by Bethany-Kris
They could get back to it.
Maybe.
Except he kept coming back. Finding her at all the wrong times. Fucking me up, she thought.
His intense stare still hadn’t let go of hers when she dared to ask him, “Why do you keep trying to save me? Haven’t you figured out that I don’t exactly need saving? I’m not the damsel here—I’m not even sure there’s a hero.”
If anything, she was one of the villains. Just in a different way.
Luca’s mouth twitched upward in the corner, almost like he might smirk. “I never tried to save you—that was everybody else’s job. I only ever wanted to help.”
Penny pulled in a shuddering breath that ached. “One might say leaving is a good indication that I don’t want help, Luca.”
“It’s not that you don’t want my help—you think you don’t need it. There’s a difference, Penny.”
She could still taste him on her lips. Never had a man grabbed her so roughly at the back of her neck without the intention of doing her body some kind of harm ... except for him. He’d kissed her like his life depended on it, and for a second, she was sure hers had. The imprint of his mouth would linger on hers for days, she was sure.
But it was wonderful.
And horrible, too.
Penny inched backward, only a slice of her pinky finger sliding into the stream of illuminated color from the security light overhead. Luca didn’t let her move very far before his fingers flexed at her nape and he murmured, “I know you went back—home, I mean. And little Cross, well you promised him you were going to try to go back, right? Are you still trying or did you lie to him?”
Low blow.
So fucking low it hurt.
Penny’s chin quivered with the emotions that she tried to clench between her teeth. It didn’t work. She was all too aware that every second she was away from her gun was one that was lost forever. She would never get it back.
Not that it mattered.
It was already too late.
“You don’t get to do that,” she told him, wishing so badly that her fingers didn’t itch with the desire to stroke the lines of his face with her fingertips. Carved from stone and handed to her like God had taken time on this man just for her ... Luca didn’t know the power he possessed over Penny. A part of her hoped he never would. “You don’t get to tell me you’re not going to stop me, but in the next breath try to manipulate me into—”
“Actually, I’m just thinking like you. Because I had to do that for a while to figure out what I missed here. I think I went insane for a little bit. It’s hard to be the monster you must see in the mirror when you’ve always been just human, sweetheart.”
Why?
Why did he have to do that?
She was the reflection of her mother. She could have been Allegra had she just ... been worthy, right? All of that left her cold and sick.
“I missed the mark,” she whispered. “Didn’t have a clear shot.”
Luca swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
“Someone is still going to die tonight.”
“But not like this,” he returned.
No.
Because while he had been right about a lot of things, he was also wrong about one. She would have taken the chance to kill Allegra from the roof even if the cost was her life. It would have been worth it.
The only thing Penny cared to ask in that moment was, “What are you driving?”
His answer made her smile.
“An old favorite I keep in storage just for city driving when I need it—my Ducati.”
Perfect.
THE ONLY SOUND IN THE dark alley was the constant drip-drip-drip of water falling from the eaves of two buildings. Penny wasn’t opposed to rain on a job—sometimes, it even worked in her favor when the danger didn’t scare her in the first place. The noise helped to muffle Luca’s question that came behind the black visor of his helmet.
He only had one.
She made him wear it.
Penny should be seen, anyway.
“How do you want me to do—”
“Just drive,” she told him.
Staring at her through the visor from over his shoulder, she wondered if he was looking at the gun in her hand while she worked the silencer into the barrel, or her. Calm and focused, gaze on her work as she spoke softly. Unfeeling about what might happen next.
It’s who she was.
Now.
“Just drive, don’t look anywhere but the street ahead of you—drive fast,” she said.
“Who are you going for?”
“Anybody. A face I recognize. My mother if I get the chance through the windows but that’s unlikely. I don’t care. She’ll know I was here.”
“Are you—”
Before he could even finish his question, Penny reached over and poked the tip of her finger against Luca’s visor. She couldn’t see his face through the dark tint, but she would have given anything to in that moment. Her left arm, even.
“Help me and drive, Luca.”
Maybe there was a hint of a smirk in his tone when he replied, “Drive—got it, babe.”
It was the second time he called her that tonight.
She was starting to like it.
Sticking the gun into the holster at her chest, Penny used a bandana that had been tied to the handlebars to wrap up her hair as Luca’s Ducati Superbike roared to life. Matte black like his helmet, the beast would do just fine for what she had planned. It moved like lightning but with the gracefulness of shadows.
What more could she ask for?
The first jerk of the bike sent Penny leaning in close to Luca. She didn’t need to look up to see where they were—she had tracked these streets and alleys—even the buildings—from the moment she knew where Allegra would be having her engagement party in the city.
She also didn’t need to see to know what was happening. From the road of the bike and the pressure that sent her body leaning back a bit said when Luca was speeding up—probably to miss the set of lights that might possibly be turning yellow. They couldn’t stop. Not once they left the alley.
The bike leaned hard to the right when they took the turn at the lights while Penny leaned with Luca, one hand wrapped tight around his waist while her other grasped firmly to the butt of the gun inside the holster at her chest. Tucked down like she was, someone might not even notice her on the back of the bike until they passed.
It all worked.
But then she counted the seconds when the bike roared and darted forward with more speed—one, two, and then three ... Penny leaned up from her tightly tucked position, already pulling the gun from the holster as the Ducati growled past the restaurant on the other side of the street. She aimed the gun, gaze already scanning as the black bandana pulled away from her hair in the wind.
It was better than she ever imagined.
Her grandfather had just arrived.
It took all of a second.
Less, even.
The League would never forgive her for what she had done to them, but at least they trained her to be one hell of a shot on the back of a moving vehicle.
Charles Hatheway saw her—their gazes locked as the bike passed—when she pulled the trigger. She didn’t get to see it hit the intended target before they had already gone by, but she heard the screams.
Those were beautiful.
12.
Luca
“IS it appropriate for me to say a small prayer?”
Penny shot Luca a look from where she stood behind his beloved Ducati. He didn’t get to drive the machine nearly enough for his tastes. He’d spent a crazy amount of money for the bike and on it to get it customized just the way he liked. The damn thing even had its own storage unit in the city because he absolutely refused to drive it in the winter, or on any road that wasn’t pristine.
He loved the bike.
If he had a baby, it was it.
“Thought we agreed getting rid of it was the only option?” P
enny asked.
Luca sighed, ghosting his hands over the curves of the matte black beast. From the handlebars, down the seat, and even over the rear flare. “I’ll see you again soon,” he told the bike.
That was a lie.
Soon, it would be at the bottom of the river.
“You can always buy another,” Penny said with more care to her tone. He didn’t know if it was a genuine concern for his feelings or just her patronizing him, though. It could have gone either way. Damn woman.
She also wasn’t wrong.
“Fuck it,” Luca muttered.
Grabbing the back of the seat in one hand and the left handlebar with his other, Luca pushed the bike to the end of the dock. There was never much movement at the shipping docks this time of night. The shift change made sure of that, and he was grateful because it worked in their favor when they needed to make the bike disappear. He was sure there were probably a few dozen people scouting for a matte black Ducati Superbike with two possible drivers. Letting them find the machine would only connect him to the shooting.
The Ducati hit the water with a plop and a splash. Luca watched it sink from up above before he bent down to grab the helmet he’d tossed on the dock earlier. With a few larger rocks in the bottom of the helmet, he expected it to sink.
Another item he could replace. Like the bike, too. But goddammit, it still hurt like hell to watch the bike disappear under the depths of the water while the helmet bobbed and struggled to fall beneath the surface as well.
Penny was soon at Luca’s side to survey the scene down below as well. Without warning, she reached beneath the jacket he’d given her after they arrived at the docks. She didn’t say she was cold, but he saw her shiver and that shit wasn’t okay. Not when he had a perfectly fine leather jacket that she could use.
The white strands of her hair fell over the shoulder of his jacket as she stretched her arm toward the water. With two well-aimed shots of her gun to the helmet, it finally sunk below the water with a bubbled glub-glub, and that was it. A sad little goodbye, really.
The night was almost over.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Luca told her.
Penny’s right eyebrow quirked up when she replied dryly, “Might as well use the other bullets for something useful.”
Ouch.
He said nothing when she dropped down to sit at the edge of the dock. Instead, he moved to stand behind her so that at the very least, he was there if she needed him. For anything.
“It’s not over,” she told him.
“Not yet,” he agreed. “Now we go back to the drawing board and figure out where we go from her.”
Down below, her head bobbed with a nod. He couldn’t help but notice how she didn’t correct his use of we when it came to their next plan. Hell, wasn’t that a battle won in itself? He sure as fuck thought so.
As the silence stretched on, another question nagged at Luca. It would be in his best interest to stay quiet and not ask it, but he wasn’t the type. For one. But for two ... he hated to think Penny might be hurting in that moment because of what she had done—in some way—and he wasn’t helping her.
Fuck him for having a heart.
Right?
She probably didn’t want him to ask anything at all. Silence and running were her best friends, after all. He couldn’t help himself, though.
“Did you get a hit back at the restaurant?”
Penny’s shoulders stiffened, but otherwise, she didn’t move on the dock below him. “I did—and while it wasn’t Allegra, it was about as good as her.”
“Who?”
She’d been able to recognize them as they passed? Shit, he’d been breaking seventy at that point. After they’d gone by entirely, he gunned it further and brought the front tire up from the road. At least by then, Penny had been back to holding onto him. God knew they didn’t need to end up rolling across pavement at that point.
“Penny?” Luca asked when a minute passed without a reply. “Who was it?”
Her head tipped down, and he hated that he couldn’t see her face to understand why. Her next words helped a bit with it. “My grandfather, Charles. He would need to go eventually—had the original plans moved forward, he was next on the list. Essentially anyone else was useless and easy kills. They could send teams for them. It would have left me with only Allegra and ... she would have had to know it was me.”
“Coming for her,” Luca supplied.
Penny exhaled harshly. “Well, she does know. At any rate, it works.”
Then, Luca had another thought. Fuck his thoughts lately, too, because they were getting him in more trouble than they were worth. So was his damn life.
“Did your grandfather abus—”
“No,” she interjected before he could ask more. “He had a revolving door of children at his disposal—he was the gatekeeper. They would give him anything to get what they wanted. Allegra, though ... that was different. She was always jealous whenever he paid me any kind of attention. I look so much like her and back then, it was worse. It was bad all over.”
“How so?”
“You don’t want to know, Luca. It’s all ... rotten.”
A chill settled deep in Luca’s veins, but he didn’t show it. Everything about Penny’s history was uncomfortable. To deal with, to talk about, or even think inside the privacy of his own mind. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to actually be her.
“And I just hate her,” Penny added. “In the end, that’s where I settle it. I hate her.”
Well ...
He understood that.
Too well.
“We should go,” he murmured.
He hated to do it. Penny seemed content in her quiet stillness on the dock. With her legs hanging over the edge, swishing to and fro, she didn’t seem ready to move. Not that it mattered; they didn’t have a choice.
“Better not linger,” Luca added. “We wouldn’t want to be noticed when I’m sure every hound in this city is out sniffing for you.”
Penny dared to glance over her shoulder, her blue gaze glittering up at him when she asked, “Literally or figuratively?”
“Well,” he considered, “maybe a bit of both.”
Her laughter was the best sound in the world, but especially because he hadn’t been expecting it in the first place. Before he could think better of it, Luca placed his outstretched hand down for Penny to take. Palm up, he left it open.
She could take his help—even if it was only to get up—should she want to. Or, his hand could be there for her to take when she stood up without his help.
Luca grinned when she pulled on his hand to steady herself to her feet. The windswept mess of her hair still managed to look good, especially with that smile stretching over her pretty face. Then, her hand squeezed his when she asked, “He told you I came back—little Cross, I mean?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Did he tell anyone—”
“You mean like his parents because you could have put him in serious danger just by being anywhere near him?”
Penny’s stare narrowed. “I didn’t mean for him to see me in the first place. He was just ... there. And then I couldn’t even trick or lie to him because he’s—”
“Way too smart for that.”
“Kind of amazing, actually.”
Luca smirked. “Some people call him strange.”
“Yeah, well, fuck those people.”
He chuckled.
Right.
Fuck those people.
“But I didn’t lie to him,” Penny whispered, locking stares with Luca when she inched closer. “I do want to go back.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. We all want that.”
“Even you.”
“Especially me.”
He dared her to ask why.
He wanted to tell her.
“If you’ll let me,” he added quieter.
Instead of asking the question he wanted her to, Penny asked, “But what does
that even mean?”
“Stop running. You don’t do this alone. It means I’m here.”
“So—”
Luca yanked her closer using their still-connected hands until they were chest to chest and eye to eye. “What’s the plan, Penny?”
He really only wanted one thing.
Right then, anyway.
She gave it to him when her plush, pink lips pressed against his without warning. And just like that, Luca couldn’t breathe all over again. His chest tightened with every dance of her lips across his, and then when her tongue darted into his mouth for a taste, he swore the world tilted. Just a little. Just enough.
He wanted to touch her.
Gets his hands all over her.
He wanted her safe.
He just wanted her.
Luca didn’t care what the plan was—not as long as they did it together.
“THANK YOU, MRS. TITCHENS. Enjoy your stay for the evening—and your husband. I hope you can get a refund at the other hotel for the cancellations.”
Penny beamed at the woman behind the desk. “Me, too. Especially since they lost our stuff. How do you do that in a hotel, anyway?”
Sabrina, according to her nametag, only shrugged when she replied, “Sometimes, things just happen. I was happy to figure something out for you here instead. It all worked out in the end.”
Right, Luca thought.
By worked out the woman meant she had allowed Luca and Penny to rent a room in the hotel for the night—but likely more—all based on a lie. Because they didn’t have identification, at least he didn’t have a fake ID, and Penny hadn’t carried anything on her for the night except what she absolutely needed to. He had twenty-five hundred dollars in hundreds inside his wallet, and money spoke louder than any words they could say, anyway.
Penny made up the lie.
They got the room.
“And here is your keycard—have a good night!”