Page 38 of Killer Love

I step back. “Goodbye, Sofia,” I whisper.

She looks up and her eyes glisten with hidden tears. “Goodbye, Luka.”

Chapter 13

Luka

The further we travel from the Zappia estate, the more I feel it.

That sense of loss over something I didn’t even know I had. Sofia, the girl in my dreams. Lucian, the son we created together.

And Gio, the bastard who believes they both belong to him.

She should have let me take her with me. I should have thrown her over my damn shoulder and dragged her out of there three years ago before she ever walked down that aisle.

Yuri raps his fist against my knee. “What’s wrong with you, brother?” he asks. “You’ve been off since yesterday.”

I try and force her face out of my mind, but I can’t shake that beautiful smile. “Just eager to get back home,” I say, staring forward at the back of the driver’s thick head.

“What’s the rush? We should stay in Rome for a night or two. Get a nice meal, meet a few girls…”

“I’d rather not.”

He snorts. “I’d rather take a day off.”

“No one is stopping you.”

The driver takes a hard right turn off the busy street and we roll into a warehouse — one far away from the airfield we’re supposed to be going to.

“Luka, this—”

I hold up a hand, interrupting Yuri. “Excuse me,” I say, signaling to the inept Zappia driver to explain himself. “Where are you going?”

He slams on the brakes and throws his door open.

Yuri’s jaw drops as the driver races outside on foot and disappears. “Hey—”

I look around the warehouse. It’s dark and completely deserted. Either this is the oddest encounter that’s ever happened or…

This is a hit.

I reach for the pistol stashed behind my back. “Get down, Yuri.”

“What?”

“Get down.”

The bullet breaks the windshield and pierces the leather seat between us. I grab Yuri’s shoulder and force his head down between his legs. A second bullet hits the seat behind him, and I grit my teeth.

I lean down behind the front seats and peek ahead through the cracked windshield, scanning the warehouse for the attacker, but I see nothing behind the stacks of crates and machinery.

“Stay here, Yuri,” I growl, shoving my door open.

“Luka—”

I ignore him, buzzed on adrenaline and rage, and step outside onto the concrete floor. My stare shifts from stack-to-stack, knowing that the shooter must be behind one of the columns between me and the far wall.

I flick the safety off and move forward, ready and willing to fire the one bullet necessary to end this bastard.

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