“I’ve got somewhere you’d like, though,” I say, remembering somewhere... cozy. It’s a mob-run place, and while it’s a little closer to work than I’d like to bring her, it’s somewhere I know is safe.
I follow the roads to a place that I’m not sure I’d call a hotel, exactly, judging by the outside. It’s an older building, but people have taken care of it over the years. Good people. As good as you find in this business.
“Room With A View?” I hear Serena say as we pull up on the side of the road and climb out of the car.
“I haven’t been here in a long time, but I remember it being a good place. I’m sure it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but-”
“Are you kidding?” she laughs, a bright smile on her face, crossing the street with me and looking at me as if I’m unreal. “I totally know this place, come on!"
I blink in surprise as she runs ahead of me to the door, but I follow. She’s really been getting around, hasn’t she?
The interior is all wood—and good wood, at that. It’s an old building. A few candles are burning on the tables, and the windows are just dark enough to make the whole place feel cozy. Past the tables and the bar, I see a set of stairs leading up to the next floor, to what I assume are a few rooms. It can’t be many. The place is tiny, and it looks like most of the people here are here for the drinks.
There’s a woman with light brown skin and dark, curly hair behind the bar, and her eyes light up at the sight of Serena.
“Hey girl, you didn’t tell me you were coming over!” she says, coming around to cross the floor and hug Serena around the neck. Even as she does though, she gives me a suspicious look, eyeing me like a judge. “Who’s your tall friend?”
I crack a smile at the protective edge in her voice.
“It was kind of a last minute thing,” she says, breaking the hug and turning to me. “I’ll explain later. Rafaela, this is Luca. He’s... an old friend,” she introduces me with an anxious smile, and I watch Rafaela’s eyebrows go up in understanding as she glances at me. “Luca, this is Rafaela. She runs this place,” she adds with a wink. Rafaela rolls her eyes.
“Co-owns. Nico’s around here somewhere. I’ll have him come get your orders. I’m... guessing you two want a table?” she asks, giving Serena a curious look. Serena rolls her eyes, holding back a grin.
“That’d be great,” Serena says, “thanks.” Rafaela watches us as we head to a quaint little table by the window, surprise written all over her face. Serena must not bring guys through here very much.
I have to be careful as I slide into the tiny seat. The table’s a little low, so I put my legs out to the side as I awkwardly fit my way in. Serena giggles as she watches me, and I grin back.
“Rafaela and I go way back,” she says once we’re situated. “She’s like, my best friend. I wouldn’t have survived college without her.”
“Sounds like she keeps an eye out for you,” I say.
“Yeah, she can be like that. Kind of like a big sister, too. She likes putting that Psych degree to use.”
A man with his sleeves rolled up approaches the table, looking at both of us with a warm smile. This one, I recognize, and we give each other a knowing nod.
His name is Nico Tosetti, and he’s what we call an associate. One of us. He must be the boyfriend Rafaela mentioned. I’ve crossed paths with him once or twice, but he’s small potatoes—which is a good thing to be, in this business. He’s a tall, goofy-looking guy, and he’s got a good heart. He doesn’t need to be tangled up in this business too deep.
“Luca,” he says with a smile, “didn’t think I’d see you around here.”
“You know each other?” Serena asks, looking surprised.
“Yeah, we’ve met,” I say, clapping hands with the guy. “Didn’t know this was your place.”
“Me and Rafaela,” he says with a nod back to the bartender. “They said running a bar would be a nightmare, but between the two of us, it’s the dream,” he says with a boyish smile.
Probably a hell of a lot better than enforcement on the south side of town, I think, and I give him a nod.
“So, what can I get you two?” he asks, putting his hands on his hips. I make eye contact with Serena before I speak.
“Got any Campari back there?”
“Of course.”
“How about a couple Americanos, then? Hold the Vermouth.”
“So...just Campari and soda water?”
“That’s right.”
Nico nods with a smile before darting off, and I catch Serena grinning at me across the table.
“Bastard Americanos, huh?” she asks, and I feel a grin spread across my face. An Americano in this case isn’t the coffee—it’s a cocktail with Campari, a little Vermouth, and soda water. Back in the day, when we were younger, I’d find ways to sneak a bottle of Campari every now and then, but I never bothered with the Vermouth. So, I called them ‘bastard’ Americanos.
That was also because I was a teenager still learning English, and I’d just learned the word ‘bastard.’
“I’m surprised you remembered,” I say.
“‘An Americano for my Americana?’ How could I forget that?” she says, and I cover my face with a massive hand.
“Oh god, I forgot about that,” I laugh, remembering that cheesy line, and soon I can hear her laughter too.
“It was cute!” she says, and as our laughter fades, her face gets a little more pensive. “Feels like a lifetime ago. Sitting on the back of that old pickup you and the other boys worked out of. Sneaking drinks from some Italian place I couldn’t pronounce.”
I look at her, sitting there, the picture of beauty. The dim lighting in here just makes her all the more alluring, and I want to just take her right now, as if years hadn’t passed between us.
But we’re moving fast. Too fast. We need to talk, and I know it. And yet... why spoil the moment while it lasts? As if on cue, Nico sets our drinks down in front of us and heads off.
“It’s been too long, Serena,” I say, watching her as she takes her drink and stirs it pensively.
“I know,” she nearly whispers. “I still can’t believe it’s real. You, here, I mean.” She looks up at me and hesitates a moment. “Those guys, back there at the shop…”
“The Cleaners,” I say in a low tone, glancing around the bar. I don’t want to stir up commotion here, and talking about a rival crime syndicate is a good way to do that.
“How did you know they were gonna be there?” she asks.
“Things are getting rough, Serena,” I say before taking a swig of my drink. “I was worried someone might come causing trouble around your place. I was right.” She’s watching me with wide eyes. “I have to be my own eyes and ears. It’s how it always is, with these people.”
“So it’s true,” she says softly, looking into my eyes. “You’re working with…”
The words the mafia hang between us. I nod.
“It’s been a long few years, Serena,” I say. Even low, my voice is gruff, and the beard and long hair don’t help the image. I reach over and cover one of her small hands in my large, warm one. “For now, just know that I’m not going to let anything happen to you. And you don’t need to worry yourself about all that right now, okay?”
She looks at me with that glint in her eye I know so well. Serena doesn’t like things being held back from her, and I know she’ll come back to this soon enough. She’s a precocious girl like that. So it’s all the more surprising to me when I hear her say, “Alright, sure.” She tilts her head to the side, narrowing her eyes at me. “Just tell me one thing, if you’re gonna be all secretive... what’s with the beard?”
I’m left speechless for a moment, then burst out laughing, putting a hand to my face. “I don’t know, really. What, you don’t like it?”
“Do you?”
I frown. “I’ve had it since…” Since life tore us apart. “For a while.”
“I think I miss your face,” she decides.
>
“I’ve been missing yours, passerotta mia.”
She blushes before hiding her face with her drink, which she finishes with a tinkling of ice cubes. “Woo, I forgot how strong that stuff is!”
“Careful now,” I say after finishing my own. “I know how much of a lightweight you are.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve gotten lots better,” she says playfully. Before I can reply, the sound of music floods the bar as someone turns on the speakers, and I flash a glance at the little open space between the tables—a wooden floor perfect for dancing.
Anyone who passes up the chance to dance with a pretty lady is no man at all.
“Alright, let’s see it then,” I say, standing up, and Serena flutters her eyes in confusion as I reach down to take her hands.
“Wait, what?”
“Rafaela, two more!” I call to the bartender, and she winks at Serena as I drag her out to the dance floor.
“Luca, what are you doing?” she laughs as some of the patrons give us amused looks.
“If you’re so good at holding your liquor, let’s see it! What good are a few drinks if they don’t help you dance?”
She yelps as I swing her onto the clearing between tables that passes for a dance floor, and the next moment, I’m drawing her by the hand all around me. It’s lively music, the kind you jump into to shake off your embarrassment and get into the heat of it. Serena is laughing already. After the first few awkward seconds of jerking around, we’re dancing. I’m normally not a man who expresses himself much. Especially not the past few years. But the way Serena dances around me, the way I can lead her so easily, it kindles an old fire in me.
That, and well, dancing is in my blood.
A song goes by, and by the time the one after that is done, a few people around the bar have joined us. Our blood is racing, and after Serena and I grab another drink, we dive right back in. It’s like there’s nothing else in the world but the two of us.
We don’t need words. All that gets shed by our body language. And as I’m watching her body move with mine, leading her on effortlessly, I realize how much I’ve missed her.
More dangerously, I realize how much I want her.
I need her.
Her soft hands brush against my muscular forearms, my strong hands on her hips, her ass against my crotch, the energy between us draws us closer and closer.
She turns, and our eyes meet for just a second, and it’s like lightning flashes between us. Primal desire is bursting through, even though both of us have been trying to ignore it this whole time, but its message is plain as day.
We want each other. Now.
Serena
My heart is racing and I can feel every pulse of blood in my veins. Despite the three cocktails I’ve had, my brain doesn’t feel fuzzy or out of focus. In fact, everything around me seems intensified, my senses all heightened, the colors in the bar seem brighter and more garish than ever before. It’s like someone has turned up the contrast on the photo lens of the world around us. I feel exhilarated. I feel alive. I know exactly what I want.
And he’s standing right in front of me. I look up at him with a dizzy smile on my face, drinking in the vivid green-peridot of his eyes, the fullness of his lips, the gentle slope of his nose. Even with that thick beard and scraggly hair, he’s painfully attractive. He’s grown up a lot since I last saw him, and I suppose that I have, too.
The scrappy young man I fell head over heels for as a teenager has transformed into a towering, musclebound, scarred, and stoic lumberjack type. If someone had told me years and years ago that we would meet again this way, I would never have believed it. After everything we went through, I assumed I would never see Luca again.
And even if we did, I thought he would turn away from me. I’m a reminder to him of dark times, just as he is to me. I can’t pretend that running into him, resparking that old fire hasn’t knocked me off my feet. Those memories, the ones I have worked so hard to put in the ground, float around me like the remains of some tragic shipwreck. Every now and then I wade too close to a piece of shrapnel, and the warning sirens go off in my head. As we talked and caught up with each other tonight, I had to remind myself that things are different now. That old danger is in the past.
Of course, there are new dangers now. Lorenzo and the Cleaners. The shop barely making a profit. Trying to keep my old, expensive, and empty family house up and running. And now there’s a new, added fear to the mix: losing Luca again.
It’s like a dream, a surreality, an impossible twist of fate that we should find each other again years after the horrors that broke us apart. Throughout the evening, I’ve been occasionally tempted to pinch myself, to shake myself awake. This has to be a dream.
But when I reach up to brush my hand along the wiry hair on Luca’s jaw and feel him lean into my touch, closing those beautiful eyes as though he’s losing himself in the ecstasy of the moment… I know for certain that this is real. This is actually happening. And I can’t lose him again. Not now. Not yet. There are still so many things I need to ask him, need to find out. I want to know him again the way I used to. We just need time—the one thing there never seems to be enough of.
Luca turns his face slightly to kiss the soft skin of my palm, sending a curious thrill down through my body, burning down to my very core. I can feel that vibration way down in my toes. His warm, whiskey-tinged breath is like a jolt of electricity to my soul.
“Luca…” I murmur, my voice trailing off and getting lost in the raucous thrum of competing conversations all around us in the bar. The counter is packed with patrons, and every table is full. Luca and I have been standing against the far wall for… god only knows how long. Just talking. Reminiscing gently, both of us too afraid to really push too far and split open old wounds. I can tell, without even having to ask, that he’s not ready to talk about what happened yet. Not fully. I don’t blame him. I wish I could push those terrible thoughts of my mind, make room for better things hopefully to come.
Like right now.
I’m more than ready to make a new memory with Luca. A much better one.
And it appears that he feels the same, leaning toward me, talking close. All evening he’s been pressed right up against me, that glorious, powerful body moving rhythmically with mine. It’s delicious, it’s intoxicating, and I can’t believe I’ve managed to survive all this time without it. Sometimes, someone can enter your life and remind you just how much you’ve been missing out on. Luca was mine once, and nothing in the world has ever compared to the thrill of belonging to him.
I want him to claim me again. Tonight. As the two struggling grown-ups we are now.
“Passerotta mia,” he whispers, brushing his lips along the shell of my ear. A tingling warmth spreads through my body and I shiver, feeling goosebumps rise across my skin. I turn to catch his face mere centimeters from mine, the tips of our noses barely touching. We lock eyes for a tense, clenching moment, and then he glances down ever so quickly at my lips and I know.
He wants to kiss me. He’s feeling the same fire that I feel.
But he pulls back before giving in, lifting a calloused, powerful carpenter’s hand to stroke the hair back out of my face. “Where can we go?” he asks softly.
It’s a bigger question in my mind than he probably intends for it to be. Where can we go? In what world does our relationship belong? Where are we safe, the two of us? Right now, right here, I have an idea for a temporary safe haven.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” I tell him. Then, as I’m turning to walk away, I add, “Please… don’t leave.”
Luca gives me a brilliant, warming smile. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Serena.”
It’s hard to tear myself away from him, even for a moment, but I have to. I rush through the crowd, squeezing past various groups of bachelorette parties and post-grind investment bankers tossing back a few beers, finally reaching the bar counter. I wiggle in between two women giggling with umbrella drinks and
locate Rafaela, who is engaged in a battle with one of her old nemeses: the daiquiri blender. At any other time, I might have burst out laughing at the sight— god knows we’ve talked about that evil blender a million times. She’s even confessed to me on one occasion that she’s pretty sure it’s possessed by a demon. It’s that bad.
But not as dire as my current situation.
I finally catch her eye, giving her an urgent expression. We know each other well enough to pick up on unspoken cues, and she immediately abandons the evil blender to hurry over to me.
“What’s up, babe?” she asks, her voice miraculously cutting through the din of high-pitched laughter and yells coming from all directions here at the center of the activity.
“I need a room,” I tell her plainly. I’m too determined to be coy about this. There’s no time to waste. Every moment I’m here instead of standing in front of Luca is a moment I can hardly bear.
To her infinite credit and grace, she doesn’t razz me at all. Rafaela simply nods, swivels around, bends down to unlock a little gray safe behind the counter, and take out a room key. She places it in my hand and gives me a wink.
“Room 6. King-sized bed, en suite bathroom, window overlooking the community garden next door. Go get ‘im, tiger,” she says, grinning.
“Do I need to—?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about paying. It’s an empty room, you need it, and you’re my best friend. Consider this an early wedding present,” she adds, laughing. Blushing, I reach out and squeeze her hand gratefully.
“Thank you. Seriously.”
I turn away and start maneuvering back through the crowd again, my eyes peeled for Luca. Finally, I arrive at the same spot where we were standing just minutes ago and he isn’t there.
My heart sinks down into my stomach and the room starts to go dizzy.
Where is he? Did he leave? How could this have happened? Maybe I spooked him somehow. Maybe he thought better of this and decided to make a break for it before things got too heavy. Maybe I only imagined the magic sparking between us. Maybe… it wasn’t meant to be.
[Killer 01.0] Killer for Hire Page 5