by Ella James
His lips brush my forehead. “Like a mark…to remember you by.”
My hand cups his nape and rubs over his hard, warm shoulders. This is Luca, and I’m in his arms. It feels too amazing to describe.
“Tell me something,” I whisper. Tell me something that will make me feel like I have to go. I shut my eyes. “Tell me how you’re different than you used to be.”
He’s holding me so gently, his hand between my shoulder blades, his forehead touching mine. I see him shut his eyes and watch his lips move as he murmurs, “I am.”
I hug him—because I can’t help myself. “What happened that week? What changed?”
My hands stroke his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. He breathes deeply as he shuts his eyes. “My father was an informant. Your dad tried to warn him. The night we met, at the wedding reception, that was our dads…in the bedroom where we hid. Your dad, telling mine to stop.”
Shock slides through me, cold and heavy. “That was your dad?”
He nods.
“Did you recognize him when you saw him at my house?”
He looks at the couch, sucking his cheeks in like he’s biting them. “Your dad knew. He knew I was into shit. Told me that night if I wanted you…I had to keep my nose clean.”
“What do you mean?”
He presses his back against the couch’s scratchy fabric, and I see his ribcage flare. His jaw is taut, his eyes cast down. “Your dad knew. That was the warning for me.” He covers his face with one hand, rubbing his forehead so that I can’t see his face.
“Why would my father warn you? Were you doing stuff with the mob?”
His fingers rub his forehead harder. “Yes.”
“When I knew you? That makes no sense. You were going to Columbia.”
Now he lowers his hand, blue eyes finding mine. “You never told yourself maybe I lied?”
“I told myself that very thing for years. But I can see you; I’ve been near you, and you’re not that different.” My throat aches. “Is that what happened? Something with the mob? I’ve waited more than ten years to find out what took you away, what made you wreck your own life.”
I expect him to reply in anger: What makes you think I wrecked it?
Instead, his eyes gleam. “I did something. After…my dad.” I see him try to lock his face down, but it slackens with pain as he shuts his eyes.
His arms fall away from my back. He holds his head. “I don’t talk about it much.”
I wrap my arms around him. Now his face is in the hollow of my shoulder; he feels almost limp. I hug him closer. “It’s okay.” Rubbing his back, I feel chills. “You don’t even have to tell me…if it’s too hard.”
I feel his breath on my throat, the way his chest is moving like he’s breathing hard and fast.
“It was so long ago,” I whisper, shocked to find I truly don’t care in this moment.
“I killed someone,” he says, and a shudder ripples through his torso. “I killed my friend’s brother.”
16
Elise
He lifts his head, looking at me—but I realize he’s not. He’s looking through me. I watch as another little shudder jerks through his shoulders. Then he’s dragging air into his lungs. His eyes are round, his face a blank as he says, “I don’t know what happened. Don’t remember…” His lips tremble. He presses them flat. “Happened in the Columbus Building,” he says in a voice that sounds far away. “That’s why I was drunk that night.”
“Which night?” I murmur when he doesn’t say more.
“In the elevator.”
I frown, searching for a drink in my memory. “I don’t think I knew that.”
He blinks, looking like he’s coming back into the moment as his eyes flit to mine—briefly. “I don’t drink unless I’m there.”
I think about him on the rooftop smoking, seeming so loose-lipped and smirky.
The word “why” falls from my lips before I can stop it.
“I don’t know why I did it. I used this”—he frowns, lifting a hand—“that I found on the yacht. During our prom night.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “I remember sitting in the hall…and they were carrying these bags, and—” His torso lurches like he’s getting sick, but—oh God—he’s just panting, his head pressed against my shoulder as my arm wraps around his back.
“I was gonna kill…myself, I think.” It’s groaned. “But I found Tony. Tony shot my father and I…saw him do it.” He lifts his head, his dazed eyes finding mine. “I did that.” He laughs softly. “So I kind of knew that was the end of us. I know what happens when one of them has a wife.”
“One of who?”
“Lamberto,” he says quietly. “I had heard that, and I didn’t want it to be you.”
“What do you mean? You were already planning to move up the ranks and be like him?”
He shakes his head. “I was scared of someone hurting you. I didn’t want you to feel how I felt. Not ever.”
My heart feels as if it’s twisting; something might pop off or crumple. “How did you feel?” I stroke my hand down his arm, and chills fan out from the ground zero of my fingertips.
“Like dying.” He closes his eyes, swaying slightly as he goes on. “I knew you were moving on to better things. And if you saw me”—his hand cups his forehead—“I knew you could tell.”
“What would I be able to tell?” I take his free hand and hold it between both of mine, prompting him to lift his head a little.
“You’d know I was…”
“You were what?” I whisper.
“Fucked up,” he says thickly. “I thought if you knew, you’d want to save me.”
Tears spill from my eyes. “I would have. You were right. I would have done everything I could to save you. Every single thing.”
“And it would drown you, because that’s the way it works.”
“Saving someone drowns you?”
His eyes close as his face shuts down.
“Is that how it seems to you?”
“Don’t bullshit.” His eyes open as his face twists. “That’s how it is. Like saving someone from the water.”
I almost laugh. “Lifeguards do it every day.”
“You know what I mean.” He shifts slightly, putting space between us. Now his body is taut, his eyes emphatic and a little wild. “You didn’t need to be swimming for me.”
I press my lips together, picking at a string on the couch as I decide what I can say without losing my temper and lashing out. But this is Luca. I’m not censoring myself now. “I don’t think it should have been your choice. How do you know that I couldn’t have done it? I was smart, resourceful, and I had a lot of money.” I say that bitterly—because it’s bitter to me that I had so many things he didn’t.
“You were going everywhere. I couldn’t even swim, you know I made that shit up? Didn’t learn till I was twenty-seven. Fucking hard, too.”
“Luca…”
He wipes his eyes with the back of his arm. Then he shifts me onto the other couch cushion and gets up. “There’s your story,” he says, with his bare back to me. “Fucked up, right? And I’m that person.”
He looks at me over his shoulder. I can see his chest is pumping, and his face is drained of color and emotion. I don’t even think he’s looking at me. His gaze is fixed on something behind me.
“Hey…come sit back down.”
He shakes his head and steps into the kitchen. He’s still nude, his body statuesque in the shadow of the wall between two small, square windows. I watch him reach into a cabinet, trying to commit every flicker of his movement to memory—even as I wonder what to do and say now. This is going to be the last time that I ever see him. I can feel it.
I watch his back as he breathes. Deep breaths…and then slower ones. I watch him fit those jagged edges back together. Then I watch him start on coffee. Beans into a grinder, paper filter into an old coffee maker. He turns on the water at the kitchen sink and puts his hands under the steaming faucet. God,
he is so very gorgeous. I would never stop touching him if he were mine. I don’t think we’d leave the bed.
“Are you gonna go?” His voice startles me. He turns the water off and looks over his shoulder again.
I grab a blanket, wrapping it around myself with shaky hands before I walk slowly over to him. “Do you want me to go?”
His eyes move to mine. “Yes. Because you’re the D.A., Elise. You don’t need to be within a mile of me.”
“It worked just like you thought it should,” I hear myself say. “You thought I shouldn’t be around you. Now it’s fixed so I can’t.”
Tears sting my eyes. Now it’s my turn to lock my jaw and look down at the floor and try to hold myself together.
“It’s okay.” The words are soft and slow. But when I look back up at him, I find he’s got his cheek between his molars. “Nothing is wrong with me.” He inhales deeply, his face tensing almost painfully as he says, “Ever since that time with Tony…I remember everything I do. Even things I wish I didn’t.”
He looks down. I think he’s embarrassed, but I can’t be sure—because I don’t know him the way I used to. He is different. He seems more closed off, as if the acts involved in being close with someone else are unfamiliar to him. He seems…heavy. Maybe that’s just regret about what happened between us. I tell myself it is, because I can’t stand thinking he’s unhappy as a way of life.
I can’t stop thinking about what happened to him the week he ghosted on me. Did he really say he saw this guy—his friend’s brother—shoot his dad? And he…what? Lost his mind and shot the guy in return? I don’t fully understand the story. Now I feel like I can’t ask.
I feel stupid standing in his kitchen in a woolly blanket, hugging myself as I watch him get a coffee cup out. My eyes move over the pink scar that wraps around his left hip and covers the lower left part of his back. For a moment, that question is on my tongue, but I lock it away. Not my business.
His lovely muscles ripple as he pours a packet of sugar into the mug. Then he turns more fully to me. “You can go.” He gives me this smile—it’s the smallest smile I’ve ever seen. “I’m okay. Sorry I uh…” He shakes his head, like he’s clearing cobwebs. “I don’t talk about it…ever, really.” Again, a little sad smile. Like he wants to reassure me everything is fine.
“C’mere.” But he doesn’t wait for me to do that. He steps to me quickly, just one stride and then he’s got his arms around me, hugging me against him. God, it feels good. It feels so good. I hug him hard, closing my eyes.
He squeezes tighter, so hard that it almost hurts. “I still love you, rosa. Sorry if I shouldn’t say it.” He swallows so his voice is less rough. “I want you to know that nothing…” He shakes his head. “That shit wasn’t you. You were perfect. I fucked up.” His chest swells on a deep breath as he squeezes me again. “I didn’t mean to. I never wanted to mess shit up for you.”
His hand smooths down the back of my hair, and I feel his lips brush my head. “You go be a damn good D.A. Do whatever you have to. Find somebody that’s not Jace, okay?” His hand rubs over my back. “Don’t keep running early mornings outside. I don’t think that’s safe enough now. I like to shadow you, since your detailing, but sometimes it’s really fucking cold.”
I pull back so I can see his face, and he’s got this crooked, half-abashed smile.
“You did that? Or…do that?”
He looks guilty but pleased.
“Every weekend?”
“And the holidays, once I caught on.”
“Is that why you got near me that morning? New Year’s?”
His eyes shut just for a heartbeat. “That morning…I fucked up. I thought I might”—he shakes his head—“say congratulations. Something.” He shakes his head once more. “Stupid.”
No, it wasn’t. “Why’d you have me slap you?”
He grins, looking rakish. “Just to feel it after I left.”
“Was anybody really watching that day?”
“I don’t think so.” He looks thoughtful.
“Why are you here this weekend?”
He hugs me again, less urgent and more gentle this time. I can’t help a little shiver at the way our bodies fit together.
“Go back next door,” he murmurs near my ear. “Don’t worry. Read a book…whatever you do by yourself when it’s so fucking cold out. Get under the heating blanket—your place got one of those old ones? Get a new one. I think the one I’ve got here is a fire hazard.” His face presses into my hair. “You won’t see me around again. I remember what you said that one time in the elevator.” He sounds almost like he’s teasing.
“Don’t remind me of the elevator. Please,” I whisper.
His lips press against my hair again. “I never even put Mederma on it.”
I look up to find him smiling like he’s teasing.
“I hate that it scarred.” I have to swallow back tears.
He pulls me closer than maybe he ever has, like he’s hoping we might merge into one form. “I hate that your sister…” He shakes his head. “That week. Talk about shit you hate…I don’t have any words, la mia rosa.”
“How’d you find out?” It’s a raspy whisper.
“I looked you up…when you were in college.” He breathes deeply. “Before that, I hadn’t known.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t. If you lived there…at that house,” I tack on awkwardly.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t tell me.”
I step back a little. He lets go of me, but finds one of my hands with his. He threads his fingers through mine.
“Not because of what you think, though,” he says.
“How do you know what I think?”
He shuts his eyes. “Isa was…worried. For me.”
“She was so ‘worried’ that she wouldn’t let you even hear about me?”
“It’s not what you think, rosa. Isa wanted me until she heard me—I would cry at night…with nightmares.” He presses his lips together, looks down at his bare feet for a moment. “She would come into my room. I wouldn’t let her touch me. Sometimes…in my sleep…I’d—I don’t know.” He rakes a hand back through his hair.
“I’d try to talk to you, or want you,” he says in a whisper. “You know. She’d come in, and she would ask me can she call you. I would always tell her ‘no.’ So she knew I didn’t want it. I was trying everything to stop it. When she heard about—” He shuts his eyes, like he can’t stay my sister’s name. “Roberto and her, they said they would keep it quiet. He was talking to your dad on the regular. All those shots were getting called, and it wasn’t by me.” He looks up at me, and his jaw is tight again, his face is locked down. “No one’s in control except the management. I was the fucking bus boy.”
“Now?” I can’t help asking.
“Not the bus boy. That’s for sure.” He breathes deeply, his eyes closing. “I’m the veep…maybe the interim. Babysitting a few hundred people while Roberto travels all around. Trying not to die…you know. He’s had some heart attacks.”
“I thought you’re in charge now.”
He rubs at his forehead. “Sort of.”
“How do you do it?”
His eyes flicker to mine. “What do you mean?”
My heart throbs, the beats so hard they almost hurt. “The violent parts,” I whisper. “How do you do those?” I look up at him and think of younger Luca crying for me from a bedroom right beside my secret cousin Isa’s. Picturing him like that—in a moment that’s behind me in time—makes me want to rage with regret, so I have to switch my focus. That’s all done, so I want to know about his life now.
“You don’t…seem like a criminal,” I whisper.
His brow furrows. “I don’t think Roberto seems like that either.”
“He had your dad killed.”
“Yes.” He blinks. “Because he was a narc.” He says it slowly, as if to be sure it sinks in for me. “Those guys warned him half a dozen times. He got the warning because they had
all been friends, when you and I were little. My dad, your dad, all of them. My father got…I don’t know, I think like six courtesy warnings from the goddamn mob. And he still didn’t listen. What were they supposed to do?”
I shrug. “Something milder.”
“That’s not how it works.” His face looks troubled. He goes back to making coffee, this time grinding the beans.
“Fucking cold,” he mutters, rolling his shoulders. Are those chills on his back? It’s too dim for me to see.
“I can get your clothes for you.”
“La mia rosa…you should go.”
Luca
When she doesn’t reply, I look over at her, finding her lips pressed in a thin line. “You don’t want to talk to me about the mob.” She says it flatly, and her face isn’t condemning. She’s stating a fact.
“Hell no, I don’t. Because it doesn’t matter how I do or what I say. What matters is you talking to me. Being with me in my cabin. I don’t ever want to put you at risk. One second with me, how much shit gets fucked up for you?”
“I’m not sure how that’s relevant to you.” She looks at the floor, pensive and stubborn, and not listening to a damn word I said.
I turn to the fucking coffee maker. None of what I told her just now sunk in. Or she doesn’t give a shit. But maybe that’s good—it may be better that she doesn’t give a fuck I said I love her, that I want her life now to be everything she deserves. It hits me in the chest, though. I rub my hands through my hair, not sure what to say—except she needs to go.
“Trying to be a friend.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Sigh without noise. “You’re better off not knowing mob shit. What can you do with it? Say you got the deets from me up at my cabin?”
I can’t read her face. All I can focus on is how beautiful she is with her long hair around her bare throat.
I rub my eyes. “C’mon, E. You want some coffee?”
“Sure.” The word is too pert. “If you want to make me some, I’ll drink it.”
I get a mug down for her, load it up with creamer and sugar as she stands there by me, still and quiet before she turns on her heel and heads toward the bedroom.