by Bethany-Kris
“For my grandfather.”
Luca nodded. “Yeah.”
“I expected that.”
“But there is something else,” Luca said.
His tone dropped.
He also looked away.
“Something bad?” Penny asked first.
“No, but—”
“Something about New York?”
His gaze slammed back into hers. “We’re going to have visitors. You should probably get dressed.”
Penny’s heart slammed hard in her chest. “Who?”
But she thought she probably already knew.
“YOU lied to me,” Penny hissed, tossing the hoodie away that Luca tried to offer her. One of the over-sized black hoodies that she kept in her travel bag when she was working because it was a staple in her wardrobe. A must. Hoodies made everything better when she put one on and flipped up the hood—she could hide away—except right now. Nothing was good now. It might have been cold outside, but she didn’t want to take something he tried to give her when she was pissed. Petty? Maybe. She was allowed her moments. “You made me think we were going to come here because it was safe, but really it was to get Naz and Roz—”
“Penny, stop it.”
Luca’s words weren’t even sharp, but the way he glanced at her—those green-blue eyes of his piercing right through her rant with enough force to shove her next words back down her throat—had Penny quieting. Even if she did glare when she did it.
“I didn’t lie,” he said. “I only told Naz where we were in a way that he would understand. What he chose to do after that was out of my control. Shit, he didn’t even tell me they were making the trip until he was already halfway here. You think Naz is stupid? He knew I would tell you. Don’t worry—my friend knows where my loyalties are right now. He had to learn the hard way. Just like everybody else.”
Penny stiffened as the sound of tires rolling against the gravel driveway leading up to the lodge reached her spot. She only needed to glance to the side to look out the windows on either side of the lodge’s French front doors to see the approach of the black BMW. Tinted windows and distance kept her from seeing beyond the front windshield.
Her attention went back to Luca.
“What the hell did that shot about your loyalty mean?” she asked.
Luca was unphased at her attitude. “Wasn’t a shot. Wasn’t even a blow. It’s the truth. I’m here because of you—I’m going to stay that way.”
Well, then ...
She still wanted to be mad. A part of her thought he was lying about Naz and Roz’s arrival at the lodge. But nothing he said was a lie, and she knew it. It would be a low blow for her to push the line and call Luca on it when—above everyone—his intentions were always the best when it came to her. He didn’t even try to pretend otherwise.
Not that she had the time to consider it. The approaching car was now parked twenty feet away from the front of the lodge, right beside the slate gray Vanquish.
“It’s not safe for them to be here,” she told him.
Penny headed for the front door to pull it open. Luca followed close behind, murmuring, “I know, and so do they. It’s clearly a risk they’re willing to take.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Too late, Penny.”
She didn’t need to be told.
Silence settled over the property when they stepped out on the lodge’s front porch. Across the gravel drive, Naz had already stepped out of the driver’s seat and rounded the BMW to open the passenger door. Penny was stuck in place; frozen like a statue. She couldn’t take her eyes off the woman who exited the car using her husband’s hand to help.
Roz didn’t look away from her, either.
Penny hadn’t expected the moment when she came face to face with Rosalynn to be so ... quiet. Or that her heart would feel as heavy as it did when Roz swallowed hard, and swiped away a stray tear that dared to fall down her cheek while her husband murmured something next to her. Roz nodded, glancing away from Penny for the first time to turn around and open the back door.
Naz leaned inside the vehicle, and Penny sucked in a shaky breath, asking, “They brought him, too?”
Little Cross, she meant.
Luca only shrugged. “Guess so.”
God.
She wanted this.
She also knew it could be bad. Especially if someone followed them or—
“Just ... say hello,” Luca said softly, his hand finding the small of her back. It took nothing more than his touch for her to lean closer. “All you have to do is say hi.”
Right. Of course, he would take her silence as a sign of nerves. He also wasn’t wrong even if she was trying to deal with far more than her emotions.
But what about the rest?
Penny didn’t have time to consider it. The second the Vans of a little boy hit the gravel, the rest disappeared. Little Cross walked just beyond the rear passenger door, laid eyes on Penny, and that was it for her. The kid beamed—his smile grew faster than her own, if she were being honest.
She was sure the rest of them hadn’t been expecting the kid to look at her and immediately shout, “Penny!”
He darted away from his parents before they could even consider capturing him. His navy blue windbreaker matched the color of his khakis. He was a tornado of energy coming her way—without any care at all—and she couldn’t help but laugh.
The two met at the bottom of the steps. She bent down with open arms that he rushed into for a hug, but then just as quickly pulled back to stare at her with those dark, familiar eyes.
“You’re back,” he said.
Penny smiled. “Not technically.”
The little scrunch of his nose said the almost six-year-old didn’t like that answer at all.
“Back?” she heard Naz ask.
Luca let out a sigh. “There are still some things to explain, man.”
“That so?”
“Naz—”
“I get it, Luca.”
He sounded like he did. It was also entirely possible to understand a situation and be pissed off about it, too. Penny and little Cross watched the exchange, but her attention drifted to the quiet woman watching from further away.
Roz didn’t come as close as Naz had—she wasn’t crying, but the water hadn’t left her gaze, either. There was pain in her stare, but also joy. It dripped from the warm, motherly smile that curved Roz’s lips the longer the two watched one another.
“Hey, Roz,” Penny whispered.
She stood; little Cross let her go, but didn’t move away. Roz, on the other hand, didn’t move a muscle. Even when she replied, “Hey, Penny. A few years really ... grew you up, didn’t it?”
Penny laughed, not expecting that. “Something like that.”
In the same black cargo pants and crop top that she had been wearing the day before, Penny was sure she didn’t look at all like the image of the young teenager that Roz had tried to save. She wasn’t that girl anymore—this woman was someone else entirely. It was unfortunate that the woman who inspired Penny to find happiness so long ago hadn’t been able to watch her transition into this person she became, but she hoped Roz would still love her the way she had when she needed it the most.
Because she still needed it. To love was human.
Penny had never been loved until these people—now she loved them entirely too much. She realized that only made her need their love, too.
Maybe that was why she told Roz, “Staying away was easy when I didn’t have time to think about what I did when I left—I’m sorry I did it that way. I’m sorry I left without telling you why. You deserved better than that. I loved you more than that.”
Roz blinked, and the tears fell. “It’s okay.”
“Is it?”
Because she didn’t think so.
“I just want a hug, Penny,” Roz said, smiling in that way of hers again. The way that made everything okay. “Can I have a hug?”
How could she say no?
16.
“MA said there’s a pool,” his godson said as Luca guided him beyond the front door of the lodge.
Naz walked ahead of his son, replying to the boy before Luca could say a thing, “And I told you that we weren’t staying long enough to swim, my dude.”
Cross sighed.
How did so much attitude fit into such a small human?
He kind of loved it.
At the same time, Luca was also too distracted with the scene they had left out in the driveway to really focus on the conversation happening between Cross and Naz. He reached for the door to close it, unaware that his friend was watching him as he took one last glance at Roz and Penny still locked in each other’s embrace.
His sister had started crying, and Naz nodded toward the door. Luca got the hint, and pulled his nephew away from the two women to let them have their moment in private. And yet, even as he felt like he was intruding by watching them for another few seconds, he couldn’t help himself.
Roz had waited a long time for this, but so had Penny. He didn’t think people realized that—as confused and lonely and abandoned that they had felt for years, so had she. Just in her own ways.
“Look at you,” he could see his sister say to Penny, her hands pressed against either side of the younger woman’s face. “I thought you were dead.”
He couldn’t see Penny’s reply, only the shake of her head. And that was enough for him, anyway. He didn’t need to see more; he didn’t feel the same urge to make sure everything was going to be okay if he closed the front door and let Penny out of his sight. That monster was a hard one to shake, but he was doing well about hiding it.
Mostly.
Naz told him differently when Luca finally closed the door only to turn around and come face to face with his best friend. Gone was his nephew—probably already raced ahead of his father when Naz decided to tell the boy where the pool was. Whether he swam or not was another story. Now, it was only him and Naz left in the front foyer of the lodge, and he knew just by the way his best friend stared at him that his distraction was not missed.
Stoned-faced, Naz’s gaze drifted over Luca’s shoulder to the closed door and then back to him without pause. Then, he asked, “You’re close.”
Luca blinked. “What?”
He didn’t even know where to begin with that statement. Or how to take it, for that matter.
Naz didn’t intend to make him wait to find out because he followed it up with, “You and Penny—the two of you are close. I saw it. How you stare; when you touch ... I saw it, Luca.”
Shit.
Yeah.
Something else he hadn’t gotten to.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Naz asked, his fiery stare never wavering from Luca even though his tone kept calm.
Luca was fucking tired.
Of a lot of damn things.
Serving everyone else’s hand but his own was high on that list—even if that meant betraying people who meant the world and more to him. Like his own godfather.
“It’s more than just Penny,” Luca told his friend, “but I can start there.”
“Start,” Naz deadpanned.
“Well—”
“No, I mean ... start, Luca.” Naz shrugged, adding, “And try to make it quick—we really aren’t staying long. I just promised my wife I wouldn’t lie anymore and when you texted Connecticut, I knew where you were, and I couldn’t not tell Roz. And guess how that worked out.”
Luca didn’t bother to hide his grin. “Seems obvious.”
“Start.”
“Relax—I just ...” Luca let out a hard breath and shoved his fists into the pockets of his jeans so that he had them under control. His nerves always showed in his hands first. Naz had told him that more than once. “I could love that girl—I think I already do.”
Naz blinked, muttering a soft, “Huh.”
That was it.
Just huh.
“That’s what you say to—”
Naz tipped his head to the side, his stare lowering from Luca’s like he was thinking about something when he replied, “There’s really nothing else that I need to—or should—say when you lay it out to me like that. If that’s what it is, that’s what it is.”
“You don’t feel any kind of way about her or before when she was living with you guys—”
“I know you. I know who you are. I don’t need to ask that. I already know the answer to that, Luca.”
He breathed easier ... because despite being who he was, he never wanted to be a monster, either. It was a lot harder to be the man he was—who came from the people and place he did—while also maintaining compassion. All of their moral compasses were a bit broken. That didn’t mean they always had to act like it.
“You said to start,” Naz pointed out. “So what else did you have to tell me?”
For a second, Luca hesitated.
He even started to ask, “Shouldn’t we go find Cross? The pool is—”
“It’s protected by a passcode. He’s probably staring at it through the glass doors, scowling and looking like my father, but a mini version that constantly mocks me.”
Jesus Christ.
“He also acts a hell of a lot like you.”
Naz’s lips dared to twitch with a smirk. “Yeah, well—”
“It was your father,” Luca decided to say with no warning. He said it when his friend was amused and slightly distracted because he hoped it would lessen the blow. He wanted to give Naz a chance to absorb the news without the hard impact. “It was your father that helped Penny get away all those years ago—he signed her contract with The League which included paying the millions for her training. Cross did all of that.”
And more.
But that wasn’t the important bit.
“He’s known where she was this entire time,” Luca added quieter.
Naz said nothing. His stare turned so cold, it burned. The way he stood a little straighter, jaw tensing like he might speak before he decided to say nothing telling Luca everything he needed to know. Naz was pissed.
“All this time?” his friend finally asked.
Luca nodded once, ignoring the way his mouth wanted to close around the words he spoke. “Since day one, man. I’m sorry.”
“When did you know?”
“The day I got back from Nevada.”
Naz blew out a hard breath and swung away from Luca, his hand coming up to cup his lower face as he growled something into his palm. Then, he turned back around, waving that same hand wildly when he snapped, “That’s why he did what he did ... all the things he did. Telling me to focus somewhere else but Penny—so my workaround was you. But then he made me so busy that you were basically out there on your own while I handled business. And just when shit starts to come to a head, when she’s getting closer, and I might stick my nose where it didn’t belong, he decided to put me into his seat to head the family. Because what boss has time to be everywhere when he can barely even be at home, right?”
Luca swallowed the uncomfortable knot in his throat. “I don’t think his intentions were bad—that’s not your father, you know?”
“That doesn’t change what he did!”
Naz’s shout had Luca quieting instantly. Because what else could he do? Sometimes, anger just was what it was. They had to treat it like it, too.
“Why didn’t you tell—”
“He asked me not to,” Luca replied, already knowing good and well what his friend was going to ask. “I didn’t make promises, but I also had to prioritize the shit I needed to handle. Penny needed to come first, and I was running out of time to—”
“Find her,” Naz finished for him, nodding. “Yeah, I know.”
“She’s being hunted from all sides and has a million-dollar bounty on her head. I keep trying to figure out the way this is going to end ...” Luca trailed off, laughing dryly before he added, “But every end I imagine is never a good one, Naz.”
“You don’t kn
ow that. She’s a ghost—to the world, she doesn’t exist. Just because she’s real doesn’t mean she’s already dead. They haven’t even come close to catching her yet.”
“And that doesn’t mean anything,” Luca said.
Naz shrugged. “It also hasn’t meant a bad thing.”
Well ...
“HE DIDN’T BELIEVE ME.”
Luca didn’t move from his spot at the rear of the foyer where he leaned against the wall. “What do you mean?”
Penny shook her head, the wavy strands of her white-blonde hair moving with the action. “Cross. I told him I would see him soon. He didn’t say that he thought I was lying, but—”
“He rarely has to.”
The kid just had a ... look.
The goodbyes hadn’t been easy, and Naz also hadn’t lied. His sister and her family didn’t stay long—less than an hour from arrival to departure, actually. Naz managed to pull the short reunion together for his wife, but he couldn’t do more than was safe. Being anywhere Penny was until this finally ended was more than dangerous.
It was stupid.
But there Luca was—just fine.
“But I get it,” Penny said, turning around to face Luca as she shrugged almost helplessly. “I wouldn’t believe me, either.”
Luca raised a single brow, asking, “You seem less angry now.”
“At you?”
“Well—”
“They shouldn’t have come here.”
“I have little say in what Naz and my sister do.”
After locking the lodge’s front door—not that it would do much to keep them safe if someone really wanted to get through it—Penny came to stand in front of Luca at the other side of the foyer. Her silence said a lot. He figured, so did his.
Eventually, she said, “I know, Luca.”
“For what it’s worth,” he murmured, leaning closer until their lips grazed with every word he spoke, “I believed you. When you told him you would see him soon—I believed you.”
“Maybe you’re just a fool.”
She kissed him once.
Soft and teasing.
Luca dragged in a shuddering breath when Penny pulled away, replying, “I heard that happens sometimes.”