by Tamara Lush
“Luca. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Amore mio, you need to come back to my house now. I can’t talk about it, but trust me. Please?” He didn’t want to reveal more for fear that someone was tapping one of their phones. Was that possible?
“Luca, I’m on deadline. I’ll be done in about a half hour.” She paused, and he heard urgency in her voice. “I need to ask you a few things, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. I’ll be there soon.”
“Skylar. Now.”
“I know,” she said. “But I have to go. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Stay safe.”
Her voice had an edge, and she hung up. Stay safe? Was she aware of the danger? He shook his head, thinking about how Skylar had a stubborn streak. There she was in her newsroom, filing her story.
He drank a beer, hoping to calm his nerves, and wished he hadn’t smoked all of the Marlboros he’d bought after his big fight with Skylar. He paced the dark house for thirty minutes and was making another loop around his bedroom, about to call her again, when the doorbell rang and the phone in his hands vibrated almost simultaneously. His heart sped up even more when he picked up.
“I’m at the door,” Skylar said.
“Be right down.”
He flung the door open and pulled her inside. “Give me the keys,” he demanded.
She did, and he ran to the car. Thank God the gun was still there. He moved the Mercedes into the garage.
He walked back inside, not even trying to conceal the weapon.
“Luca, oh my God. What is that?”
He locked the door and turned to her. “Uh, it’s a gun. And we need to talk.”
Her bottom lip quivered and she gulped in air. She hiccupped a few breaths then tears slid down her cheeks. Oh, shit. She had seen a dead body in the swamp and now this. He hadn’t meant to scare her.
He rested the gun on a table near the door and took her in his arms. “Amore mio, please don’t be scared. I’d never hurt you. Ever. Quite the opposite. Please stop crying.”
She shuddered in a breath. “This is about Gianni, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She swore and shook her head. “The motel manager said he was waiting to meet his girlfriend. That he was a nice guy. A tourist.”
“Skylar, he works for Bruno Castiglione.”
* * *
She knew she was rambling, recounting what the chief told her about Gianni, as Luca pulled her into the den and flipped on a light. “Why is it so dark in here? Why are the curtains drawn?”
He looked at her, incredulous.
“Oh. Right. You don’t want anyone to be able to see in. Duh.”
Luca’s shoulders tensed toward his ears. His hand squeezed her arm tight.
“Luca, you’re hurting me. Please stop squeezing like that,” Skylar said.
“Amore mio, I’m sorry. I’m worried.”
Luca moved her to the leather sofa and he sat down, pulling her onto his lap and hugging her tight. He was breathing fast and she could feel his quick heartbeat. She felt self-conscious because she was sweaty and stinky, but he didn’t seem to mind because he buried his nose in the hollow of her neck.
“Sky, this is not good. At all. We might have to leave Palmira.”
She wriggled to look at him. “Hold on. What? We?”
Luca’s voice was firm. “Yeah. I need to think about this. It might be safer if we leave. Maybe my uncle can help put us up somewhere. But yeah. We.”
Was he crazy? What was he talking about? If she left Palmira, she wouldn’t have a job. If she didn’t have a job, she wouldn’t be a journalist. She couldn’t do that.
“Luca, I can’t just leave Palmira. I’ve got the paper, remember? Can’t we just call your uncle?”
“Skylar, our lives are in danger. Your life is in danger because of me. My uncle’s life is in danger. If Gianni was here, he was looking for me. If he was parked by your office, he must know who you are.” His voice was cold and harsh, and Skylar felt a familiar sense of panic, almost as if James had suddenly appeared in the room to berate her.
“But, how do you know that?” she asked. “What if it’s just a coincidence? What if he really was here with his girlfriend? And anyway, who killed him and why? And could there be more, um, hit men?” She felt odd just saying the words hit men, like she was an extra in some bad TV crime show. What was this, CSI: Palmira?
“That’s the big question,” Luca sighed.
“I seriously doubt if anyone knows we’ve been spending time together. And would they want to kill an American journalist?” She reminded herself that Luca wasn’t trying to sound like a jerk, that he was legitimately scared for them both. His parents had been killed in retribution, right? But—
“I wouldn’t put it past them just to torture me. The other alternative is that I leave Palmira. Alone.”
“What? But I don’t want you to leave. We’re… I…” Her voice trailed off. She had almost just told him that she loved him.
Luca didn’t seem to notice. “Would you rather go somewhere with me and have me alive, or be here with you and die?”
When he put it that way, everything seemed so bleak. She blinked several times. “But your uncle…”
“I’ve tried calling him. I got his assistant. He’s out on his yacht.”
Skylar let out a long breath.
“Money isn’t an issue. I can support you,” Luca said.
She bristled. What kind of a statement was that? Did he think that’s what she wanted? His money?
“What? No. I can’t leave my job. I can’t have you support me. I don’t think you get it. I don’t want to be supported by you. I wasn’t raised that way. What would I do? I’ve worked for years to do this one thing. Do you know how hard it is to get a job at a newspaper these days?”
“Sky. Sky. I know what you’re feeling,” he said as she sniffled.
She couldn’t help the anger. “How do you know what I’m feeling? How could you know what I’m feeling? You barely know me at all. You never wanted to.”
Luca’s mouth dropped open.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be harsh.” Fat tears slid down her cheeks, and she tried to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “I’m not handling this stress all that well.”
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s totally understandable.”
“I know this is stupid of me. It makes me think of my mother.”
“What about her?”
Skylar exhaled, pushing out her lips. “It was when my mother was in the hospital, about six weeks before she died. She was trying another round of radiation. My mom was really angry that the treatment wasn’t working, and she told me not to end up like her.”
Luca shook his head. “Wasn’t your mom a yoga teacher?”
“Yeah, she was. She also worked at a health food store. We were pretty poor when I was growing up. My grandmother put all of her retirement savings into her condo and couldn’t help.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. But my mom made me promise I’d do something with my life. She made me promise that I wouldn’t get married young or have babies until I was older. That I would try to make a difference in this world first. That I wouldn’t screw up my life like she did when she was young.”
“Ahh. Now I get it,” Luca said.
“You get what?” Skylar asked.
“Why you want me to keep writing. Why you don’t want to leave with me. Why your career is so important.”
She grimaced. “I…I can’t just run away with you and have you support me. There are other reasons, too.”
“And those other reasons? Want to talk about those, amore mio?”
“I love the paper. I love being a journalist. And…well, if I leave the paper and everything I love here, you could eventually leave me. Then I’ll be alone and poor and aimless, just like my mother. I’ll have to be a yoga teacher or a waitress, and I’ll never use my mind for anything.”
; Luca was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “That won’t happen. You’re too smart and ambitious. And you’re a fighter.”
“I don’t know, Luca. I feel like a failure a lot. I worked so hard in school, and all I was able to get is this job at a small paper. I want more from myself. I feel like I’m not living up to my mom’s expectation of me, and that just fills me with guilt, you know?”
Luca paused. “Skylar, have you thought about what will happen when you start living the life that’s right for you instead of the one you promised to live for someone else?”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I think I could ask you the same thing.”
He nodded and drew her close. “Calmati. Calm. We need time think about this, no? How we’ll handle what’s going on. Okay? I want to talk to my uncle. For now, let’s just stay here. We’re as safe here as anywhere, I guess. The cops said Gianni was dead for days, no? If he had a partner you would think he’d have made a move by now, right?”
Skylar chewed on her lip. “Can we just go to my house for a few minutes? I need some things.”
Luca shook his head vigorously. “No. Why risk it before I talk to Federico? We have all we need here. We’re a little trapped, but we have a fridge full of organic food and a full wine cellar.”
He tried to kiss her but she wriggled away. “I need to go home. I need my birth control. I don’t want to get off my cycle. Please? We’ll only be a few minutes. It’s two miles away.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. We have to. Please? I can go alone. That might be safer.”
He sighed. “Out of the question. I’ll go with you.”
“It’ll be fine. Like you said, Gianni’s been dead for days, and I’m sure that whoever killed him won’t do anything to us while cops and the FDLE and the FBI are crawling around the island. So, let me take a shower and then we’ll go. I feel gross and dirty after today.”
They walked upstairs, and Luca followed her into the bathroom. He set his gun on the marble sink counter and locked the door.
“Um. What are you doing?” Skylar stood in the middle of the large bathroom, looking from the gun, to him, back to the gun.
Luca took off his shirt. “I’m keeping you safe, streghetta mia. And I’m going to help you bathe.”
“What did you just call me?”
He grinned. “My little witch. It’s a term of affection in Italian. Really.”
Skylar playfully swatted him, and he caught her wrist and kissed the palm.
“Witch? You think I’m a witch?” she joked.
“A little bit, because you’ve cast a spell on me.”
That elicited a laugh, breaking the tension that had built up. “That is so cheesy.”
She watched as he stripped naked and turned on the shower, then walked to her and lifted her dress over her head. He unhooked her bra then slid her panties over her hips and down her legs. Even now, even after their tense talk, after the weird and sick day, after all the fear, the sight of his body made her ache with lust.
They stepped under the spray and Luca soaped up his hands, caressing and cleaning every part of her body. She closed her eyes and reveled in the pleasure of his touch, unraveling every time he stopped to kiss her. He poured shampoo into his palm and scrubbed her hair and massaged her scalp, an act so kind and intimate that Skylar wanted to weep.
“That feels incredible,” she sighed.
“I want to take care of you. Protect you,” he murmured.
Then he turned her around, facing the tile, and spread her arms high above her head. He rubbed his naked body against hers, raking his hands over her breasts. Pulling her hips back so she was bent over, he entered her as he slid one hand around to part her labia. She cried out as he simultaneously stroked her clitoris and drove into her, and she saw his other hand covering hers on the wall. Together, their fingers tangled together in a primal clench.
He withdrew and slowly spun her around. “I can’t do it like that. I need to be able to look at you while I make love to you.”
They kissed long and deep, under the rain-like showerhead.
“Sit,” she commanded, pointing to the teak bench that was out of the water’s reach, something she’d been fantasizing about for some time. He did, and she climbed atop him, her legs on either side of his, inhaling sharply as she sank onto his erection.
“We were made for each other, you know that?” he murmured. “Please, please, let me take care of you. Will you?”
“Yes, Luca,” she said. “I will. But I’m still going to be me.”
“That’s exactly who I want you to be.”
She rotated her hips and made him moan with long, slow strokes. Their bodies molded together, silent but for the water falling from the shower above, their deep breathing, and their primal cries. There were no more words, no more questions, because each found the answers they had both been seeking.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Do you have to put your hand on that gun like we’re in the Wild West?” she hissed at Luca as they climbed out of his Mercedes and walked up the stairs of her condo.
“Stay close to me. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
As she scanned the corridor of her sleepy, retiree-laden condo, she didn’t know what to think. Was Luca overreacting? Was she underreacting? It seemed that her whole life had suddenly taken a turn for the surreal, between the revelation of who Luca really was, the mind-blowing sex, and seeing her first murder victim—who’d turned out to be a Mafia hit man. Who was probably on the island to kill her boyfriend.
Wait. Was Luca her boyfriend?
Skylar opened her mouth to ask him then closed it when she saw his eyes flit around in fear. No, this definitely wasn’t the time for that question. She suspected she knew the answer, anyway. She was just being needy because she was tense.
They reached her door. “Give me the keys,” he said.
She did, and he unlocked her top and bottom lock.
“I’m going inside first.”
“Oh, please. Come on.” Skylar brushed past him, impatient to just grab some things and get back to his house so he would stop making her nervous, stop being so paranoid, stop making her afraid.
He reached out to take hold of her arm but she powered past. “Let me just grab my pills and a few things and we’ll be good.”
She heard him lock the door as she buzzed into the bathroom for her birth control. She rested her purse on the counter then flicked on the light.
She screamed.
It was a woman. Holding a knife.
She backed up, but the woman was too fast, like a little lethal hummingbird. She grabbed Skylar’s arm and—Holy shit. It was the woman from the café. The woman she’d spilled coffee on.
Skylar writhed and twisted, not wanting to get cut by the crazy woman’s knife, which looked sharp and steely.
“Amore mio, wha—?” Luca came to the doorway and stopped. His expression morphed from one of concern to a look of pure confusion. He lifted his gun and pointed it.
The three stared at each other. Skylar looked at Luca, who looked at the intruder. The woman, who had huge, tawny eyes, gazed at Luca. Skylar had never seen a woman look so intently at another person. Almost worshipful.
What the fuck? was all she could think.
The woman’s nails dug into her upper arm and yanked her closer, and Skylar let out a whimper. With a slow rhythm, the woman feathered the blade down Skylar’s upper arm as if she was sharpening it on her skin, not quite cutting her.
“Annalisa,” Luca said softly, lowering his gun.
“What?” Skylar whispered. “Do you know her?”
The woman said something in Italian. Skylar noticed that she smelled good, almost too good, like an expensive department store. Her knife blade was practically exfoliating Skylar’s arm now, making a soft scraping noise like a shave. Skylar’s eyes flashed down in horror.
Luca responded, also in Italian. Skylar just gaped, terrified by the cold blade of t
he knife on her arm.
“What is going on?” she demanded in a louder voice.
“I’m his girlfriend,” the woman said in accented English, tightening her grip on the underside of Skylar’s bicep. Surely those nails would draw blood. “He didn’t tell you?”
Luca’s voice was velvety soft, and he now spoke in English. “Annalisa. Please stop. Don’t hurt Skylar. Let her go and we can talk. I haven’t seen you in so long.”
Annalisa rested the flat part of her knife blade on Skylar’s neck.
Fear. Skylar had never known such fear.
“I could do to this girl what I did to Gianni.”
Skylar gasped, and Luca blanched. Annalisa had killed Gianni?
“Please tell me what’s going on,” Skylar whispered. She glanced in the mirror and saw the underside of one of Annalisa’s arms in the reflection. They were covered in dozens of neat red lines. As if someone had intentionally cut her.
Annalisa turned her head toward Skylar and grinned. “I see you looking at the stories on my arm. Yep, I’m a cutter. They’re my marks. Each represents a story. You’re such an observant reporter, and asking questions until the end. Good job. For you I’ll explain everything. I mean, we’re all journalists here, right?”
“Annalisa,” Luca said, his voice stern. “Let her go. Whatever you have to say, you can say it to me in private. This is between us.”
“Sorry. You need to hear this too, Luca. After all, I’m the reason why you’re in this situation. I’m the reason why your parents are dead.”
“What?” His fingers holding the gun twitched. Some words in Italian followed, and Skylar hadn’t though Luca could sound so menacing.
“Don’t do it, Luca. Don’t pull the trigger. In the time it takes for you to shoot me, I can slice your friend’s neck nice and deep.”
Skylar whimpered again, and she felt a trickle of sweat from her armpit running down her arm and probably onto Annalisa’s fingers. Or was that blood from her captor’s nails? How were her fingers so cold?
“Skylar.” Annalisa’s voice was shaky. “Do you speak Italian?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Americans don’t speak other languages, do they? In that case, I’ll talk in English so you both understand. Luca, you did a great job on your book. Bravo. Very well-written, but I wouldn’t expect anything less. You were always the star at the newspaper. The only thing you didn’t uncover was that Bruno Castiglione is my second cousin. You trusted me and didn’t do your homework.”