Chapter 10

CHAPTERTEN

“GET IN.”

DOM held open the car door for Luca, a gun in one hand and his watchful eyes scanning the alley. They still had a couple of hours until the sun rose, but that meant nothing to the lowlife cretins who would’ve been sent to hunt them down.

This was their hunting hour, the dark of night, the early hours of morning. This was when they slithered out of the shadows and searched for their prey, and Dom knew that if they didn’t move fast, killers would be on them like flies on shit.

Luca slid across the back seat and quickly buckled his belt.

Good, seems the kid wants to live through the night at least. Now that he’s thinking clearly.

Chef gunned the engine, and as they began to drive away, Dom placed the satchel with their passports on the seat between them. Luca glanced down at it, then gingerly touched the flap of the case.

“Do you do this kind of thing often?” he asked. It was difficult to gauge what the kid was thinking in the shadows, but every now and then as the city lights brightened the interior of the car, Dom caught a glimpse of the curiosity in those soulful eyes.

“Be more specific.”

Luca’s lips quirked. “Acquire a new identity. Get fake passports.”

“No. But it’s always wise to have someone around who can make you disappear when need be.”

“Dis…disappear?” Luca looked back down to the satchel. “So I was right back there—we’re going somewhere? Where?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t— Are you crazy? Of course it matters. I have a life here. I was working on a career, or at least I was before you charged into it like a bull at a gate and trampled all over it.” Luca slumped back into his seat and ran a hand over his hair. “Jesus. You just don’t get it, do you? Or don’t care. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse.”

Dom sat silent and ran his gaze down the line of dark stubble on Luca’s jaw that made him appear grittier and rougher than Dom knew him to be.

A twinge of regret filled Dom as he thought about all that Luca had lost in the last few days, and he wondered how he’d feel if the roles were reversed. He couldn’t imagine being plucked out of this life and then dumped in some model house with the perfect parents and life out in the suburbs. It’d be like he’d woken up on another planet.

Dom reached for the satchel and opened it up, then flipped open Luca’s passport. “Silas Wheeler?”

“What, don’t like it?”

“I hate it.”

Luca shrugged and turned back to the window. “Too bad. You put me on the spot, that’s what you get.”

Dom studied the photo and zeroed in on Luca’s thick lashes, full lips, and that damn freckle.

Why the hell did Dom have to be so damn attracted to him? This whole plan of his and his father’s would’ve gone so much easier if Luca had just looked and acted like every other Fiore. But somewhere along the way, Dom had stopped seeing him like that. He’d stopped seeing him as the enemy and started to see him as—

“Is there anywhere else you need to go, Dom?”

Chef’s voice pulled Dom away from his dangerous line of thinking. They were about to exit the city and head toward New Jersey.

“No. We have all we need.”

Chef gave a clipped nod and left it at that. They continued in silence for a couple of miles, but when they headed over the bridge out of the city, Luca said, “Let me guess, Newark?”

Dom raised a brow and shook his head. “Do you really think I’m going to let you traipse through an international airport where you can talk to just anyone—including police and security?”

Luca narrowed his eyes.

“Really, Luca—”

“Silas.”

“Really, Luca, if that’s what you think, you don’t know me at all.”

“I know you’re an evasive pain in the ass.”

“And you’re a foolish, mouthy child who doesn’t know when to quit while he’s ahead.”

“A child?” Luca looked at where Dom held Luca’s passport open on his photo. “Now who’s being foolish?”

Dom quickly shut the passport and shoved it back in the satchel. “Italy.”

“What?” When Dom just stared at him, Luca’s eyes bugged wide. “We’re going to Italy? I can’t—”

“You can and you are, and that’s all you’re getting right now.” Dom could see the wheels turning as Luca digested what he’d just been told. “Have you ever been before?”

“Uh, no, when would I have the time?”

“No family vacation?”

“To Italy?”

“They are Italian, aren’t they?”

Luca started to respond, but seemed to change his mind.

“What?”

Luca looked a little dumbfounded for a minute and then shook his head. “It’s nothing, I just— I never really thought about the fact that they were Italian. I grew up as a Davis. But I guess that’s not their real name, is it?”

Ah, that made sense. Guess Constantino didn’t get to that part of the story during their little family reunion.

“I’m assuming no.”

Luca frowned. “Do you know their real names?”

Dom didn’t, but he’d be able to find out. “I can get them for you.”

“I don’t know…”

Dom could hear the indecision and decided to leave it alone. If Luca wanted the information, he knew he could ask for it. So instead of pushing any further, Dom gestured out the window.

“We’re almost there. When we get inside, you need to—”

“Keep quiet and out of sight?”

“The first yes, the second I’m not sure is possible. But try not to attract attention to yourself.”

“So I shouldn’t run inside and tell everyone you’re abducting me? Well, shit, there goes my plan.”

“One of these days”—Dom leaned across the car—“that mouth is going to get you into a world of trouble.”

Luca licked his lower lip. “Pretty sure it already did the night I sucked your—”

“Careful,” Dom said, his cock throbbing at the reminder of Luca’s lips around his dick. “There are others around.”

“Which is bad for me…or you?”

Dom shifted back into his seat and looked ahead, but he didn’t miss the eyes in the rearview mirror aimed his way. Chef had heard everything. While Dom wasn’t worried about his friend knowing what he’d done, the confirmation that he and Luca had been together sexually still made him wary.

“We’re here,” Chef said as he pulled up to the boom gate of Teterboro Airport. It was the most private airport in New Jersey.

Dom pulled out the passes needed to get inside and handed them to Chef, and once everything checked out, the boom gate rose. Chef drove them inside the facility and made his way to the private hangar where the Rossetti jet was fueled up and waiting for them. As they got closer, Luca pushed his face up against the glass.

“We don’t have to go through check-in? What about luggage? I don’t have anything.”

“And you don’t need anything. There’s no check-in here. We are the only ones getting on the plane.”

“We are?”

“Yes. We own it. All the bells and whistles are taken care of when we rent out our hangar each year.”

“But you’re carrying more weapons than an army ranger right now.”

Dom’s lips twitched as Chef drew the car to a stop outside the huge hangar. “Good thing I don’t have to walk through a security scanner, then, isn’t it?”

Before Luca could respond, Dom opened the car door and waited for him to exit.

Luca caught sight of the shiny Cessna Citation X and his jaw all but hit the tarmac. “That’s your plane?”

Dom chuckled. “It is. Why? Isn’t it big enough for you?”

As Luca tried for a response, Chef stepped around him and gave Dom a hug.

“Try not to die, huh?”

“Top of my list,” Dom said.

“And you, try not to kill him,” Chef told Luca.

Luca snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ’cause I’m such a threat.”

Chef looked at Dom. “The biggest.”

Dom glared his friend down as Chef slipped back into the car and started up the engine. As Chef drove away, Dom knew he was right—Luca certainly had the potential to be the most dangerous threat of all.