Page 90 of Killer Love

Ten minutes ago, they were all reduced to ashes.

“You son-of-a-bitch…” Antony grinds through his teeth.

“Rome is mine,” Luka says, his tone strong and cold. “Moscow is mine. Chicago is yours. I will leave your casino intact as a sign of good faith, but if I find out any of your brood has set a fucking toe in Italy again, I will come back here. If I find out that you are giving aid to Gio in any way, I will come back here, and I will take the rest of what is yours for myself. This is the new truce. Negotiations over.”

I exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding and my heart pulses wild for him.

Luka looks around the room and nods, telling the crowd to lower their guns. They all obey and the entire group moves calmly toward the exit, leaving the casino abandoned with an eerie calmness.

Without another word, we turn and follow them to the exit with Fox trailing close behind us.

“This is treason, Lutrova.”

“No, Antony, this...” Luka pauses in the open doorway and smiles at me. “This is war.”

Chapter 27

Sofia

I follow the black clouds as they travel in the sky above my head. Thick, smothering smoke bleeds into my nose with every breath but each new inhale makes me smile a little wider.

Pedestrians on the street do as I do. They stare up into the sky as they go about their evening fun, completely oblivious to what caused the string of arsons around Chicago tonight.

I stand by the car, leaning against the trunk with Fox beside me. His watchful eyes scan the passing crowd for any signs of trouble as we wait for Luka and Yuri to come back. He slides the baseball cap off his head for a second to run his fingers through his thick, brown hair, and I take another close look at him before he throws the hat back on.

I wonder if this is how he’ll be from now on, completely obscured in the shadows to avoid whatever he’s running from.

“Where will you go now, Fox?” I ask him.

“I’ll disappear,” he says with a shrug.

I study his eyes beneath the cap, recognizing a little bit of myself inside, but that’s not who I am now. This is the old me. Desperate and scared. The one who was willing to end it all until Luka appeared in front of me and showed me a different path.

“In my life, I’ve known two types of men,” I say. “There are men like Gio who act for themselves, for survival, and men like Luka who act for others, for love. I look at you, Fox, and I don’t see Gio in you.”

He raises his head and peeks at me from beneath his cap.

“You have a love,” I say. “Don’t you?”

He softly clears his throat. “Yes.”

I tilt my head as his expression changes. “What’s her name?”

A half-smile bleeds through his lips. “Dani,” he answers.

I smile back. “You will go to her now.”

“No.”

“She doesn’t feel the same way?”

“I’ll never know.”

Darkness returns to his eyes as he looks away from me. I know so little about Fox, but I recognize pain when I see it. A familiar pang teases my gut, throwing me all the way back in time to the blackest moments of my life that I’d rather forget.

“I was like you once, Fox,” I say. “Separated from the life I desired and the person I wanted to be. I didn’t think there was anything out there that could help me.”

“What changed?”

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