HIS: Luca: The Sabatini Family

by Fiona Murphy

  The jeans are loose and with me being so short the hem grazes the ground. I’m in a plain white sports bra, which is good for the two-sizes-too-big plain white T-shirt I choose. My shoes are plain white canvas Vans.

  I crawl out onto balcony to wait. Even as late as it is, I’m sweating and wish I had water. The sound of the semi-truck turning on gets me moving. Climbing down the balcony is not as easy as Mundo made it sound. I fall and manage to hurt my ankle.

  The women aren’t hard to spot—they are right on the other side of the bushes I’m hiding in. There are twelve women; god, they aren’t women, they are girls. They are also only wearing thin white nightgowns. I don’t own a white nightgown, so it would be a waste of time to try and go back to my room.

  At twenty-four I’ll no doubt be the oldest. I also notice almost all of them have long hair and it’s loose, so I quickly unbraid my hair but stuff the tie in my pocket for later. I’m only five two, so I’ll blend in with the others’ height, but most of them are super skinny. With me a size eighteen, I’ll stand out for sure.

  In the headlights of a car I can clearly see the nightgowns are the only thing the girls are wearing. It hits me, they are going to be sold into sex trafficking. I shudder with fear, until I remember Mundo telling me he’ll make sure the truck gets stopped. Someone named Luca Sabatini will save the girls and me.

  When I pop out of the shadows with the girls, most of them are too scared to do more than acknowledge me. None of them says a word. As we’re pushed up the ramp into the back of the truck, the man doesn’t seem to care I’m in the group.

  We’re ushered into the empty center of boxes of baby clothes the men were building. The space we’re in is small, I’ve been in bathrooms bigger than this. Not everyone can sit down. It’s musty and smells. I know it’s an eighteen-hour drive from Guadalajara to Dallas. I’m not sure how much longer it would be to get to Vegas.

  After several hours it’s stifling, hard to breathe, my feet ache from standing and my ankle is screaming to get off it. The smell of sweat is becoming overwhelming. In desperation I push at the corner of the back. It loosens, some of the girls help me to push it out. We gain another few feet and fresher air. But it’s right against the inner wall and none of the girls are thin enough to get out. At least now everyone can sit.

  The truck stops three times, once for what has to be an hour. The girls are all whispering their stories of how they came to be here. I don’t say anything when I’m asked. It’s safer for them if they don’t know who I am. I’m shocked I manage to doze off twice, but not for very long.

  We stop again. There are loud voices and I hear the back of the truck being opened. The truck drivers are arguing in Spanish with someone who is speaking English. Then the door is opened, a tall man dressed like he’s SWAT in tactical gear fills the doorway.

  He yells over his shoulder. “The intel was good, Luca. We have a shipment of women. Looks like thirteen.” Turning back to us, he surprises the hell out of me when he speaks Spanish. “Come on, ladies. No one is getting sold today.”

  Motioning us out the door, he backs away to give us room to go by him. The moment he spots me, I watch his eyes narrow as they run over me. I slide my eyes down as I go past him. A ladder has been set up so we can climb down from the truck. I step to the edge of the truck and scan the scene.

  There are three black SUVs, two of them look like police cars with lights going off on the top of them. The headlights from the SUVs illuminate the scene behind the semi. I count six men, four of them dressed in the same tactical gear of the man who opened the door. Two men in suits are at the edge of the scene watching everything.

  The moment I catch sight of the taller of the two men, I can’t take my eyes off him. He moves with the sleek elegance and power of a jaguar sheathed in a cut-to-fit silk black suit. A black shirt and black tie add to the menacing warning to anyone who dares to get close. The man is lethal, one glance is all it takes to see it. The very air around him vibrates with raw, primitive power. He turns, our eyes meet and holy shit, all the air leaves my body in a whoosh.

  A man takes my hand and guides me down the ladder and still I can’t take my eyes off the man. He is moving toward me with purpose. In motion he is stunning. Beautiful; it isn’t fair for a man to be beautiful.

  If I had seen a picture of him I wouldn’t have believed it was real. Thick black hair is threaded with silver at his temples. His forehead is broad and heavily lined. A large nose has been broken and reset and is ever so slightly crooked. It should detract from his beauty, yet it oddly adds to it. It also warned that the brutal strength beneath his expensive suit isn’t just for show.

  He has the kind of cheekbones that could cut diamonds they’re so sharp. His lips are wide and appear soft and longing flows through me to find out what they would feel like against mine. The thought stuns me. I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never wanted a man to kiss me.

  For a moment, I cling to the hand helping me down. I stumble as my ankle aches and my feet meet the loose sand of the desert. I’m caught by two large hands around my upper arms. His touch sends electricity through me so powerful it rocks my very foundation. All around us the atmosphere is thick with a hot, sizzling tension I don’t understand.

  “Are you all right?” he asks in English. For a moment those hands around my arms tighten before his touch gentles. No, I’m not all right. The electricity surging through me has every nerve-ending begging for more of his touch. Shocked awake from a deep sleep my body is responding to him in a way I had no idea it was even possible for me to feel. And it’s scares the hell out of me.

  “I’m Luca Sabatini. You’re safe now.” Smoke, gravel, and heat, his voice winds around me. I believe him when he says I’m safe. For the first time...in ever, I feel safe because he said so. Black eyes are a void I plunge headlong into. “Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”

  Wait, Luca Sabatini? Mundo said he was a good man but in the same breath warned me not to get close to him, that he was dangerous. I should have known that because I can’t imagine anyone being brave enough to stop any Reyes property. A different fear begins filling me and gives me the strength to at last answer him. “No hablo English.”

  He lets me go with a frown as he motions the man who let the women out over to us. I’m instantly lost without his touch. Luca tells him to ask me in Spanish if I’m okay and if I need a doctor.

  The man asks. I tell him that I’m fine and ask what’s happening. I’m doing my best to focus on the man and ignore Luca Sabatini. He’s dangerous. I have to remember that and forget my body’s disturbing response to him.

  “Mr. Sabatini doesn’t allow sex trafficking or trafficking of any people, period. Is there anything you can tell me about your abduction?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t remember much. I was walking home from the grocery store. The next thing I know I wake up in a room with these women.” I’m praying he can’t tell I’m lying. “What happens now?”

  “If you want to go to Los Angeles, we have someone who will drive everyone who wants to go there. Mr. Sabatini has a shelter where you can stay until you get on your feet. They have a way of getting messages to your family if need be. Or if you want to come to Vegas with us there is a shelter there as well. We’ll need to wait while Mr. Sabatini interrogates the driver.”

  “I’d like to go to Vegas.” I’m careful to avoid saying I want to go to the shelter.

  The man tells Luca I want to go to Vegas. Luca tells him to put me in his vehicle. The man goes to put his hand on my arm; I nearly jump when Luca growls low in his throat. Violence emanates from him as tells the man he is not to touch me. My eyes meet Luca’s and oh god everything, absolutely every cell in my body melts in the fire of his gaze. His eyes are black ice and just as dangerous. “No one touches her but me, warn everyone.”

  The words are in English; that has to be the only reason why he says them with fierce possession—even though he’s looking at me as if he knows I can understand him
. No one touches me but him; why would he say it? My heart thuds painfully against the wall of my chest as my stomach coils tightly with a hunger that has nothing to do with food.

  I follow the man on unsteady legs to the black Mercedes SUV. When he opens the door, I climb in. I scan the road. It’s empty but the men move around as if they couldn’t care less if it were empty or not. Something tells me these men fear no one and nothing. This was something I’m used to in Mexico, not in the US where it isn’t as easy to buy people, especially not as many people as this would cost.

  The name Luca Sabatini means nothing to me. Then again the only names that do mean something are those of other cartels. Does he do business with Augusto? It’s clear Mundo is the point of contact in telling Luca Sabatini about the women.

  Mundo loathes the selling of women, for any reason. Women are sold for reasons other than sex—some are forced into fields, others factories. He thinks Augusto makes more than enough off cocaine. I wonder how many times he’s made the call to Luca Sabatini.

  Two men appear from the darkness of the desert carrying shovels, also dressed in tactical gear. A car door closing catches my attention. I watch the other women climb into the two other SUVs. Wait, no one is going to Vegas but me? The SUVs turn out onto the highway. Now there is only the huge semi-truck with the back open and the SUV I’m in.

  A scream catches my attention. I can’t see where it came from, as one of the men in tactical gear stands in front of me, blocking the view. “Mr. Sabatini doesn’t think you should be bothered by what’s happening. Once he’s done, we’ll drive back to Vegas.”

  I nod as if I’m thankful even though I’m trying really hard not to freak out. It’s fine. Everything will be fine. Luca Sabatini is a good man who just saved a truckload of women from being sold. It’s something he’s done before, so often he funds a shelter for the women. He’ll drive me to Vegas and let me go. I’ll walk away from him and into a new life far away from all of this.

  The man is screaming again. Oh god, the memories of my childhood come rushing back.

  My first memory of Augusto isn’t him hugging me or kissing me or even yelling at me. It’s of him slicing open his right-hand man below my bedroom window of his home. Augusto screaming questions of who the man I was told to call uncle is selling information to as he runs a knife over the man’s chest again and again until the ground below him is soaked with blood.

  Then Augusto shot one of his guards in front of me and my mother because the man had held my mother’s hand as he helped her out of the car. I stood there with pee running down my legs, soaking my pretty white socks with a pink bow on the sides. Augusto threatened to shoot my mother too, for getting too close to the man who guarded us. The man wasn’t protection, he was there to keep us from running from Augusto.

  The most painful memory was watching him kill my brother at my seventeenth birthday party the night before my wedding. My brother had been whispering to me earlier that if I needed anything to let him know, and he would do his best to help me.

  Justin was only three years older than me and was one of the few brothers who cared. I had begged him to save me from the marriage. Augusto walked up to Justin, slid his arm around his neck then slowly choked him in front of me. Staring into Justin’s chocolate-brown eyes as he struggled for air is a nightmare I still have often.

  When the door opens I jump in fear. Luca Sabatini exudes overwhelming power as muscle ripples beneath black silk. With lithe grace at odds with his large body he settles into the seat beside me. I’m unable to tear my eyes from the savage beauty of his face that cannot be denied. He saved me from the back of the truck, but who is going to save me from him?

  ***

  Luca

  Looking down at the dead man, I sigh. Fuck. The guy was supposed to run. He wasn’t supposed to fall and break his own damn neck. I always let them live but without their dicks. Some of the men over the years have died from loss of blood. I didn’t give a shit if they died or not; it was never planned, though. The better for the Reyes Cartel and everyone else who tried to know they won’t get a shipment of women through Vegas.

  As I look around, something feels off about the whole damn thing. Usually, the guy who calls me gives me a few more hours of a heads up. This time it was less than two hours. If my men weren’t so fucking disciplined and ran so well, we wouldn’t have gotten to the truck until they had gone through Vegas and it would have been harder to pull this off. North of Vegas is Nellis Air Force base, anything that happens within about twenty miles of it gets on the military’s radar. The cops and feds are easy to buy in Vegas—the Air Force, not so much.

  I order two of my men to go dig two graves in the desert. If one of them is dead it’s better for the both of them to die. Which means getting information out of the other one harder because he’ll know he’s not going to live either. Charlie goes to get the shovels and Mike grabs the dead guy and drags him behind him into the desert.

  A frisson of electricity shoots up my spine. I look for the source and see a woman at the edge of the truck. She’s looking right at me. It’s too far away for me to know the color of her eyes, but I feel them as if she were touching me. I see her body outlined in the headlights of several vehicles. I’m instantly hard at the sight of her. Gorgeous. She’s a fucking wet dream with curves for days. I’d pay a million for her without hesitation.

  Except she doesn’t fit as merchandise. Every other time the truck was filled with girls in their early teens, who looked it in every way. My guess is the woman is early twenties—twenty-five max. Her long brown hair is clean and looks soft, while the girls around her haven’t bathed in days.

  I’m walking toward her, the need to touch her, to confirm she’s real, is throbbing deep inside me. As she steps down from the ladder, I can’t help my hands going around her arms. I barely manage not to pull her against me as I ask her if she’s all right. Electricity shocks every damn cell in my body into frantic need for her. Desperate hunger fills me until I’m ravenous for her. I clutch her tight, then remember how damn small she is.

  She has a heart-shaped face with high, round cheekbones, and a pert nose over a cupid’s bow mouth. Wide amber eyes glitter gold as she stares up at me. Thank fuck, she feels this crazy fucking desire too. Then a shiver runs through her—it scares her. The last thing I want is her afraid of me. I ask her if she’s okay.

  I speak English, her understanding is clear, so why does she pretend like she doesn’t speak English?

  Despite growing up speaking Spanish taught to me by my nanny, no one but Sandro and Natasha know I speak Spanish. It’s come in handy before. I have a feeling with this gorgeous puzzle it will be even more important she doesn’t know I speak the language. Even though everything in me is screaming to pull her tight to me, I let her go as I call Sandro over. She’s hiding something. I need to know what it is before I do everything I want to do to her.

  Sandro comes over and I tell him to ask if she’s okay. I can’t take my eye off the woman. Watching her speak to him, it annoys me the way she’s avoiding me. I’m also annoyed with the way she’s lying. The woman is a shitty liar.

  My ability to detect lies were honed at the poker tables I’ve sat at since I was fourteen. Over the years, as the stakes became life and death instead of money, I’ve only gotten better. This woman is going to be an issue—I can feel it all the way to the marrow in my bones as she lies with every word that comes out of her mouth. When she says she wants to go to Vegas, she’s finally truthful, and relief comes over me. She’s coming back with me.

  I tell Sandro to put her in my vehicle. When Sandro’s hand goes down on her arm, the growl comes out of me without any idea of where it came from. He isn’t to touch her. Her eyes meet mine. No one touches her but me, I tell her. Satisfaction fills me at the way her pupils dilate at my words. She doesn’t want anyone to touch her but me. Good.

  Sandro looks to me and I know exactly what he’s thinking. I’m not sure why the hell it matters that no
one touches her. I’ve never cared before. In the past Sandro and I have shared women. I laughed when Dominic and Pop growled at the idea of anyone touching their woman. Now the mere idea of anyone touching her enrages me.

  Walking away from her isn’t easy, but the quicker I handle the remaining truck driver, the quicker I can get back to her. Since this guy is going to end our encounter dead, I speak Spanish.

  “Tell me where the truck was going,” I demand.

  “Fuck you. I’m not telling you shit.” He spits at my feet.

  My patience is already wearing thin. I want to be done with this asshole so I can get back to my woman. “Let’s begin again. My name is Luca Sabatini and I want to know where the truck was going.”

  His expression changes when he hears my name. I have to fight not to laugh at the way he squeezes his legs together to preserve his tiny cock. “I’m not telling you shit.”

  I pull my tie down then off, along with my suit jacket and hand them to Sandro. Then I begin unbuttoning my shirt. The guy’s eyes get bigger as he begins to comprehend exactly what it means. I unsheathe the Adamas knife I’ve taken to wearing around my forearm. Before I met Pop and Dominic, I used a knife on the men I pulled out of the trucks without much thought. I went with a Ka-Bar knife Sandro introduced me to.

  In the past, knives were backups to me. I only carried a knife when going into an encounter when I might not be able to use my gun. Since I met Pop, he and Dominic have both trained me in the ways a knife can be just as good as a gun. They’ve showed me how to use in in all the ways Sandro tried to teach me. I consider it a leftover mark of being raised by Al that I thought a gun was the better weapon. Now the Adamas knife has become a staple in my personal arsenal over the last two years.

  The man is on his knees in front of me. I slide the knife over the skin of his chest above his heart. It’s a shallow cut, more to scare him with the pain and blood than anything. He screams as he thrashes against the handcuffs holding his hands behind his back.