Page 58 of Killing Emma

The reality causes me to frown, but I tell myself it’s fine. How much heartbreak can happen in twenty days, anyway? I can handle it. The man who vowed to love me in sickness and in health promised someone three million dollars for me to end up dead. If I can handle that, I can handle Luca kicking me to the curb.

But can you? The voice echoes in my mind as Luca punches in a code on a locked door. It’s only because you’re still hung up on Jared.

I shake my head at myself. I’m not hung up on Jared. I push it away and follow Luca into the dark room. “What is this?” I blink a few times to adjust my eyes to the dimness.

“It’s a cave,” Luca answers.

I laugh. “Okay…” My eyes take in the desk in the corner, and multiple computer monitors. Other than that, there’s a couch and loveseat in the corner. It’s like a…hacker lounge. “I don’t know if this is creepy or impressive.”

Luca glances down at me, meeting my gaze. “It can be both, but… How good are you with computers?”

I furrow my brow. “I… I don’t know. I’m a millennial so…”

“I have no idea what that has to do with anything,” Luca chuckles, leaving me standing as he switches on the computer. The monitors light up, and I’m left squinting to adjust. But when I do…

On the top right screen, an article pops up—and then more follow it on each screen.

Missing Woman is Rumored to have Mental Health Disorder

Nightingale Heiress Reported Missing by Lawyer

Nightingale, The Lonely Heiress

My gaze stops on the last one, disgusted by the tabloid, however, before I can even begin, the words disappear—and the screens go blank.

“You don’t need to see those,” Luca grunts. “Sorry.”

“I thought you said you weren’t keeping up with the news on my disappearance.” My voice waivers as he pivots the chair to face me. “You said it was dying down.”

“It is…”

“Did you not read that shit? I don’t have any—”

“It doesn’t matter what they write about you,” Luca says calmly. “And you’ve been in the tabloids before with your family.”

“Yeah, with my family. I’ve never had it all centered on me like this. They’ve never really said anything bad about me before. I don’t understand where they’d even get their information from.”

“I don’t know, probably the asshole that’s trying to paint you in a light that will make sense when you show up dead.” Luca levels with me, completely unamused or unsympathetic to what I’m feeling. Tension rises, and the strong urge to lash out washes over me.

I fold my arms across my chest, brushing against the material of my soft, black T-shirt. “Are you trying to say Jared is the one who’s feeding them this kind of information?”

“Oh, here we go,” Luca mutters, shaking his head at me. “Yeah, probably, and at this point, I don’t even know why you act like he wouldn’t. You’re being so fucking stubborn over this—over him.”

“Well, it’s a lot to come to terms with,” I say through my jaw tensing so hard that it cramps. “I don’t live in the same world as you, where everyone just fucking kills people they know and care about.”

Luca’s face darkens. “What’re you trying to say?”

Unwavering, I hold his gaze. “You killed your partner—someone you’d known for most of your life—with a fucking screwdriver!”

Luca jumps up from the chair, and is on me in seconds, his fingers wrapping around my neck. “Would you have rather me let him live? Let him do what he was going to do?”

I swallow hard against his grip, my mind reminding me of the two times he did it with some amount of intent to kill. How would I know the difference now? My shoulders begin to tremble, my eyes dropping away from his. “Let me go.”

“What?”

“Get your hands off me. You might be a brute to the rest of the world, but you’re not going to do it to me.”

As if I had scalded him with hot water, he winces. But he doesn’t move. “You shouldn’t get mouthy knowing that your hit is still live,” Luca’s tone darkens. “I can still make my three million and wash my fucking hands of you.”

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