by Mia Taylor
Teresa changed all that for me, he thought, eyeing the slender girl inching toward him. But her name isn’t even Teresa. It’s Angela. I never really knew her.
“Luca, you have to help us stop Duggan. It is the only way to ensure none of this gets out.”
“Or I can kill you both. All three of you,” he retorted flatly, his hand at arm level as his finger curled around the trigger.
“You won’t do that—” Angela started to say but her words were cut off as a shot rang through the still night.
Everyone hit the ground simultaneously, Teresa gaping at him in shock.
“You shot me?” she squealed, looking at her body for damage, but he shook his head as another bullet whipped past them.
“Someone else is shooting at us,” he hissed, keeping his head low. There was no time to look. They needed to find cover.
Luca grabbed his lover’s hand, yanking her toward him behind the Saab, slowly raising his head to look over the hood.
Teresa grabbed his shoulder and yanked him down.
“Stay low,” she hissed. “You don’t know where they are.”
A male’s voice boomed out through the night and even Luca recognized it, even after hearing it one time.
“Val! Get your ass out here!”
That would be the superintendent.
“I will kill every one of these cretins if you don’t show yourself,” he spat. “Not that they don’t deserve it. Mobsters and a fallen cop. You’re just like your cousin, huh, Angela? Couldn’t keep your eye on the job. Had to sleep with the first guy who made eyes at you.”
Luca bristled at the words but Teresa seemed to sense his desire to pounce, placing her arm on him protectively and shaking her dark tresses in warning.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Terry called tauntingly, shooting toward the women cowering near the entrance of the house. “I’m not leaving here without you, Val. I’ve been looking for you for three damn years. If I hadn’t thought to follow Luca here, I would have never found you. God knows your cousin is as deceitful as you are. I should have known your entire family was no good.”
Luca cast Teresa a sidelong glance, watching her jaw twitch at the agent’s leering words.
Sleeping with me wasn’t part of the script, huh? he asked her silently but she didn’t meet his eyes.
He didn’t know if that made him feel worse or better. He knew he didn’t have time to analyze it in that moment.
“I’m here, Duggan,” Mara yelled suddenly, stepping forward. “You can take me. Leave everyone else.”
The bird-man sniggered and slowly, the top of his head came into view from over the car.
“How very noble of you,” he chortled sarcastically. “You’re suddenly worried about the welfare of other—”
His sentence abruptly ended as Luca emerged, his body fully shifting into the beast inside.
“Luca!” Teresa hissed but he ignored her, his tail whipping against the Saab as he neared the petrified agent.
“W-what the hell?” he squeaked. He raised his gun to fire off another round, the bullet landing squarely in Luca’s chest, but he barely felt it. Through his peripheral view, he saw Teresa shift too, confirming what he’d already known about her as she unhinged her rose-colored jaw and unleashed a spray of fire toward him.
Duggan screamed in protest but he dropped to the ground, rolling to put his blazing body out of its misery. Finally, he stopped rolling, his eyes still wide in death. Time froze for a brief moment as the two couples stared at one another, unsure of what to do next.
Luca recovered first. Instantly, he morphed back into his mortal frame, nodding at Teresa to do the same.
“Get him into the car,” he growled, looking around the deserted street for potential witnesses. “We have to get rid of the body.”
The women sprang into action immediately, dragging the agent toward the trunk of Luca’s car.
“Go back inside the house and clean up,” Luca told Tanya and Mara. “We were never here. If the cops come knocking, you saw and heard nothing. Capisce?”
They nodded in unison.
“Come on, Ang,” Mara called, waving for her cousin to follow.
Luca tensed and looked at Teresa. She returned his gaze with pain in her eyes.
He knew he couldn’t kill her, not even if what she had told him had been a lie. The feelings he had for her were far too strong and while he had no guarantees that she would disappear as she promised, he still knew that he could not put a bullet in her.
“You can go,” he told her, turning away, but she grabbed his arm.
“No. I’m staying with you.”
“Ang, come with us,” Mara insisted, but neither of them looked at her.
“We’ll go together, Luca,” Teresa whispered. “Anywhere you want. I know you want more out of your life than this. Let’s go start somewhere new, together.”
He scoffed but there was no conviction in the sound.
How long had he envisioned himself untangled from the family, ending the generations of family ties to the mafia?
The opportunity was presenting itself with bells on—a slain FBI agent, the possibility of the family being infiltrated.
If he left that night, Giovanni would understand why and never send anyone after him.
“Luca…”
He whirled and stared at her with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t even know your real name,” he snapped. “How could you think I would just up and leave with you?”
“I don’t know anything about you either,” she replied softly. “I’m giving you—us—a chance to learn everything we need to know without targets on our backs.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his heart hammering.
“Luca—”
“Angela!” Mara’s voice was filled with panic. “You have to come inside.”
She finally addressed her cousin, shaking her head.
“No,” she sighed. “I’m staying with Luca… aren’t I?”
He eyed her and slowly nodded.
“Yeah,” he mumbled and the word lightened the insurmountable weight on his shoulders and her face exploded into an expression of relief. “What’s your name, for real?”
“It’s Teresa Milano. She is the girl I have always wanted to be.”
“She’s the girl I fell for,” he conceded and a quavering smile formed on her pale but full mouth.
“I’m in love with you too,” she breathed. “You’re my mate and I’m yours.”
Luca knew there was only truth in her words.
She is willing to give up everything tonight and leave with me. Even with Mara offering her protection, she is choosing me.
He studied her impassioned face and slowly dropped his lips to hers.
I won’t let her go. She belongs with me.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered as they parted. “I know just where we’re headed.”
“Where?”
“Sardinia.”
A slow blush of pleasure filled her cheeks.
“Perfect.”
“What’s going to be perfect is when I finally take your ass,” he rasped. “It will be on the Tyrrhenian Sea.”
“Sounds kinky,” she laughed, her body relaxing against him.
“It will be,” he promised, wrapping his arms around her.
He shot one last look over his shoulder at Mara, who stared helplessly at them as Tanya pulled her back into the house.
I spent three years furious with that woman, he realized. But if it wasn’t for Mara, I would have never met Teresa. Weird how life works out.
“Come on,” Teresa murmured. “We have to get moving.”
He nodded, releasing her, and he exhaled, jumping into the driver’s side of the car, the irony making him chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Teresa asked, cocking her head to the side curiously, but he shook his head, pulling away from the curb.
For the first time since his father had been k
illed, Luca felt like he could breathe.
Even though there’s a dead body in my trunk.
Epilogue
She leaned into the wicker basket, pulling out a crisp, white sheet against the darkening summer sky, and bit on her lower lip as she peered into the heavens.
This sucks, Teresa thought grumpily, eyeing the clouds with contempt. I just spent an hour washing these and now I’m going to have to redo everything.
Indeed, she had hunched over the rocks at the Stagno Feraxi, doing the wash over the water like she was some turn-of-the-century pioneer woman.
And now it was going to rain. After all that.
But this is my life now, she mused with both happiness and concern. Salt of the earth, living quietly and not rousing attention by making flashy purchases in the small village where the people still gathered in the square to drink coffee and gossip about their neighbors.
“You look like you’re struggling,” Luca laughed, stepping from the back of their villa, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Let me help you.”
“What’s the point?” she grumbled. “It’s going to rain!”
She gestured up at the sky in exasperation. To her annoyance, Luca’s smile widened and he grabbed the sheet from her hands, lowering it back into the basket, shaking his head.
“So then you’ll wash them again tomorrow,” he replied. “I might even help you. What else do we have to do?”
The question irritated her and Teresa scoffed and scowled, folding her arms across her chest.
“Easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You didn’t spend the entire morning slaving over the laundry. Do you have any idea how much work this is? Lugging it to the river, scrubbing all—”
To her increasing anger, he burst into laughter and reached toward her to pull her into an embrace, but she slapped him away which only made him howl louder.
“What is so funny?” she demanded.
It took him a few seconds to compose himself as she stood fuming, waiting for a reasonable explanation for why he was mocking her.
He doesn’t understand what I do to make our lives pleasant, she thought furiously, parting her mouth to give him another blast, but he held up his hand, his face creased in glee.
“Look at you!” he gasped, dabbing the corners of his eyes. “Just look.”
Teresa froze and waited for him to elaborate.
This better be good before I whip something at his head, she thought, looking around for something hard and impactful. The first drops of water began to fall from the sky but she was too busy glaring at him to notice as the warm, southern Italian rain fell upon them.
“What?” she demanded. “What about me?”
Gently but firmly, Luca yanked her closely.
“First of all,” he murmured into her ear, “you’re yelling at me in Italian.”
His hands snaked down along her body and pulled her close so she could feel the curve of his hips against hers.
“So what? We’re in Italy,” she snapped back but there was less irritation in her voice as she began to understand his point. She hadn’t even realized that she was speaking in her second language. It had come naturally.
“Secondly,” he continued, dropping a sweet kiss on her mouth, “you’re dressed like a peasant woman. I’d say you’ve assimilated.”
Teresa couldn’t help but snicker.
“Is there a third?” she asked, tipping her head to the side, permitting him to sample the detail of her throat.
“Yes,” he murmured. “The third thing is, if laundry is the worst of our problems right now, we’re in pretty damned good shape.”
She had to admit that he was right and as his mouth continued to explore her, she thought of how they had come to be in a place where her biggest woe was redoing the laundry under the sensual rain of their island paradise.
It had not always been so simple. Their new identifications had come at a steep price and even as they found themselves hunkered on the Mediterranean Sea, at Villaggio Colostrai, the year they had spent becoming Luca and Teresa Bernardo, a married couple from England, had not been easy.
Teresa had spent the time looking over her shoulder, waiting for the FBI or the mob to burst through the hut of their inconspicuous villa, demanding answers or vengeance.
The idea of being wrenched from the tentative but happy life she and Luca had built together made her sick to her stomach and every day, she desperately wanted to reach out to Valentina and see if she had been found, if Tanya was safe.
Of course, her training and well-honed sense of self-preservation kept her from doing any such thing. If they had been found, there was no doubt in Teresa’s mind that both her cousin and her cousin’s lover’s devices would be closely monitored.
No, they had needed to make a clean break from Miami and everything they had ever known.
When did I finally start feeling safe? When was it I actually became Teresa and not Angela Garnet?
The answer, it seemed, happened long before she and Luca had made their daring escape via cruise ship, as if along with their lives, they had forsaken all modern amenities in the new world.
I became Teresa the minute I walked into La Perla an eternity ago. Angela Garnet doesn’t exist anymore.
She reminded herself that the woman who had walked into the bar that night had been another woman and not the one who stood fuming about the laundry needing a rewash in the province of Ogliastra.
“I like you like this,” he purred, urging her downward into the damp grass below them.
“You like me screaming at you like a shrew?” she giggled, all her previous misgivings forgotten under the drizzle of rain and his warm kisses.
Goosebumps covered her from head to toe, her hair plastered to her face as the gale whipped up over the water, spraying them with cold, but neither seemed to notice.
Luca’s head trailed along the line of her belly, his tongue tickling her deliciously.
Suddenly, she tensed.
“Luca!” she hissed, sitting up abruptly, her eyes fixating across the driving rain toward the pond. He fell sideways, his face puckering.
“Ow,” he complained, not immediately noticing her concern. “You didn’t have to push me!”
She didn’t notice his grimace of annoyance, her eyes fixated on the horizon. Reaching for her dress, which was in a sodden pile nearby, she jumped to her feet, hastily pulling the cloth to her body. She pointed at the boat nearing them, her heart racing.
“Who is that?” she choked. “We have to get out of sight!”
She hurried toward the stucco house beyond the wisteria. She didn’t bother to see if her lover followed, her head light with dizziness.
Slamming through the back door, she ducked behind the wall and peered out toward the pond at the lone vessel headed toward shore.
To her horror, she saw Luca ambling toward the boat.
What the hell is he doing? she wondered, terror filling her to the point of breathlessness. Helplessly, she watched as he trotted ono the sinking sand and waved toward the schooner. She couldn’t make out his words against the storm but his hand gestures troubled her.
Who the hell is he waving to?
They knew better than to attract attention to themselves. Keeping a low profile was what they did best. It was why they had selected the tiny, obscure villa, away from neighbors, away from town.
The idea was that they saw no one day to day and that they saw people coming from a mile down the plain, unmanned road in either direction. It gave them enough time to run if need be.
Yet Luca seemed unfazed by the newcomer, as if a tired boat floating through the stormy pond was commonplace.
Teresa realized she was trembling as she stood, watching as a face appeared on deck, and the men in the storm continued to gesture at one another.
Unreasonable fear and guilt gripped her heart as she stood, shivering and naked behind the wall, peering into the storm.
I shouldn’t have left him there. I need to go
to him. What if that is one of Giovanni’s men? What if I am about to watch Luca be killed right before my eyes?
Logic had no place in her thoughts as she waited for the other shoe to drop. There was no way for the Miami crime boss to have found them. They had used a combination of her sources and his to plan their escape, neither one knowing about the other.
It been a year, after all. Surely the mob had moved on to more pressing issues than an AWOL capo… hadn’t they?
Inhaling sharply, Teresa made her decision, stepping out from behind the wall, barely acknowledging her nakedness as her concern for Luca drove her forward.
No sooner had she crossed the threshold into the muddy yard than the tin boat started up and puttered toward the way it had come.
“What the hell was that all about?” she gasped, running to Luca.
“What the hell are you doing running around naked?” he countered, growling in disapproval. “Get back in the house!”
“Who was that?” she insisted, even as Luca took her arm and firmly steered her back toward the villa.
“I should spank your ass for showing your goods to a hundred-year-old Italian man.”
She cast him a sidelong look, slightly ashamed that the idea was not unappealing. Moreover, she was relieved that it was some apparently geriatric fisherman who had lost his way and not a threat to them.
Inside, Luca ran for a towel and returned to pat her dry as she stood dripping in the kitchen.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to worry, cara mia?” he murmured, wrapping her trembling frame inside the terrycloth and drawing her against his solid body. “I would never put you in danger. Don’t you trust me by now?”
But it had nothing to do with trusting him and he knew it. He was just trying to make her feel safe, despite the futility of the effort.
“When will we be able to stop looking over our shoulders?” she murmured, permitting her guard to be lowered slightly as he continued to gently dry her.
“It’s funny you should ask that,” he replied, smiling. Teresa stared at him, cocking her head slightly to the side.
“Funny ‘ha-ha’ or funny ‘we’re going to die’?” she asked, trying to keep her tone nonchalant.
“You need to get that idea out of your head,” Luca sighed. “That fisherman came bearing good news.”
