Page 119 of Sin & Sapphire

When we reached the door, I held a finger up.Wait.I listened at the door and heard nothing. Which meant absolutely nothing, of course. Shit.

I kicked open the door and stepped out, only to find a giant of a man, dressed like the ones who invaded my bar, standing right fucking there. I shot his knee, then kicked the gun out of his hand when he dropped to the ground, screaming in pain.

“Come on!” I shouted to the kid. He looked between the man on the ground and me with wild eyes. I grabbed his chef’s coat and dragged him out of the alley, then handed him the gun.

I didn’t have a purse, Or a phone. Or a credit card. Or any way of calling a cab to get home.

“Give me your wallet,” I commanded.

He scrambled, looking through his pockets, then pulling out the worn, folded leather. I pulled out twenty dollars for a cab, then handed it back to him.

“Tell Paulo I told you to call Angelo tomorrow. He’ll pay you back.”

“Keep it,” the kid said. “We protect our own.”

44

LUCA

“What the fuckdo you mean they’re shooting at the Cockatoo?” I snarled through the phone.

“How the fuck do you not have your own spies in the Costa organization yet?” Dmitri shot right back. “How come I have to be the one to tell you that Boris Tchérnov’s men are shooting at Ana Costa?”

“Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?” I answered, sliding into a pair of jeans before tucking a gun into the waistband. I grabbed a T-shirt and hunted around for my shoes in the dark, my heart pounding with worry.

“She’s on the move,” Dmitri said after a too long silence.

“How the fuck do you know?”

Dmitri laughed, the fucker. “Because Idohave spies in the Costa organization. She’s not hurt, and she’s heading toward Valentin Rochefort’s apartment.”

I swore softly, then slipped out of the gate at the back of my parents’ compound. With both of my sisters gone, it made sense to help my father run his empire from here. Butfuck, it was time for me to move out. Long since time, especially since Papà didn’t plan on handing the reins over anytime soon.

I waved off the men who looked at me quizzically as I swung onto the back of my Ducati, dressed far more casually than usual, even in my leathers, and after midnight. “A personal errand,” I murmured, indicating I didn’t want company. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going. Especially my father.

The wind beat against my leather jacket, roaring in my ears and clearing my head. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I had to see Ana, had to know she was safe.

Fuck!

She had to be. This was my fucking fault. I let her slip through my fingers. If I’d had the courage to tell her how I felt, if I’d stood up to my father?—

Who the fuck was I kidding?

I couldn’t tell my father now, and I couldn’t have told him then.

I parked my bike two blocks from Valentin’s building. My father wasn’t above tracking my movements, and I didn’t want him to know. He couldn’t know about Ana and my obsession with the beautiful woman whose father had ruined my family over and over and over again.

I waved at the camera outside of the service entrance, then rapped hard on the door. When a night guard opened it, I grabbed him by the throat then knocked his head against the wall, leaving him unconscious. I dragged him into the stairwell, and then entered the building.

Shit security. They should know better.

I followed a resident into the elevator and hit the penthouse floor. It didn’t light up.Shit.

“You need a resident card to get up there,” the man beside me said. I looked him over, noting his polo shirt and khakis, the way his shoulders slumped, even though he was built like he went to the gym—a civilian.

“I’m trying to surprise my girl,” I said sheepishly. “She just moved in with her uncle. Maybe you know him? Valentin Rochefort.”

“Oh yeah, I think I saw her in the lobby this morning.”

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