Chapter 33

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

YOU COULD CUT the tension in the car with a knife.

As Dom merged onto the highway, Luca stared out the window at the cars passing them by. It seemed they’d switched roles since the plane, with Dom waiting for some kind of conversation and Luca falling into a broody silence. But considering everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, Dom could hardly blame him.

But they were alone now, and it was time to get it all out in the open, whether Luca wanted to or not. It had been hard enough for Dom to keep his distance on the flight home, and he’d be damned if he did it during what might be their final moments together.

“Nothing has to change,” Dom said, breaking the silence. “With your family. I know you’re worried, but they’re still your parents.”

“Yeah, except they’re not.” Luca let out a sigh. “How am I supposed to just show up and treat them like nothing has changed? They know where I’ve been. I know where I’ve been. I hardly think Thanksgiving will be the same.”

“Did you have a big Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really, but I’d like to think that the family the Fiores sent you off to treated you well.”

Luca frowned. “I’m in medicine. They hardly treated me bad.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Luca shook his head and faced the window. “But I don’t want to think about that. Don’t you understand? This whole thing has been one fucked-up thing after another, but now I’m supposed to go home and wrap my head around the fact that everything I’ve ever known was a lie? That these people who said they were my parents were playing a part? That their kindness, their love, wasn’t real? I can’t… I don’t know what to do with that. Do they really love me? Or were they paid to love me?”

Dom’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he stared at the road ahead. The sadness and confusion in Luca’s voice only added to the guilt he already felt for having uprooted the kid’s entire life.

When Luca remained silent, Dom reached across the console and took his hand. “Knowing you and who you are, I would say it’s a pretty safe bet that they love you very much.”

Luca raised those wide, soulful eyes to his, and Dom tightened his grip.

“You’re smart, inquisitive, brave—”

Luca snorted.

“What? You don’t think you’re brave?”

“I think I ask too many questions and have a knack for getting myself in trouble.”

Dom’s lips twitched. “Well, that’s true too. But you are incredibly well balanced, all things considered.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment coming from the reigning Mafia prince but…thanks?”

“It’s a compliment,” Dom said. “You see, that’s the one thing I have never been able to accomplish—balance. I function on one plane of existence, one set of emotions, and that’s to be powerful. In position and emotion. You can never look weak in my world or have a weakness.”

“Because someone might exploit it?”

“Right.”

Silence fell between them, but as the seconds passed by, Dom’s heart began to pound a little harder. He knew that if he was going to put himself out there, if he was going to give Luca the choice his father had talked of, he first needed to tell Luca how he felt.

“You’re my weakness. My weakness, my strength, the one fucking thing that makes no sense yet all the sense. You are the only one who has ever made me want some kind of balance in my life, and it pisses me off that I can’t have it.”

“So…this is the end,” Luca said. “I really won’t see you again after this?”

“I think that’s for the best, don’t you?” But before Luca could respond, Dom squeezed his hand. “You don’t want any part in this. And I’ll never force you to do something you don’t want to do ever again.”

He could hear the soft hitch in Luca’s breath, and it hit him harder than any bullet could’ve.

“But you’re doing it now,” Luca said. “You’re making the choice for me to go home.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve wanted all this time?”

“Well…yes, but…”

“But you’re confused.”

“Yes.”

Dom rubbed his thumb over Luca’s. “Makes sense. I did kidnap you.”

Luca let out an unexpected burst of laughter. “And locked me in a basement.”

“And locked you in a basement.” Dom pulled off the highway and started to weave his way through the beautiful streets of New Haven.

“Let’s not forget the death threats.”

“And also—”

“That you saved me.”

Dom came to a stop at a red light. “Is that enough to make up for everything else?”

For the first time in his life, Dom could hear the thread of doubt in his voice as he sat there waiting for Luca’s response. But before he could give it, a horn blasted behind them and Dom realized the light was green.

He took off up the street, wound the window down, and shot a finger at the person behind them. “How about you fuck off, asshole?”

Laughter filled the car, and he turned to see Luca grinning at him.

“I mean, how could I not have fallen for a charmer like you?”

“He’s just lucky I don’t have my gun handy.”

“Even better, threatening the locals.” Luca reached for Dom’s hand. “You asked if your saving me was enough to make up for everything else.”

Shit, Dom was hoping they could just avoid that answer. But as he turned onto Luca’s street, he knew there was no getting out of it. “Right. I did.”

Luca chewed his lip as he looked down at their joined hands. “Well, the short answer is no.”

Dom jerked the car to an abrupt stop at what the address kept saying was their “final destination.” It continued to repeat itself on a loop, and he nearly punched his finger through the screen to shut the damn thing up.

When it finally fell silent, Dom stared out the windshield at the other cars lining the street and replayed Luca’s response over and over in his head.

Well, the short answer is no.

If that were the case, Dom didn’t really want to stick around to hear the long answer.

“You’re home,” he said without turning in Luca’s direction, his stomach twisting as a wave of nausea hit him. The idea that he’d misread this situation, that he’d mistaken Luca’s feelings after all, made him to want to get the hell out of there as soon as humanly possible. “You don’t need to worry about any of Fiore’s guys coming after you, either. I’ve got men posted around the front and back, and they’ll stay here and at Yale on guard watching over you until the threat is gone.”

When there was still no movement beside him, he finally turned, ready to tell Luca to get the hell out. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could sit there knowing that this would be the last time he ever got to see or talk to him.

That was when he saw it—that gorgeous smile of Luca’s stretched wide across his lips. Luca Davis was the most beautiful man Dom had ever met, and he knew that it would be this face he would think of until the moment he took his last breath.

“You posted men at my house?”

Dom clenched his jaw, wishing Luca would just get out of the car and go already. But of course this was the time he decided to start asking questions.

“It’s the smart thing to do. Fiore’s guys might still see you as a threat. I’m not just going to leave you here to fend for yourself.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’d be like leaving a lamb to the slaughter.”

“And?” Luca unbuckled his belt.

“And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Dom wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn Luca’s eyes twinkled.

“Why?”

“For fuck’s sake, Luca. You know why. I love you.”

Luca sucked in a breath. Then he took Dom’s face between his hands.

“Then why in the hell are you all but kicking me out the door?”

Dom frowned. “You said no. That the things I’ve done—”

“No.” Luca grinned. “I said your saving me wasn’t enough. But that plus everything that came after…that was more than enough to make up for everything else. I was already feeling things for you I couldn’t explain, but after that night, and then in Italy when you let me see behind the tough exterior, there was no coming back from that. Not for me.”

Dom reached for the hands on his face and covered them. “You’re probably going to need a lot of therapy for that.”

Luca laughed and nodded. “Probably.”

Dom took his laughing lips in a fierce kiss full of passion and something new to him…hope.

“What if we didn’t make this goodbye?” Luca whispered against his lips. “What if we made it a clean slate and started over?”

“Started over? As in…?”

“Well, what if I decide to be with you because I want to. Not because you told me to.”

Dom’s heart practically stopped. He’d never put much stock in fates or future, but as Luca brushed his thumb across Dom’s lower lip, he almost wanted to believe they were each other’s.

“What if instead…I choose you?”