Chapter 7

CHAPTERSEVEN

LUCA’S MOUTH FELL open as Dom smirked at him and wiped the sweat from his brow.

What was happening? He had to be dreaming. Or hallucinating. There was no way Dom was here, certainly not to rescue him. Maybe he was here to finish him off before the Fiores could use him as a pawn? It made sense, considering Dom appeared well stocked with weapons.

Luca hesitated, wondering whether he should make a run for it or trust that Dom wasn’t here to hurt him, but then he remembered he was locked inside this room and didn’t have a choice.

Again with the no-choices thing.

No, there had to be a better explanation for why he was conjuring up Dom. Maybe after the run-in he’d had with Mick, Luca had passed out and dreamed that someone would take him away from this place. But even in his wildest dreams he wouldn’t have thought Dom would be the one to play knight in shining armor. There was no way he’d risk his life for someone he was sworn to hate, not even after what they’d shared in the heat of the moment. Or two.

But there he was, standing in front of the window he’d wrenched open and asking Luca if he’d missed him.

It was official. Luca had lost his mind.

When he continued to stare without a word, Dom cocked his head. “I didn’t expect a welcome mat, but a smile couldn’t hurt.”

“I’m still trying to decide if it’s really you.”

“Oh. It’s the clothes, right?” Dom wrinkled his nose as he took the worn Yankees cap off his head. “The lengths I’ve gone to…”

Stunned, Luca took a step closer to the man dressed in a pair of grubby jeans and t-shirt a size too big. He’d never seen Dom dressed in anything other than perfectly tailored suits, and he doubted whatever he was wearing was something out of his own closet.

“Why are you here? How…?”

“While I’d love to give you a play-by-play, we’re running short on time.” Dom took hold of Luca’s arm and ushered him toward the window, but everything was happening so quickly that he didn’t have time to think, and pulled away.

“Wait,” Luca said, backing up.

“We don’t have time to wait.”

“But…what happens if I go with you?”

Dom’s brows knitted together. “Excuse me?”

“If I go with you, what then? Give me a reason why I would be better off.”

A look of surprise crossed Dom’s face before his eyes narrowed.

“If you need a reason to get away from the assholes who are going to make your life hell before they get rid of you, then I’ve wasted my fucking time. Now let’s go.”

Again Luca hesitated, and Dom shook his head in disgust.

“Fine. Stay here and rot for all I care.” He shoved the hat back on his head, turned his back on Luca, and headed toward the window.

Shit, what do I do?Luca was screwed either way. Unless…

“Are you going to kill me?”

Dom stopped and then slowly turned around. From beneath the bill of the hat, shadows cast a menacing shade across his face, and Luca swallowed hard. In his loathing of the Fiores, he’d forgotten just how deadly Dom could be when he turned his attention on you.

“Do you think I’d waste my time saving you just to kill you? Think carefully before you answer.”

Luca’s heart was beating so hard he thought it might pop out of his chest, and he had to force himself to breathe. Had Dom and his family changed their minds, then? They no longer viewed him as an enemy they needed to eliminate?

Shit—on one hand, he wanted to believe Dom felt something for him after their time together, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever shown he was anything other than a rough fuck. Then again, meeting Constantino and Gabriella today had shown Luca all he needed to know about their intentions. Add Mick into the mix, and this place was a nightmare. He might not get another chance to get out of here, and that made his decision for him.

It was at that moment that Chef popped up in the window, a look of exasperation on his face.

“You two finished with this little reunion yet so we can get the hell out of here, or did you want to get busted?”

Luca shouldn’t have felt the relief he did at seeing Chef, considering what Dom had told him about the man, but between the two of them, he somehow felt safer than he did in a house full of Fiores.

The sound of a door slamming and voices in the hall had Luca finally moving his feet. He shoved into his shoes and nodded at the window.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Thank fuck,” Chef said, and when he disappeared from view, Dom moved aside for Luca to go next. He took one look out the window, realized how high up they were, and hesitated.

“Uh, I don’t think—”

“Exactly, don’t think. Just grab the rope and make your way down. Chef will be there if you fall.”

“If I fall,” Luca said. “You mean when I fall. I don’t think—”

The sound of the bedroom door being unlocked sent a flash of fear to his heart, and he quickly climbed through the window and grabbed hold of the rope. It didn’t seem sturdy enough to hold his weight, but when Dom said, “Go!” Luca didn’t have a choice. He summoned every bit of courage he possessed and inched his way down, not letting himself look at the ground.

Above him he heard someone start to shout, but it was cut off quickly.

Oh God, was that Dom? Or someone else? Was he okay?

His worry about what was happening in that room took his mind off the fact that he was dangling off a window ledge of a building. Luca tightened his hands around the rope, and he heard Chef say, “That’s it, keep going. I’ve got you,” from somewhere below.

Keep going…keep going.

It had to be adrenaline riding him, because Luca knew for a fact he didn’t possess the upper body strength to do something like this under normal circumstances. It wasn’t long before he felt Chef’s hands on his ankles and heard a scream from somewhere above him. A few seconds later, Dom tore out of the window. The hat was gone, but he looked unharmed as he made his way down the rope at a much quicker pace than Luca had managed.

As Dom’s feet hit the ground, Luca noticed flecks of blood on his grubby shirt. “Are you hurt?” He immediately stepped forward to look for himself, but Dom shook his head.

“It’s not mine.”

Luca frowned. “Not yours?”

Dom pulled something from the pocket of his pants and placed it in Chef’s hand. “A memento.”

Luca squinted at the bloodied object, trying to make it out, but couldn’t quite manage it.

Chef glanced down at his hand, a deranged smile on his face.

Wait…is that an ear?

Luca’s stomach turned as Chef chuckled and pocketed his “memento.”

“And you think I’m knife happy.”

“You are. That’s why I knew you’d appreciate it.” Dom glanced back to Luca, who was trying not to lose what little contents were in his stomach. “We’ve got to go.”

While Luca appreciated that, he was still trying to wrap his head around something. “You cut a man’s ear off?”

“What can I say? I didn’t want them to hear where we were going. Now come on, unless you’ve changed your mind?”

Luca heart hammered as he thought about his next move. Was he really about to entrust his fate to a man who had just chopped a part of someone’s body off? But before he could decide one way or another, Dom’s hand wrapped around his elbow and he was shoved forward.

“Move it or work out a good fucking reason you’re down here with a dead body, because we’re about to have company.”

“A dead—”

“Not now, Luca.”

“But—

“Uh, guys?” Chef looked up to the window they’d just climbed out of. “Can we maybe have this discussion when we’re back in the car?”

Luca whirled around, looked up to see shadows moving around inside his latest prison cell, and quickly fought back the instinct to tell Chef and Dom he wasn’t going anywhere until they explained.

What other option did he have? Apparently there was a dead body out here somewhere, and if he was caught by the Fiores, God only knew what they’d think.

I mean, why else would the heir to the Rossetti family come and save me? Because that’s what Dom just did, right? Saved me?They’d think I was in on it. That I wanted to go with him. Then what would happen to me?

He didn’t need anyone to tell him the answer to that. Constantino would have him killed for sure. Father or not.

Chef took off toward the enormous gardens that backed onto a dense wooded area, and Luca’s head began to pound.

Do I stay or do I go?

If he stayed, maybe he could explain to Constantino—

“I’m done with this statue routine.” Dom released his grip, the bite of his fingers leaving a sting in their wake. “You want to die, that’s on you. Just remember that this time it was your choice.”

He jogged into the gardens without a backward glance, and as he disappeared, panic set in and he shivered.

How was it that he was actually more scared to be outside alone right now, with the chance of freedom at his fingertips, than he was seconds ago in Chef and Dom’s company? It was ridiculous. But as the fear of being caught by the Fiores or being lost in the woods set in, he took off in the direction Dom had just gone and ran for his life.

Luca had no idea where he was going, but the bright spotlights were helpful in making sure he didn’t trip over anything and fall flat on his face. He took off around the patio furniture, spotted a magazine and nothing else out of the corner of his eye, then headed down the perimeter of hedges lining one side of the yard. He didn’t consider himself an athletic person, but when he heard a voice call out from the house, “He’s over by the left side of the garden!” Luca’s legs kicked it up a notch.

The adrenaline pumping through his veins had his feet pounding into the ground beneath them. The night air had made the grass wet and a little slick, and the whole time he booked it down the fence line, all Luca could think was Don’t slip and fall, don’t slip and fall.

He wasn’t sure how far he ran—it felt like a million miles—but just as he was about to reach the back fence, a hand whipped out from behind the hedges and pulled him almost clear off his feet.

Luca gasped, his air already in short supply, as he stumbled back into a hard wall of muscle. His entire body might’ve hated him in that moment—his arms from the climb out the window and his legs from his hundred-mile dash—but he was ready to put up a fight against whoever had just caught him.

Without giving it a second thought, Luca rammed an elbow backward then stomped down on a foot. His captor cursed and let him go, and Luca whirled around, ready to kick him in the nuts.

“Fucking hell, kid.” Dom rubbed at his ribs. “Where’d that come from?”

Luca couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a glimmer of respect in Dom’s dark eyes even as they glared at him.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe having to fight for my life every five minutes.”

Dom’s lips quirked. “I’m glad to see your brain finally kicked in.”

“My brain— You’re delusional, you know that?” Luca’s breath finally slowed a little, but he could hear the footfalls of people behind them getting closer. “What are you doing here? Why did you stop?”

Dom gestured to something behind him, and Luca turned to see Chef standing behind the hedge across from them with two bodies at his feet. Luca stumbled back into Dom and then quickly jerked away.

“We didn’t want you to do any tripping and falling if you were following, so we were giving you a few minutes.”

Tripping and falling?

“But now we really have to go,” Dom said, and shoved Luca past the bodies toward the fence.

Luca’s eyes were glued to the stripped men piled on top of one another—one of whom he recognized from the kidnapping—until he heard Chef say, “Come on, kid, it’s your turn.”

Luca blinked and tried to tamp down the bile that was threatening to come out.

Dom shrugged. “It was them or us. Now go.”

Luca looked through the fence to where Chef was gesturing for him to go, and then decided to place his fate in God’s hands. He climbed the fence and landed beside Chef with a soft thud, and seconds later, Dom followed. The three of them tore off through the woods, Chef in front, Luca between them, and Dom bringing up the rear. It was strange, but it almost felt as though they were flanking him, protecting him. But that seemed unlikely, so Luca pushed it aside until they got to a car parked deep in the woods.

As they approached, Dom came up beside Luca and said, “This way.”

No longer possessing the will to fight, Luca did as he was told and walked around to the back passenger side. Just as he was about to open the door, Dom reached for the handle and did it for him.

Luca froze at the chivalrous gesture, and the expression in Dom’s dark eyes made his heart pound for a reason other than fear and exertion. It was a mix of victory, possession, and lust, and when Dom gestured to the back seat and said, “Get in and lie low,” his gravelly tone sent a shiver of completely misplaced desire straight to Luca’s cock.

He wondered when he’d decided that violent, deadly, psychopaths were hot as he slid in the back seat. But as Dom slid in beside him, he knew exactly when—the minute he’d met Domenico Rossetti.