Merciless Vows by Faith Summers

23

Lucca

Idodge the guy coming at me with a knife and allow him to stumble past me before I shoot him in the back of his head. He falls dead to the ground.

I take down the other two, rushing towards me with ease, and break into a run down the boardwalk for the fucker I’m after. The fucker who’s making his way down to the beach. The moonlight beams down on him as he runs for his life, guiding me to where he’s going.

He deserves an award for slicing me across my cheek. It happened when I first burst into the warehouse with my men. I would have either gotten him to tell me what I wanted to know or ended his ass if his backup hadn’t shown up.

It was sloppy of me. But it won’t happen again.

When I get up to the end of the boardwalk, I leap onto the barrier like a hell beast and launch myself through the air straight down to him, knocking him down to the ground.

With that, I pull my knife and stab him once in his back and then again in his chest when I flip him over.

He howls with pain, and dark red blood gushes out of his body.

The fucker knows where my target is and is keeping his silence.

He’ll be as dead as she’ll be when I find her.

I hold off on stabbing him again to give him one last chance to talk. I didn’t get him near his heart on purpose. He could live for a few more hours with the injuries he has, just long enough to get to the hospital, or he could bleed out here if he can’t make it.

Either way, I won’t make it easy for him. If he doesn’t answer me with what I want to hear, I’ll end him now.

“Where is Ivy?” I demand.

“Fuck you, animal. I will not tell you anything. You knew we wouldn’t talk when you burst in here.”

I did. Ivy, Beleric’s wife, is Italian, and these people who protected her belong to Ndrangheta, one of the criminal organizations like la Costa Nostra that stemmed from Italy. They will keep their secrets to the death.

This guy isn’t going to talk to me. That’s what he’s telling me. So he’ll understand if I do this.

I land my knife right in his heart and twist down hard until I hear that popping sound of death.

Blood sprays in my face like a busted water pipe, but I twist until there’s nothing left of him and the light of the living leaves his eyes.

When he’s gone completely, I pull out my knife, and blood covers my hands. I wipe the blood from my knife and rise to my feet, glaring down at the dead fucker before me who just made my life that much harder.

I’ve been looking for Ivy since last night, and now it’s night again. This is the closest I’ve gotten, and yet I wasn’t close enough.

It was Jon who tracked her here. I don’t know how she got word we were coming, but she did and left before we got here. Whoever is helping her knows the ropes of how we work. Or, to be more precise, they know how to hide her from me.

Grigori trusts me to get a job done within a reasonable time frame, so I want to find her before this blows out of proportion.

Admittedly, I’ve had Aria on my mind too. I don’t like the way we left things the other night, nor that I haven’t checked in with her. I shouldn’t allow her to affect my work, but I haven’t stopped thinking about her. This is the first time I’ve had such a clash of priorities.

Jon walks up to me and looks down at the dead guy.

“I take it he didn’t say much,” he says.

“Didn’t say shit.” I grit my teeth.

“Then this was a bust.”

“Yeah, I’ll head back to the office and sign off the cars, then call it a night. I’ll have the men back on the street looking in the morning.”

“I’ll go to the office with you and help.”

“Thanks, man.”

We call the cleanup crew, head back to the office, then clean ourselves up just in time to meet with the clients who want to engage my services to modify some racing cars.

Ten minutes later, I close a deal for a quarter-million dollars for Jon and me to work on fifteen cars.

I’m about to pack up and go home when Damien arrives. Jon spots him first, making his way down the steps to our showroom.

Violet leaves when she sees him. She doesn’t like Damien, and he doesn’t like her either.

There’s a tick in his jaw, and I wonder who’s pissed him off now.

“So glad I caught you before you left,” he begins.

“Everything okay?” Jon asks, looking like he’s picked up on Damien’s mood too.

“Yes. I just needed to check a few things with Lucca.”

“Alright, I’ll just be upstairs filing these away.” Jon holds up the contracts we just signed and leaves us.

“What’s happening?” I ask Damien.

“Nothing to be concerned about. It’s more of a reality check. I went by the house today and noticed how Aria De Marchi seems more like a guest in your home.”

He gives me that look I remember very clearly from years ago. That look that told me he knew I was lying when I came back with my explanation of why my mission failed with her.

He never second-guesses me, and I used that unashamedly to my advantage.

“Did she do something wrong?”

“Lucca, don’t let me remind you of where your loyalties lie. You cannot drop your guard for a pretty face and easy pussy.”

My hand's ball at my sides at his words, and a rage I’ve never felt toward him, rises within my chest.

“I haven’t been,” I answer and bite down hard on my back teeth.

“I think you might have and not quite realized. Do not forget what her father has done. The loss he’s inflicted on you and on me. Don’t forget, and for fuck’s sake, don’t think for one minute she deserves any compassion. She’s fucking pussy, Lucca. Something you fuck. A little whoring bitch—”

“Okay.” I cut him off by grabbing his shoulder with one hand. I squeeze it hard, surprising him. If he were someone else, I’d tear that arm off his body.

His brows raise, and he cuts a glance at my hand pressing down on his shoulder, and for a moment, we almost feel like enemies.

“Like I said, do not forget where your loyalties lie, Lucca.”

I release him. “I won’t. Don’t worry about that. If you don’t mind, though, I’d rather you didn’t talk about the woman who’s going to be my wife like that.”

He stares at me in surprise, then eventually gives me a nod.

“Of course… no disrespect, moy syn.”

“And none to you either. None at all.”

The sheen of determination I’m used to comes back into his eyes, replacing the tension in his glare, and he nods again.

“I appreciate that.”

He backs away, then turns and goes back up the stairs. I stare at the door as he walks through and it swings shut, then continue looking well after he’s gone.

“He’s not going to like that,” Jon says, coming up behind me.

I didn’t realize he was listening in.

“Which part?”

“All of it. You like her, don’t you, Lucca?” It’s more of a statement than a question.

“You think I do?” I ask, not denying or confirming it.

“You liked her from years ago. That’s why you did what you did for her and why moments ago you would have killed Damien for disrespecting your woman if he were someone else.”

He knows me too well. He doesn’t know my real past with Aria, though.

“She’s the spoils of war,” I lie.

“Is that all she is, though? It’s not bad to have a little bit of normal in your life. I do.” The corners of his mouth turn up into a smile.

Jon has had a woman in his life for the last five years, and the only person who knows of her existence and name is me. For the purposes of safety, I only know her first name. That’s all.

“I don’t do normal.”

“Couldn’t hurt to have some normal even if you risk pissing off a man like Damien. Just be careful, my friend.”

As he backs away and leaves, I think about what just happened with Damien.

If he was pissed by what I just did and said, he’s not going to like my fascination with Aria any more than I do.