn’t sleep, and read him countless stories. Thinking back, he’d actually spent more time with Matteo than Gina, who was always sick or tired or out with her friends. It was only after Gina died that he’d stopped being a proper dad.
Did it really matter if they had a blood tie? No one knew the truth. Matteo was a great kid, and he couldn’t even contemplate sending him to live with Gina’s parents. Three lives would be devastated if he ripped the family apart—Matteo’s, his mother’s, and his. He might have built a wall around his heart after Gina died, closing off his ability to grow his love, but Matteo was already safe inside.
And an angel had climbed in there with him.
“I think you’re right, Matteo,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Papa said things he shouldn’t have said. And I think we do have things in common. We are both Italian, aren’t we?”
“Si, Papa!” Matteo’s face lit up, and Luca felt it right in his goddamn, fully exposed, heart.
“And we both like our cars to go fast, don’t we?”
“Si, Papa! Go fast. She’s getting away.” Matteo pointed down the road and bounced in his seat.
Luca put his foot on the gas, and caught up to Gabrielle, screeching to a stop yet again.
“Tesoro mio…” He leaned out the window, prepared do anything or say anything to see her smile. She was the woman he’d always dreamed about. She’d changed his life. And he wanted her always by his side. He thought about telling her in English, but he knew Italian was her weakness, and there was no better way to convey what was in his heart than the language of love. “Sei la donna dei miei canzoni. Mi hai cambiato la vita. Ti voglio sempre al mio fianco.”
Gabrielle stopped on the sidewalk and sighed. “Everything you say in Italian sounds beautiful and you sound sincere, but if you want to apologize, do it in English.”
“Papa says he dreams about women, you should be different, and he wants you to be on the sidewalk,” Matteo called out from the backseat.
Luca groaned and made a mental note to tell his mother to find a new Italian tutor.
“Sono innamorato di te.” He told her he loved her, knowing she wouldn’t understand, but he wanted to say the words that were truly in his heart the best way he knew how.
“Is that an apology?”
“Of a sort.”
She walked up to the passenger side window and smiled at Matteo. “Do you know what your Papa said?”
“Yes.” Matteo beamed. “It was nice.”
“What do you think? Was it a good apology?”
Matteo’s gaze flicked to Luca and then back to Gabrielle. “Molto bene!” he said, making his Papa proud.
“I’m still not speaking to you,” Gabrielle said, after she and Max were both in the vehicle. “I looked up the Italian word for sorry on my phone and you didn’t say it. But I have been playing around with an app for learning Italian and I know the word ‘innamorato’ so I think you said something especially nice, and since it’s blazing hot, I’ll take the ride.”
Twenty minutes later, Luca parked the SUV in front of his mother’s Spanish-style home in Mira Villas. He would have preferred not to bring Gabrielle to meet his family just yet, but Matteo had baseball practice and he was already late bringing him home. Introducing a woman to his mother was akin to a marriage proposal, and having only just realized the depth of his feelings for her, he wasn’t quite ready to take that next step.
“I just have to drop Matteo off with my mother.” He hesitated. It would be impolite to ask her to stay in the car, but bringing her inside would be a full-blown formal affair involving a meal and an interrogation for which she would be ill-prepared.
“I’ll stay in the car with Max,” she said. “He can be a handful when I take him someplace new.”
He let out a relieved breath. “If you want…”
“It’s okay.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I understand.”
Dio mio. Could she be any more perfect? He kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
After Matteo said good-bye to Gabrielle and Max, Luca brought him inside and went to find his mother. He’d bought the two-story, four-bedroom home for her and his siblings, after she’d agreed to raise Matteo, and she spent most of her time in the high-end kitchen with its black granite countertops, sleek white cabinets and stainless steel appliances.
“Ma?”
“We’re in the living room,” she called out. “We have company.”
Luca’s pulse kicked up a notch, and he reached under his jacket for his gun as he walked through the house. His mother never entertained anywhere other than the kitchen, and the waver in her voice told him something was wrong.
“Frankie.” His stomach twisted as he greeted the Toscani enforcer, who was sitting beside his mother on the plastic-covered couch. He had known Frankie would come for him, either to take him to Nico for judgment, or for a ride from which he would never return. When he held Gabrielle last night, he’d wondered how long he would have and if they’d give him a chance to say good-bye. Running wasn’t an option. Not only because it would show a lack of honor, but also because there was nowhere he could go that the mob wouldn’t find him.
“Frankie came to visit.” His mother’s lips pressed in a thin line. She knew who Frankie was, and she also knew he didn’t make social calls. “I wanted to make him a little something, but he said he was just here looking for you. And when Alex told him you would be bringing Matteo home for practice, he said he’d wait.”
Fucking Alex should have known better than to give any information to Frankie, but his brother never did think straight when he was high.
“Matteo’s upstairs, Ma. Why don’t you go get him ready for baseball? Frankie and I have business.”
His mother shot him a worried look as she left the room. There was only one kind of business that would bring Frankie to the house, and it wasn’t good.
“I had to get your mother out of the kitchen,” Frankie said. “She kept offering to make me a little something that involved chopping things with big knives. I think she woulda stuck me if I turned my back on her.”
“She’s a strong woman. Very protective. There’s no one I respect more.”
“Woulda liked to know how that felt.” He gestured to the door and pushed to his feet. “Let’s go.”
Talk wasn’t necessary. Luca knew he was being called to account for breaking the rules and getting involved with a cop. Today he’d face judgment and if he couldn’t convince Nico of the benefit of his alliance with Gabrielle, this was the last time he would see his mother and Matteo.
“Gabrielle’s in the car.”
“She’s coming, too.”
Luca froze. “She’s not part of this. We don’t involve women in our affairs.”
Frankie made an impatient gesture toward the door. “We do if they’re cops who might have been given information they shouldn’t have had.”
“I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know.”
“Papa?” Matteo came down the stairs with his mother. “Can you come and watch me play ball?”
“I have to do some work with Cousin Frankie. Give me a hug good-bye.” He held Matteo in his arms, kissed his little cheeks, his forehead, his nose, ran a hand through his dark hair, which his mother had let grow too long. “Be a good boy. Listen to your nonna.” He kissed Matteo’s ear, fought the urge to check to see if he had the same mole. It didn’t matter. Matteo was his son. If today was his last day, he wanted to die believing that was true. He wanted to die with hope.
His mother reached up and grabbed his cheeks, kissing him as he’d kissed Matteo. “Polpetto,” she said, using a nickname he hadn’t heard for years. He had no idea why she’d started calling him meatball when he was younger, but he knew why she was saying it now. He gave her a hug and she shuddered in his arms.
“Bye, Ma.” He gave her one last hug and walked away, not daring to look back.
Frankie snickered as they left the house. “Polpetto? You’re never gonna live that one down.”
Luca thought it an odd thing to say if his life was going to end in the next hour or two, but then Frankie wasn’t a normal man.
“You drive.” Frankie gestured to Luca’s SUV. “Sally G’s already in the back with your girl.”
Luca slid into the driver’s seat and turned to look at Gabrielle, buckled in beside bald and portly Sally G. Nico’s oldest capo was wearing his favorite bowling shirt with dress pants and lots of bling. Of all the wiseguys Luca knew, happily married Sally G was probably the least likely to suffer from wandering hands when seated beside a beautiful woman, but he was still a guy and Luca fixed him with a warning stare before reassuring Gabrielle.
“It’s okay, bella.”
“Like fuck it is,” she bit out, while Max growled softly in her lap.
“Who do we have here?” Frankie looked over from the passenger seat.
“Max.” She glared at Frankie. “He’s a rescue dog and afraid of men, so this ride is going to be hard for him.”
“Yeah?” Frankie’s face softened, and he held out his hand to Max. Minutes passed as man and dog stared at each other. No one moved. It was the strangest thing Luca had ever seen. Finally, Max sniffed Frankie’s hand. Then he licked Frankie’s fingers and rubbed his head in Frankie’s palm.
“You a dog whisperer now?” Sally G asked.
Frankie patted Max’s head and turned around without saying anything. Maybe he had an ounce of heart after all.
They drove in silence to the Toscani family clubhouse, located at the back of an abandoned garage just off the 95 in the outskirts of North Las Vegas. A black Chrysler 300C followed behind them, no doubt containing members of Nico’s crew. At least they weren’t driving out into the desert. Usually when the mob intended to whack someone, they would have the victim drive to an isolated area and shoot him from the backseat of the car.
Luca checked in the rear-view mirror when they hit the 95. He didn’t like the idea of Sally G alone in the backseat with his girl. Gabrielle had changed into a pair of frayed, cut-off jean shorts before she stormed out of his penthouse and they drew attention to her perfect heart-shaped ass, the curve of her hips, and her long, lean legs. Her form-fitting black tank top was cut low in front—too low for Luca’s liking—and advertised his favorite brand of whiskey. Despite his anger, he’d been hard when she walked out of the bedroom for breakfast, but when she put on a pair of cowboy boots on her way out the door, he’d seriously considered throwing himself on the floor and begging for forgiveness.
“Get your fucking eyes off my girl.” He speared Sally G with a glare through the rear-view mirror.
Sally G laughed. “She sure doesn’t look like a cop. If I thought they were all so hot, I’d have boned one, too, back in the day.”
Luca yanked the steering wheel to the side, intending to pull the vehicle off the road and beat the fucking shit out of Sally G.
“Shut it, Sal,” Frankie barked over the seat. “You gonna join him for breaking the rules? Apologize and look the fuck away.”
“Sorry. No offence.” Sally G lifted his hands in apology and turned his head to the window.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the clubhouse and parked around the back. Most of the buildings in the area were vacant or run down, and the property was completely enclosed by bushes and wire fencing.
“Luca. Sally G. You come with me.” Frankie looked over his shoulder and drew his gun. “Gabrielle, stay in the car with Max.”
“Bella…” Luca tried to find words to say as he stepped out of the vehicle, an expression of love, a lasting good-bye. He had a strong feeling this wasn’t going to go as badly as he’d originally thought simply because no one would ever do a hit in broad daylight at the clubhouse where it might attract attention. But he liked to be prepared, and he’d once heard that adversity brought people together.
Steeling himself for Gabrielle’s tears, he was brought up short when he met fury instead.
“I cannot fucking believe this,” she spat out.
“Mio angelo…” He tried again, but she cut him off with a raised hand.
“Save it for when I’m interested in listening and not busy trying to think of a way to get us out of this.”
“There is no way out. It’s up to Nico.”
As if on cue, the door to the clubhouse slammed open and Nico stepped out into the sunshine. Five members of his crew filed out behind him, men Luca had known for years, and all of whom he called friend.
Luca swallowed hard as he walked across the parking lot, preparing for a showdown he had little hope of winning.
“Apparently, we have a problem.” Nico met him halfway, impeccably dressed in his usual tailored suit, silk tie, and Italian leather shoes. Luca felt underdressed in his jeans and T-shirt, but he’d left his penthouse in a hurry to catch up with Gabrielle, and hadn’t given the usual attention to his attire.
“Only problem is my girl being here. Let her go.”
“You’re the fucking problem,” Frankie spat out. “Millions of girls out there, and you gotta stick your dick in a cop.”
Luca was right in Frankie’s face, chest to chest, fists raised, before his brain even processed he had moved. “Respect, paisano.” They were evenly matched in height and weight, but Frankie had been raised as a hitman, a trained killer. Luca was under no illusion about how quickly Frankie could kill him or how little remorse Frankie would feel when the deed was done.
“You break the rules; you don’t get our respect,” Frankie said. “You and your old man are exactly the same. Always in fucking bed with the cops. The Rizzolis have no honor.”
Luca’s stomach tightened in anger. Nico and Frankie were like brothers to him. They knew him. They knew he would never do anything to endanger them or the Toscani crime family. He’d eaten at Nico’s table. Hell, he’d taken a bullet for Nico, and their total and utter lack of trust was like a blade through his heart.
Apparently, Nico remembered that night in the casino, too, because he held up a hand, cutting Frankie off. “Don’t be so quick to judge. Luca almost gave his life for me. It doesn’t make sense that he would betray us now.”
“Men don’t think straight when women are involved,” Frankie said coldly. “Even you know that.”
Nico’s expression darkened at the veiled reference to the risks he had taken when he first met Mia. At the time, she was the daughter of his greatest enemy and their relationship was almost as dangerous as Luca’s relationship with Gabrielle. “You’re out of line.”
“On my honor, I haven’t betrayed you,” Luca said quickly, turning Nico’s attention back to him. Nico was more likely to go easy on him if he wasn’t riled. “Gabrielle is after Garcia. He killed her husband. She’s willing to help us to catch him, and she’s prepared to risk her career to do it by giving us access to all the classified information the police have on him.”
Frankie snorted. “We can’t trust the fucking police. And we can’t trust a fucking Rizzoli.”
Luca bit back a growl. One day he would make Frankie pay for that disrespect. He’d spent years proving his loyalty, fighting to restore the family honor. “Garcia is the key to everything,” he reminded Nico. “Without him, Tony doesn’t have access to the cash flow he needs to control the city. Not only that, what he did to Little Ricky is an attack on us all.”
Nico stepped into the shadow of the building, leaving Luca to roast in the sun. Spawned in hellfire, Frankie stood close to Luca and didn’t even break a sweat.
“My sources have confirmed Garcia was behind the hit on Little Ricky,” Nico said. “But who was the message for? Did Little Ricky owe them money? Was it a message to you? Or to us? Or was it payback because you whacked two Albanians who possibly worked for Garcia?”
Of course, Nico knew about the Albanians. He knew everything because Frankie knew everything. And when Frankie knew something, he knew all the details, so there was no point talking around the truth. “They shot up Gabrielle’s house when we were inside. I didn’t fucking care who hired them, but when we asked they didn’t know. They were told to scare her as a warning, but not kill her. She doesn’t have any other enemies, so she was pretty sure Garcia was behind it.”
“Fair enough.” Nico nodded. “They got what was coming to them. But I’m trying to figure out if they’re connected to Little Ricky’s death, or if these are two separate incidents. Why were they after your girl?”
Luca’s tension eased the tiniest bit. Nico seemed more interested in fact-finding than putting a bullet through his head. Maybe he would walk out of here alive after all. “She’s got sensitive information about Garcia because she’s been tracking him for two years, although we don’t know why he sent his goons to her house after she’d been pulled off the case. She already took a bullet when someone—she thinks it was Garcia—ambushed her in a warehouse during a raid and shot her.”
“It’s you,” Frankie spat out. “You’re the fucking connection. Garcia wants to shut the cop up because she knows too much. He tries to kill her and misses so he hires the Albanians to warn her to keep her mouth shut. Luca pops the Albanians and Garcia gets pissed so he offs Little Ricky because he knows Little Ricky works for Luca. Boom. Mystery solved.”
Luca shook his head, resisting the urge to pull out a tissue and wipe the sweat off his brow. Any movement of his hand toward his jacket would be seen as a threat and Frankie would shoot first and apologize when Luca was lying in his grave. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why try to kill her and then try to warn her? And why try to warn her after she’s been pulled off the case and has no new information since she was shot?”
Nico folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe she’s not being honest with you and there’s more going on than you know. This could be a set-up or a trap.”
“A honey trap,” Frankie added. “And you’re stuck right the fuck in dick first. That’s why we have rules against associating with cops.”
“We also have rules against going to the bar, and you were there the other night,” Nico countered, jumping to Luca’s defense. “And I believe a rule was also once waved about looking at another wiseguy’s woman, so let’s put aside our concern about rules for now and focus on the problem at hand.”
“Rules are fucking rules.” Frankie’s face hardened and he looked away. Luca didn’t know much about Frankie’s life before he joined the Toscani crime family, except that most of the wiseguys who were sent from New York were in Vegas as punishment for some wrong. Had cold-hearted Frankie slept with a boss’s wife or daughter? He couldn’t imagine a woman falling for a guy who had no soul. But if Frankie had broken the rules, why wasn’t he trying to restore his adoptive family’s honor the way Luca was trying to restore his?
“The rules are a guide,” Nico said. “Not law. And here in Vegas, we have a certain freedom to interpret them as we will.”
Hope flared in Luca’s chest. Nico had split the family because he was the kind of leader who wasn’t afraid to break the rules. Few capos would have dared to refuse Tony’s claim to head the family and fewer still would have set up their own family faction to challenge him.
“The way I see it,” Nico continued. “The rules are there to protect the family. Given Luca’s loyalty, his pledge of honor, and the debt I owe him, I trust him to keep our secrets until we catch Garcia. Little Ricky’s death gives us yet another reason to go after him. The benefits outweigh the risks. Once Garcia has been eliminated, however…” He sucked in his lips and gave Luca a sympathetic look. “The relationship can’t continue. It looks bad for you, it looks bad for the family, and in the end we will have to answer to the Gambolis in New York, and their solution will be unacceptable to me. I don’t want to lose a friend.”
In other words, Luca could have her until they caught Garcia, and then he would have to let her go. For a moment, he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He and Nico had been friends since they were fifteen years old. They’d risen through the Mafia ranks together, broken legs together, built crews and businesses, and partied in Nico’s penthouse suite at the casino until Nico met Mia and became a changed man. He couldn’t believe Nico, of all people, didn’t understand that love wasn’t a choice, and once you found it, you couldn’t let it go.
He knew he should be grateful. He should, right now, be thanking Nico for his mercy, but just as the New York family’s solution would be unacceptable to Nico, so Nico’s solution was unacceptable to Luca. He wasn’t prepared to lose Gabrielle. There had to be another way.
But this was not the time to argue.
“Grazie, Don Toscani.” He used formal language to show his appreciation for Nico’s decision not to put a bullet through his brain.
Nico nodded, and then his eyes turned hard. “Now there is a matter of punishment for hiding the affair instead of coming to me in the first place. “On your knees. Hands behind your head. Frankie, he’s all yours.”
* * *
“Can you believe this?” Gabrielle smashed her fist on the window as she watched Luca drop to his knees and put his hands behind his head. Max scrambled off her lap, unused to her anger, and she gave him a soothing pat. “This is not happening to me again, Max. I am not going to lose another man I care about.”
She pulled her weapon from beneath her jacket. Although she struggled for acceptance as an equal in the police department, she wasn’t averse to taking advantage of the fact that men often underestimated her. If she’d been in control of this whole ridiculous scenario, she would have ensured that the prisoner left behind in the vehicle was at least unarmed, and at best guarded and secured. But they’d clearly assumed she was no threat, and she was pretty damn sure that was because she was a woman.
Big. Fucking. Mistake.
With one hand on the vehicle door, she checked out the parking lot. The tall, dark haired guy in the suit had to be the boss, Nico. She remembered the name from the briefing she’d had during her visit to Organized Crime, and his resemblance to the photograph taped to the whiteboard. He had an air of authority around him, a sense of command. There were five men standing behind and around him. Frankie was to his right. Another guy stood to his left, tapping a baseball bat over his palm. Sally G was a few steps in front of the car. He was a big guy, but he was short, probably no more than an inch taller than her. Perfect for what she had in mind.
Everyone’s attention was focused on Luca on his knees in the gravel. The sight grated on her. A man like Luca should never be on his knees. Even in front of the boss.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door just enough to slip out on the shadowed side of the vehicle. Running into the fray with her gun blazing would only get her killed. She’d looked into Frankie’s eyes, and although he had some connection with Max, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. She needed a hostage. And Sally G had just volunteered for the job.
She rose to a crouch, counted to three, and ran full speed ahead.
Frankie’s head jerked up. But she was behind Sally G and moving fast. She ran into him, knocking him to his knees. Recovering quickly, she wrapped one arm around his thick neck and pressed her gun to his temple. Taking a deep breath, she shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let Luca go or I’ll shoot.”
There was an almost comical moment of stunned silence as the mobsters just stared.
“Luca. Get up. Come on. Move it.” She prayed no one put her to the test. She’d never shot anyone in her life, and she didn’t think she’d be able to pull the trigger on Sally G. She could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, hear the rasp of his breath. In the car, he’d talked about his beautiful wife, his golden lab, his two kids and how proud he was that they were going to college.
Luca lowered his hands. He made a bizarrely apologetic gesture to Nico and shrugged his shoulders. She couldn’t understand why he was moving so slowly. The next move in this game was for someone to pull a gun on Luca and then they’d wind up in a standoff that no doubt would end with her and Luca dead. But Frankie didn’t move. And Nico just watched as Luca ambled over to her and Sally G like he was out for a morning stroll.
“Get up.” She tugged on Sally G’s arm, indicating that he should stand. “Walk backwards.” Still holding her gun to his head, she walked him back to the driver’s side door where Luca was waiting.
“Luca!” She tipped her head to the passenger side. “Get in over there. I’m not going to drag him around.”
“I’m letting you rescue me,” he said curtly. “If I don’t at least drive out of here, you might as well shoot me now.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll get in the back. We’re going at the count of three. One. Two. Three.” She shoved Sally G forward, ran for the vehicle and threw herself in the backseat beside Max. Luca slammed his door and they peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the mobsters, still motionless, behind them.
“We made it!” She sat up in the seat and gave Max a hug. “I’ve never done anything like that before. It’s kind of liberating to pull my gun and not think I’ll be spending the next two days doing paperwork, or second guessing whether I needed to pull it or not. And I actually feel like I accomplished something. I saved you. I didn’t think it would work. Frankie is pretty sharp. He doesn’t miss anything.”
“Enough.”
She startled at Luca’s abrupt tone. “You’re supposed to say thank you. Or you could be more effusive and add, ‘for risking your life to save me.’ Or even just ‘great job, Gabrielle’.”
“You should have stayed in the car. I didn’t need to be saved.” He turned onto the 95 and headed south, out of the city.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t talk. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
Her stomach twisted in a knot, and she couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her tone. “Oh, sorry. I must have misunderstood when they made you get to your knees and put your hands behind your head like they were going to execute you.”
“Jesus Christ. When you burst out of the car waving your gun…” His voice hitched. “Shouting at them to let me go. Threatening to shoot them…” He thudded his hand on the steering wheel. “And taking Sally G hostage?” He yanked the steering wheel and turned down a side road. Gabrielle stared back at the dusty horizon, watching the last of the urban sprawl disappear.
“Why are we leaving the city?”
His shoulders shook, and he made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.
“Are you laughing?”
Luca shook his head and Gabrielle glared at the partial glimpse she had of his face in the rearview mirror. “Did I miss something? Is there something funny about the fact they were going to beat you with a baseball bat and then shoot you in cold blood?”
Without answering, Luca turned in to an abandoned chemical plant. Giant iron tubs covered in peeling white paint dotted a gravel-covered field, and a small corrugated-iron shack creaked in front of them. Out in the desert with no shade to protect them, the sun was fiercely hot, and Gabrielle began to sweat almost as soon as she followed Luca out of the car.
“Luca?”
He walked away, past the shack and over to a giant bin that rocked gently on four wobbly legs as the wind blew hot around her. Wary of the heat, she left him to work off his anger, and went to cool off beneath the awning of a shack that looked like it had been boarded up long ago.
“I’m never going to live that down,” Luca said, coming up to her a few minutes later.
“What?”
He curled his hand around her nape and pulled her close, until their noses touched. “I was just rescued by a female police officer from a beating I deserved.”
Her breath left her in a rush. “They weren’t going to kill you?”
“No. Not today.” His hand tightened around her neck. “And after that performance, if they change their minds, they’ll probably send a few more men to do the job. You were fucking magnificent.”
Her mouth opened and closed again. She’d prepared herself for yet another fight about putting herself in danger stemming from his overprotective nature, but was he finally accepting what she did? Not only that, had he just complimented her?
“I was just doing my job.”
“Your bureau is wasting their best asset sticking you behind a desk.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Still stunned by his seemingly abrupt change of attitude, she stammered. “You aren’t angry? Usually you rant about how it’s the man’s job to protect the woman and I shouldn’t put myself in danger, blah, blah, blah.”
His lips twitched at the corners. “You are mine, and your safety is a matter of honor. I would rather die with honor, than to have you hurt trying to save me. But you’ve made me rethink my views, and when you can have my back without putting yourself at risk, then I’ll accept your help.”
Gabrielle bit back a laugh. His overprotectiveness was still there, but between the lines she read respect and no small amount of pride.
“Although it was not necessary,” he continued. “And I will have to go back as a matter of honor, I am indebted to you.”
Gabrielle frowned. “I won’t let you go. I would rather have an unharmed dishonored Luca than a beaten honorable one.”
“Honor is not something to be taken so lightly,” he said, his smile fading. “Without honor, you feel like someone has taken a chunk of your flesh. My father dishonored our family. He got involved with the drug trade and turned rat instead of going to prison when he was caught. But the family found out.” His voice tightened. “I’ve spent my life since trying to restore the family honor, trying to show that I am not my father’s son, to make myself whole…”
Her heart squeezed in her chest. “I’m sorry about your dad, but I couldn’t just sit in the car and let them hurt you, even if I had understood your concept of honor. That’s not who I am.” She sighed as the last of her adrenaline faded away. “I’m probably the most wrong woman on the planet for you. How can you restore your family honor when you’re with a police officer?”
His gaze never left her face. “You can’t help who you love. You are the perfect woman for me.”
It took a long moment before his words sunk in.
He loved her.
Even though she was bitter and broken, and they were on opposite sides of the law, and even though their love was forbidden and the risks of being together were astronomically high, he loved her.
“I don’t know what to say.” She couldn’t say it back because she didn’t know if she was capable of loving someone again. She liked him, enjoyed spending time with him, and cared about him deeply. But she had never let herself consider a future with Luca, never thought there was a way they could be together except to hunt Garcia down, never dared to open herself to love.
“You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “It is what it is.”
She didn’t see him coming. One moment he was five feet away, and the next she was in his arms, his body hot and hard against her. “You’re mine, Gabrielle. You were mine from the moment we met. Nico wants me to end our relationship after we find Garcia, but we will find a way to make it work, even if I have to leave the family.” He claimed her with a kiss, fierce and demanding, so passionate her knees went weak and she had to clutch his shoulders to stay upright.
She wanted to believe him, but it seemed an impossible task. From what she understood, there were only two ways out of the Mafia: death and witness protection. And after what he’d just told her about his father, there was no way she could let him make the choice that would mean losing the one thing he’d been struggling for all his life. She didn’t want Luca without that chunk of flesh. She wanted him whole.
“What were they going to do to you?”
“Hurt me. Maybe break a few bones.”
“Because of me,” she said bitterly.
“Because I broke the rules.” His rough hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over her jaw. “Mio angelo. I would endure any hardship for you. I will welcome the pain because it gives us time to be together. Every extra day I get to spend with you is worth a dozen bruises.”
“Luca.” His name was a prayer on her lips. She had lost David. She wasn’t going to lose Luca, too. There had to be a way for them to be together that didn’t involve him getting killed or beaten with a baseball bat or losing the honor that was such an important part of his life. “I think I just showed you I would make the same sacrifice for you.”
“And you will be punished for it.” He wrapped his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe.
“Punished?”
He buried his face in her neck, nuzzled behind her ear, his five o’clock shadow a sensual burn over her skin. “I will give you more pleasure than you can bear.”
Gabrielle swallowed hard and all her awareness suddenly centered on the pulse of arousal between her thighs. “I want you to be rough.”
“I’ll be rough.”
“I want you to tear me apart so you understand that how you feel about me is how I feel about you. How your pain is my pain. How I couldn’t sit there and watch you suffer.”
He drew in a ragged breath. “I will break you and then I will put you together again. I will mark you so that every time you look in the mirror you think of me, and every man who dares look at you knows you are mine.”
“I want to be yours, Luca,” she whispered. “And I want you to be mine.”
“Sei mia per sempre, anima e cuore. Senza di te non vivo piu. You are mine forever,” he translated for her. “Body and soul. Without you, I couldn’t live.”
She surrendered to him, unable to do anything but feel as he feathered kisses down her neck to the sensitive juncture of her throat and shoulder.
And then he leaned down and bit her so deliciously hard she screamed.