After all the stress of the past forty-eight hours, and the rounds Elda and I had gone through last night instead of sleeping, my body was feeling weighed down. She was only marginally better than I was. I could keep going, it was only long enough to get on the plane, but I could use some coffee anyway. She must have seen the grumpy look on my face.
"We have some time, long enough to get a coffee. Honestly, I'd like one, too."
So, we did that, sat at a café in the airport and had a quick drink. There were people around, so we didn’t have much of a chat.
The plane boarded maybe ten minutes after we got back, and I followed her onto the aircraft.
We were both on our way out to Italy.
We settled in with our meager luggage and waited for the plane to take off. She sat at the window, and I took the aisle seat. A part of me still expected something to come up, I was a ghost, but I'd shaved my facial hair and I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror that morning because it was the face that had been plastered on the news after my family was murdered. More than just wanting to hide, I hadn't wanted to look at that face again.
No one else seemed to recognize me, either. As big news as it had been five years ago, this wasn’t Ireland where it got a lot more coverage and public attention. Most of the locals probably wouldn’t even remember, if they'd done more than paid cursory glance at the passing news.
After everyone had boarded, and the pilots went through a few flight checks, we were off. I breathed a sigh of release, then, tension leaking out of me, leaving me even more exhausted than I already was.
Still, I couldn’t sleep. I glanced down at Elda sitting next to me, her head leaned back against the headrest with her eyes closed. I knew she wasn’t sleeping, though. I took her hand on the armrest between us and squeezed, and she opened her eyes to look at me.
"What is it?"
"You never did tell me your story."
I'd been curious, too. It was hardly the place to be talking about it, even a small murmur carried, but most of the people around us were already asleep, the ones awake had earphones on. No one would be paying attention to us.
"Greco was my father."
Even though I'd guessed, it was still a surprise to hear it said so bluntly.
"I didn’t get any of this information until four years ago, on my twenty-first birthday." She took a deep breath and seemed to be bracing herself.
"Years ago, when she was still young, my mother met a man, back in Italy. They didn’t meet much at all, because he lived in the States, only visiting once every couple of months, or so. But she was smitten. That man was called Greco. My mother never knew he was already married at the time, or that he was part of the mafia. She fell in love, believing she was loved in return. So, you can imagine, to her, the news that she was pregnant was a joyous one. He had been away too long, but she waited for him. Until one day he returned. She told him about the baby."
He wouldn’t have found it particularly happy. Neither would his family. Even though they were somewhat more relaxed, Greco's family was extremely strict, especially when it came to heirs. It was a disgrace to have a mistress, to not be properly married. Even though they were relaxed, it was only to the point of sleeping around, so long as no one got pregnant out of wedlock, or a wedding would happen. I could just imagine what it would have been like, twenty-five years ago.
"When he found out, he disappeared for a while. My mother couldn’t reach him, he no longer sent her letters. She thought he had run, scared, and she was devastated. But then he sent people to Italy to kill not only my mother but me as well, while she was still pregnant. We got lucky, though. The details got fuzzy there, no one wanted to tell me exactly what happened. I do know there was help from some local authorities, though. But we lived through the ordeal, and my mother and her parents knew who they were dealing with. The only way they survived was by going into hiding."
She stopped, swallowed.
"I spent the last four years training and getting ready to come to the States to avenge the one man that wanted to kill my mother."
"But your mother didn’t survive. Or you wouldn’t be here, right?"
"Right. My mother had a stressful pregnancy. When the time came for her to give birth, none of them really expected her to survive. I was born, and my mother died, because she couldn't even go to a hospital to boost her chances, Greco's men were everywhere. But her parents were still likely in danger, and me too. I believed I was raised by my grandparents, but it turned out they were just friends entrusted to look after me while my real grandparents hid.
"I only got to know them once I was much older. On my twenty-first, when I went back home hoping to surprise my grandparents, only to meet them there with a few unexpected surprises in the room. Everything I learned that day made me hate Greco. This man that I never knew became my worst enemy, even if he was my father."
"And your solution was to turn into a hit woman," I murmured slowly.
"All I could think was that I wanted the man dead. From that moment onward, I stopped studying. Stopped training to be the lawyer I had aspired to be. And trained how to be a killer. It wasn’t hard, with my looks to hook up with some guys in the mafia. It wasn’t difficult for them to show me what artificial beauty could do, and with the right training, I could be a killer.
"So, I trained to kill."
She paused and blinked, then looked at me. I couldn’t judge her, considering the turn my own life had taken. It was likely I'd killed more people than she ever had, even though she was only a couple of years younger. It still made something shrivel in my chest, just hearing her. She didn’t deserve what had been done to her, all because the bastard couldn't keep it in his pants.
"I even took some contract killing jobs, just so I could be ready when the time was right to kill Greco, and I needed the money to do the job..."
"And the wedding was your opportunity."
She nodded.
I thought back to conversations I'd had with Greco. He had three children, all of them sons. I had guessed Elda was his daughter when I realized their eyes were similar, the one he said he could have had.
"Greco talked about his past at times," I murmured. She was looking out the window, and she turned back and met my eyes. "He would talk, sometimes, about his foolish youth and actions he regretted."
She rolled her eyes. "His regret wouldn’t have brought my mother back. I'm not sorry he's gone. Once my true grandparents know he's gone, they'll know they can stop hiding, stop looking over their shoulders all the time. They're already old, and they've been carrying that kind of burden for the past twenty-five years. I'm lucky that they stayed alive long enough for me to meet them."
I could see the wet sheen in her eyes, and I didn’t say anything more, squeezing her hand.
Chapter 25
Elda
We were on a plane heading to my homeland, and I was the most relaxed I had been in the past four years. It was still sinking in, that it was all over. Greco was gone, and my mission for the past four years wasn't hanging over me anymore. It felt a little surreal.
And I wasn’t alone.
I felt Luke squeeze my hand, and I squeezed back.
"Wouldn’t you have wanted to talk to him, at least?"
I scoffed at the notion. I never thought of talking to Greco, because every time I tried, all I could envision was it falling into a screaming match, mostly on my end, and Greco ending my life before I could do anything. He had wanted to be rid of me when I was an innocent child; why would he prefer a young woman that would bring a scandal of illegitimate children to his family?
"What for, Luke. I lived my whole life without a father, and after knowing what he did, how could I feel any differently, how could I feel anything other than hatred for that man? I spent the past four years working toward this goal. I did things that I would never have thought myself being capable before I turned twenty-one. I am completely fine with the progression of things."
Still,
he looked pensive. Whatever reason he'd had for killing Greco—because of betrayal, or because the general was there and Greco was just conveniently close by— he was having second thoughts now, and I couldn’t have that. There was no reason for him to rethink it.
"Luke, I don’t regret what you did, whatever your reasons for doing it. At the end of the day Greco killed innocent people, and maybe the time with my mother wasn't the only time something like that happened. It was the only time he confessed to you, but there could have been others."
Luke nodded slowly. "I know that, and I agree with you. I don’t really regret it. But Elda, I grew up in a healthy family, strange as many would find it, for a hitman. My parents were great, so were my siblings; I was the only one unsatisfied, more interested in chasing dreams, or I would never have left home. I guess I don’t like thinking that you never had that."
"I was still raised by two very nice people that always protected me and had my best interests at heart. And I have two sets of grandparents now, so it's not like I'm going to be lonely. Besides. Now, I have you."
I froze, then bit my lip after I said it. I didn’t mean to let that out, I didn’t even know if it was true. He was coming with me for the moment, but how long would he really stick around? I had a house close enough to all my family, one I had bought with some of the money I had earned, but this would be the first time I was moving there to live. Would he go with me, or would he leave after a short rest, find somewhere else to go?
We'd talked about being together, but we hadn't talked much about our future, what we would even do afterward. If he would continue in his line of work, or look for something else? It hadn't been the priority when we were dealing with getting safely out of the country, working so neither of us fell under suspicion. But now that we were on our way to my home, I realized we should have thought about it a little more.
As if he saw me worrying, he leaned across the seat to touch my face with his other hand, curving the palm around my cheek, getting my attention.
"I'll be with you for as long as you need me. You still have a family, but I don’t have anyone except you now. We can rely on each other, okay?"
I nodded slowly, feeling my lips curve into a soft smile.
"Thank you," I murmured quietly, turning away to look out the window so he wouldn’t see the sheen of tears in my eyes.
We sat in silence, and I didn’t even notice when I drifted off.
Chapter 26
Luke
I had never been to Italy before, and even with my years around the Italian mafia, I didn’t actually speak any Italian.
The language confused me. it wasn’t just the foreign words, they were moving too fast, so even the few that I knew from exposure, I couldn’t even hear to recognize. From the time when we landed, I had to rely on Elda for pretty much everything. Some signs at the airport were in English and Italian, and that was something, but it was nowhere near enough.
I had to hang back and let her do most of the talking as we made our way past security. My papers were airtight, though, and they passed. Since I would be sticking around permanently, I'd have to consider getting some local paperwork, and I'd probably need her help then, too. The idea left me a little irked. I'd never had to rely on anyone, not since I was eighteen, and that I had to nine years later felt a little odd at first.
Elda rented a car and drove us out to her house. I was a little surprised that she even had one since I'd been expecting us to hole up in some hotel while we looked for a permanent residence.
"You have a house?" I asked on the way, feeling a little jealous. I'd pretty much just moved from place to place, and back when I was still in the army, I'd just go home during my breaks.
"I own a villa, yes. It’s a beautiful place. I can't really say I've lived in it, though. I purchased it maybe a year after I quit law school. It's close enough to all my family to suit me. But, now that I don’t really have anything else, since what I've been focusing my life on for the last four years is taken care of, I guess it's safe to go back there."
We drove for maybe two hours before we got arrived.
It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was a big, two-story house painted in white, with some dark brown wood here and there. It was a lone house on a large plot of land with no close neighbors.
I followed Elda, eyeing the grounds, as she let us into the house. I got a quick tour of the place, and it was relatively big. There was a large living room and an attached dining room, a big kitchen to the back. There were five rooms upstairs that could be turned into bedrooms, easily. Furniture and appliances were already set up. The more I walked through the rooms, tastefully decorated in dark and light contrasts, the more it was cemented for me.
I loved Elda's villa.
The second thing we did, after the tour, was head to the master bedroom to store away our bags. I was surprised at how well kept the place was.
"Who do you have look after this place for you?"
"Hmm?" she looked back from where she was stuffing things into her closet. "My grandmothers, actually. I wouldn’t trust some stranger in here while I was away. Neither of them works and they're always looking for things to keep them busy. They did all the decorating, the furniture. I'm ashamed to say I've only been here a total of seven times since I purchased the place, and I never spent a whole week any one time."
Well, she had the time to stick around, now.
I wandered to the window and glanced outside at the grounds, surprised when all I saw was a stretch of free land, and I wondered just how far the grounds extended. I'd have to ask her later, or I could take a walk around, or I could do both.
But I was still feeling off from the flight, even though I'd slept through most of it. I wasn’t thinking of sleep when I sat back on the bed, though, leaning back on my hands and keeping my eyes on Elda. As she finished whatever arrangement she was doing.
"I still have some stuff holed up in a few places, I'll have to get them back at some point."
"I'll come with you."
"You don’t have to." She turned around.
I wasn’t asking, I was pretty much telling her I was going along. Considering the info, I now had about the groups she was associating herself with, even though she'd survived that world just fine, I was going to worry every time she stepped out the door.
Greco somehow got a message to her in Italy, through one of her local clients. I wouldn’t put it past the man to have local connections, and when news of his passing hit international news, there might me some problems. Hell, they probably already knew by now, ahead of the public.
I didn’t say any of that as Elda turned around and caught sight of me on the bed, watching her. She paused for a beat, and then her mouth curved into a smile.
"Was there something you wanted, Luke?"
I grinned, pushing myself off the bed and stalking over to her. I loved how she said my name, her accent curling around the syllables. The accent was thicker, too, more than I'd ever heard it, and I wondered if Elda could hide it and let it out at whim.
She laughed as I advanced on her. "Fine. We both need a shower anyway."
I stopped in my tracks as she pulled off her top then proceeded to strip. All I could do was watch until, when she had nothing on but a teasing smile, she turned and walked through a different door than the one we came in. I snapped out of my daydream, threw off my clothes and followed her. I barely remembered to bring a condom. I didn’t get to look at the inside of the master bathroom, my eyes were all for her.
She was already in the shower, hands up, pushing her hair back, lifting her breasts and bringing my attentions to her peaked nipples. It had only been a few hours since we were intimate, but I practically attacked her like a drowning man, attacking her lips as I wrapped my arms around her to hug her body against mine. Our naked chests touched, and she moaned and moved her body against mine when her hard nipples rubbed against my chest.
I stepped carefully forward, and she stepped back, as I p
ushed her toward the wall, braced her body against the tiles as I raised one leg to wrap around my waist. I cursed as my wet fingers fumbled with the condom, then her hands in my hair were tugging my mouth to hers, and she slid her tongue into my mouth as I thrust in to the hilt.
We moved under the warm spray, our moves languid and unhurried, the water making our bodies slide against each other. When we orgasmed, there was no screaming, or scratching or biting, but I thought it was the best sex we'd had so far. After a quick wash, we had another quick round on the bed, where I laid back and she rode me to our mutual completion. Until we ended up, again, lying exhausted in each other's arms.
"So, what are we going to do now?"
I squeezed my arm around her. "About what?"
"Our future together."
I was lying on my back, one arm around her and the other under my head, and she had her head on my shoulder. We were getting too used to each other so quickly, it sometimes escaped my mind. It made me forget just how short a time we'd known each other, around two months but we'd barely spent more than a day together in all that time.
Her question made me realize. This was all new to both of us. We had both been in jobs where we weren’t allowed to have relationships. For the sake of our own safety, so we wouldn’t be preoccupied while people were running around going after us. Even if I'd thought of it at any point, I'd have to keep what I did a secret, bear the consequences of it coming out. I never wanted that kind of stress, and I imagined she wouldn’t either.
And yet, being together seemed so natural for us, I couldn’t imagine another way to be. It felt like we had been like this for a long while and were just settling into it.
One Night With The Tycoon (Billionaire's One Night #1) Page 35