by Bethany-Kris
Cree raised a single, thick brow high. His dark eyes nailed into Luca like he was trying to decide whether the man had lost his mind or was just stupid.
Frankly, even Luca didn’t know the answer to that one. Not now.
“She brought you here,” Cree clarified, “and decided you could be used as a good distraction for the rest of us while she headed off to do her own thing. As for you, well, you followed right along.”
Huh.
“That’s what she did?”
That’s why Penny let him follow her to Nevada?
He didn’t think so.
Not entirely.
“That’s what she did,” Cree echoed.
Luca shrugged—as much as he could in his constraints. “No, I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t feel anything at all.”
Well, partly.
He felt too many things, really. Betrayal simply wasn’t one of them.
“I can’t say the same,” Cree admitted quietly.
Luca didn’t acknowledge the man’s words. He figured it was probably better if he didn’t. It wasn’t like he could pretend to know the bonds Penny shared with these people—if she had any at all to speak of, that was. Nonetheless, there had to be something. She spent over five years with these people. Someone felt something.
That was only human.
The longer Cree stood there watching Luca where he sat in the corner on the floor, the more he fidgeted. While he’d only been vaguely aware of the restraints on his wrists before, as he’d become used to them to an extent, now the plastic was biting into his skin in the worst way.
He talked just to distract himself from thinking about it, asking, “What is she doing, anyway?”
Cree sighed. “Going after her mother.”
That had Luca interested.
“What?”
The man passed him a look; the neat plait of his long braid belied the dirty scuff marks on his black cargo pants. “The Elite—her mother.”
Luca still didn’t understand. Or maybe his tired brain just wasn’t letting him put it all together. Either way, he opted to say nothing at all. Better to keep one’s mouth closed and let someone think he was a fool than open it and prove it.
Right?
“You don’t know, do you?” Cree asked.
Luca swallowed hard. “I know some.”
“But you haven’t put it all together.”
“In a bit of a situation at the moment. I like to prioritize things I have to worry about if you know what I mean. Forgive me.”
That almost had the man smiling. Or smirking, maybe.
“Don’t feel bad,” Cree told him, “no one can understand Penny or what she went through. Not really because no one should have to know the horrors she faced. And not once, but again and again. To get the full picture, you would have to go back in time ... and that’s just not possible, Luca Puzza.”
He had the distinct feeling that Cree was trying to tell Luca something without actually telling him, so to speak. But with little sleep, hunger aching deep in his belly, and an unknown future waiting beyond the doors of the room he currently called home ... well, he just couldn’t pinpoint what Cree wanted him to know.
“You were her last hope,” Luca said. “This was it—wasn’t it? For what she was trying to do, whatever she ran from years ago, this was the end of the road. The last place to go.”
Cree’s throat flexed, and his jaw tensed like he wanted to say something, but he was forcing the words back. Eventually, the man replied, “Apparently not ... look at her now.”
What did that mean?
Cree turned to leave, but Luca was quick to speak up and stop the man, asking, “What are you going to do with me now?”
A sharp gaze looked back.
Luca was still unafraid.
“At least let me know—so I’m ready for whatever it is,” he told the man.
Cree’s broad shoulders lifted almost carelessly. “We haven’t decided yet.”
He didn’t ask why.
He already knew.
The League still thought he might be able to help them. Somehow. Maybe with Penny, or perhaps with something else. Who knew? Either way, they weren’t about to throw him away like trash when he could still be useful.
It was smart business.
Bad for him, though.
But didn’t they know?
“All I ever tried to do was help Penny,” Luca said at Cree’s retreating back as the man left the room, the beep resounded again over top the door, and they started to close him back in. “It never worked.”
That didn’t mean he would stop trying. It wasn’t his style.
“WHERE ARE YOU TAKING me?” Luca demanded.
His captor—face hidden by a black mask—said nothing as he continued shoving the barrel end of his rifle into Luca’s back. The action forced him to keep walking through the many corridors of the compound. All in silence, too, because other than the man’s gun driving into his spine every time the guy wanted him to speed up, shut up, or otherwise, he wasn’t getting anything from the man.
Fucking hell.
The long, empty hallways of The League’s complex still felt cold and impersonal. Like the walls and every closed door had secrets to tell—ones he wasn’t privy to. The entire place seemed full of ghosts that he couldn’t see, and there wasn’t a single part of him that liked it, either.
Luca didn’t recognize the path he was made to take with the armed guard still at his back. They didn’t pass a soul on the way as they climbed two stairwells to an upper level of the building where finally, he started to hear something. Low, murmured voices that he couldn’t discern well enough to distinguish between the number of speakers let alone the conversation as a whole.
He didn’t know what it was until he was walked right into the middle of it, though. One last jab of the rifle to his back, right between his shoulder blades, and Luca stumbled—still tied at his wrists—into a large room.
Walls of screens stared back at him. The handful of men inside the space stopped talking just long enough to turn his way. They—including Cree, and four other men Luca didn’t recognize—turned their attention back on the man standing behind the massive metal and glass desk that dominated the space.
They were still talking.
Luca just wasn’t interested.
The screens had his attention now. And the shit plastered on them. Images of faces—people—made up a pyramid. Some faces had been crossed out with large Xs while others were left untouched. It was the two faces at the very top that had Luca starting to see the bigger picture.
The Elite, he knew.
Who else would it be?
Some of the images with Xs were recognizable faces. Murders that Luca could easily connect back to what he knew about Penny’s business over the last few years. But only because he had been looking for her. Someone else might not see it, but he sure as fuck did. She had been taking them out one by one.
Then, he happened.
Or rather, he caught up to Penny.
What changed?
Allegra and the woman’s father sat at the very top of the pyramid.
That was the thing he missed ...
Allegra Dunsworth stared back from the screen. Her image held so much similarity to Penny that at first, it was shocking. It wasn’t the first time he saw the woman, but it was the moment that he realized what Penny must see every time she stood in front of a mirror.
Her mother.
A monster.
Staring back at her.
Finally, the conversation between the men in the room caught Luca’s attention enough to drag him away from the images on the screen.
“Another pet project for Cree to get under control,” the man behind the desk said. “At this point, I’m starting to think taking these on aren’t worth the trouble they cause us.”
“Dare—”
The man behind the desk held up a single hand, his steely gaze looking over every man in the room except Luca
where he still stood just a couple of feet inside the doorway. “She was given directions, Cree. An order. One she didn’t follow. We only have one option, and I can’t help that you don’t like it. She’s put The League in danger of The Elite being able to trace and track us like we’ve been doing to them for years. Every single member of this organization is an asset. Ones we cannot afford to lose given the nature of this work, and you know it.”
“That doesn’t change that she’s only doing what we told her she would—”
“She was given orders!”
The shout silenced the room.
The man they called Dare regained his composure quickly, and finally glanced Luca’s way when he said, “Circumstances and loyalties change all the time. A by-product of the business. You don’t need me to tell you. She’s gone AWOL. We react accordingly and protect what we’ve built. This is your mess to clean, Cree.”
Were they talking about sacrificing Penny?
Dare pointed at Luca, saying, “Including that mess there.”
But what did that mean?
Luca wasn’t given the chance to ask, let alone speak before the man behind the desk nodded at him, drawing every gaze in the room to him when he said, “And you.”
“What about me?” Luca asked.
At this point, what did he have to lose? He only needed to get out. He just didn’t know what out meant or looked like.
“A request to make an offer for you has come through from New York,” Dare said, folding his arms across his silk-covered chest, making the fabric of his button-down strain from the action. Then, he added, “We’re at least willing to hear the offer from the Donati family.”
“An offer—”
“For your life.”
Well, then.
4.
Luca
“HE blames me for this.”
Luca looked away from the glowing lights of his favorite city down below only to find the man who had spoken wasn’t even looking at him. Directly in front of his seat was another where Cree had taken a spot when they boarded the private jet hours ago. The flight attendant on board opted to stay with the pilot after the assassins on the jet made it clear they weren’t interested in being attended to for the flight’s duration.
He might have liked something.
Nobody cared to ask.
“Who?” Luca asked.
Cree’s dark gaze shifted subtly from the window to Luca, then to the man a couple of seats back with—Dare—and then back to the window again. It was so fast it was almost like it hadn’t happened in the first place. “My ... partner.”
That had Luca’s brow furrowing while he put together what the other man was trying to tell him. It seemed like Cree did that a lot—talked just enough to be interesting while letting those around him figure out the rest for themselves.
Luca couldn’t say he liked it.
This was, however, the most conversation he had been able to gain from anyone since leaving The League’s grounds. He wasn’t about to waste it. Despite their flight starting to come to an end with New York below them, he figured Cree wasn’t the type to talk just because he could. It always seemed to serve a purpose.
So, what was it this time?
“And he blames you.” Luca’s statement didn’t gain him anything from Cree. The man acted like he hadn’t even talked, let alone repeated what he had already said. He tried something else. “For what, exactly?”
Cree arched a brow, never looking away from the porthole window.
Well ...
“For Penny, you mean,” Luca said when the man wouldn’t. “That she went AWOL from her handler—you. So all of this comes back to you. Everything she does from here on out is basically on you, right?”
Cree smoothed a palm down his long braid as he leaned back in his seat and stared straight ahead at Luca. This time, he didn’t look further down the jet at the man behind them in another seat when he said, “He blames me for doing this. Or what she’s done, I suppose. He wants robots. Unfeeling machines. But broken people only end up breaking other things more often than not. What purpose does that serve? He says they’re my pet projects. I get attached, call them mine, make them different and better.”
“And that means you—”
“Try to fix them.”
“Even Penny?”
Cree swallowed hard, the suit he’d thrown on for the trip making the man look all the more uncomfortable in his seat when he replied coldly, “Especially her. It worked. Look at her now.”
Right.
Except no one could look at her. She was gone.
All the while, Luca was still wondering if tonight would be his last night alive. Fun times.
The plane’s descent finally hit the point where the pressure in the cabin changed enough that it wasn’t quite comfortable. Luca thought his conversation with Cree was mostly over when the man didn’t offer anything else. He went back to staring out the jet’s window at the lights below because even planning something like an escape at this point felt useless.
“He blames me,” Cree murmured, although this time to himself more than to Luca, and neither man acknowledged the repeated words. “And he’s not wrong.”
LUCA WASN’T SURE WHAT he expected when the jet touched down at the New York airport, but seeing his father standing next to Cross when he exited the plane certainly wasn’t it. Apparently, whatever offer the Donati crime family had to make for his safe return by The League wouldn’t be waiting one second longer than it had to.
Was he grateful?
Of course.
He just hadn’t expected them to be waiting ... right there. The very moment he stepped off the plane.
Luca kept his composure while the team of men dressed in black—from their cargo and tight, long sleeve shirts to even the gear strapped to their bodies—surrounded him when his feet hit the tarmac. Dare and Cree, the only two men in the bunch that hadn’t dressed like they were ready to go to war, headed the group and came to a stop in front of the private hangar where Luca’s father and godfather waited.
There was something to be said for being treated like you were ... a ticking time bomb. Each of the five men appointed to him watched his every move. Like the next one would be his last, but as if they still expected him to try.
Luca was way out of his league here. Even he fucking knew it. That was why he had no intention of stepping out of line in any way that might jeopardize whatever chance he had to make it out of the situation alive. If living the life he did had taught him anything over the years, it was that self-preservation was something a person needed to survive their world.
Or maybe that was just him.
“Step forward,” came the muffled order at his back from one of the men in black with his face partially covered by a black skull bandana. The butt of his rifle came forward like he was going to jab Luca in the back but fuck that noise. He’d had enough of that in Nevada, and he wasn’t doing it again.
Luca moved ahead, through the two men at his front that parted to let him pass, so that he was able to stand slightly behind, but off to the side of Cree and Dare. Zeke and Cross waited with the men of The League, and only turned back to continue their conversation once Luca was in their sights.
He knew what he looked like.
All too well.
The assholes might have cut the ties on his wrists and gave him back his jacket before they left Nevada, but he was still in a goddamn state. He needed several hours of sleep, clean clothes, and a shower. His haggard appearance was probably only aided by the fact he hadn’t shaved in far too long, he was due for a haircut to manage the high fade cut that had grown out. The beating he’d taken—more than once during his time with The League—left with him a couple of bruises that hurt more than he cared to show.
No doubt, those brief few seconds his father and Cross had to see him told the men more than Luca would when this was over.
But he could handle it.
All of this.
It w
as all secondary to the fact Penny was still gone, and he was sure an entire team of assassins would soon be hunting her down on top of the people that were already looking for her from an entirely different organization. At least, for Luca everything else was secondary to that. He couldn’t say the same for everyone else on that tarmac.
“Is even the suggestion of talking about what to do with the other situation on the—”
“It’s nowhere near the fucking table,” Dare interjected, stopping Cross from saying anything more. Luca had finally stepped out of his thoughts just long enough to realize he could hear some of the men’s conversation above the wind in front of the hangar. “The contract is clear, Mr. Donati. If your property remains under the supervision of The League while maintaining business for you, it is at our discretion to make final calls regarding disobedience. Especially at this level.”
“I just think there are other ways to deal with Penny than—”
“There isn’t,” Cree said, his words loud and clear but still somber. Like he’d accepted the decision that had been reached—one Luca wasn’t entirely clear on—but he didn’t like it all the same. “The last two years we have seen her reach higher and higher levels with each kill she made inside The Elite—she was nearly at the end. To have the chance to end it taken away when and like it was ... she won’t return to business with us. Or even you, for that matter. She’s fulfilling her own purpose. It’s beyond us, and it always will be. There is no going back.”
Cree stiffened at the sound of Dare’s sigh, but other than that, silence and stillness passed between the four men.
Luca was finally catching up.
Again.
Dare and Cree spoke to Cross about Penny and her business with The League like he was also a part of it. As if he had a right to know because the details were ones that should have already been understood.
He felt stupid.
So fucking angry.
All the time he spent trying to find why Penny left or even, who helped her ... adding it on top of the dozens of questions that piled up when he found her entangled with The League, and it was all for nothing. The man who made all of that happen had been in front of him—or pretty damn close—from the start.
