Page 139 of Knights Game

“You love me.”

“Don’t look so arrogant and proud of yourself. You love me too.”

“Love is a weakness.”

“And I’m yours,” I reply, my eyes searching his face.

“Yes,” he agrees. “From the moment you pulled me out of that car, sunshine.” He drops my hands and grips my cheeks roughly. “You are my fucking world, and love doesn’t describe the feelings I have for you. I want to burn London to the ground. I want to walk away as the last embers go out and turn my back on everything I have ever known. You have made me think that maybe a man like me can have more.”

“You can,” I whisper. “We can walk away, Luca.” I plead with him, but he’s already shaking his head, and I grip his hands on my cheeks. “Yes.” My eyes are wide and beseeching. “You can, we can. We-we don’t have to do whatever you’re planning.”

“You’re not safe, Layla. This isn’t the time to run away. This is the time to fight.”

“But who are we even fighting?” I snap angrily. “The government? The Covenant? Albanians? Who even is our enemy, Luca?”

“They all are. Do you know what this is?” He turns, holding a piece of paper. I shake my head. “This is a fucking government contract for your murder.”

My jaw drops. “What?”

“Whatever your parents found, it’s enough to want you dead, sunshine.” He throws it on the floor and walks back to me, gripping my neck and pulling me to him, smashing his lips to mine.

Desperation fuels him, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, his movements harsh, rough and impatient.

He breaks the kiss, his forehead resting against mine, our breaths mingling. I fist his shirt.

“I can’t walk away, sunshine, not yet. Not while you’re a target.”

I reach into my back pocket and pull out the hard drive. “I think whatever is on this, is what they want. And I think this is everything that corrupts half of the standing cabinet members of the government. Thismustbe why Grandad was attacked and why they want me dead.”

He looks at it, something so small and normal that will bring it all down.

47

Luca

She’s curled in mylap gripping hold of my shirt in her fist. I reach forward and open the top drawer and pull out a square of grey silk material.

“That looks familiar,” she says, sitting up and taking it from me. “Mine’s full of your come though. Did I ever tell you how deplorable and unhinged that was?”

I smirk as she climbs off me and sits on the desk, her legs part and she pulls me forward, grabbing my chin and tilting it up to her. She wipes at my face, running the material over the fake wound.

She works silently, and I let her, taking in her soft features, her pale complexion. My fingers reach out and dance across the place where her grandad had struck her a few weeks ago and she pulls a tight smile.

My sunshine looks exhausted. Her tongue darts out and wets her lip as her face is a mask of concentration. She wipes, folds the cloth, then wipes some more.

“I need to tell you something,” I say, she pauses. “The other woman in the picture, I know who she is.”

“Who?”

I pick up the picture. My mother, young and beautiful, her stomach round and full as she carried what should have been my baby sister. She’s talking with another woman, sitting on a bench in what looks to be one of the London parks, but in fairness it could be any park and any bench.

“I need to rethink that whole answer to fate, Layla.” I pass her the picture and she looks down at it. “The woman your mother is talking to is my mother, Katrina Knight.”

“What?” She gives a slight head shake, confusion masking her beautiful features, her forehead wrinkling into a frown. I reach up and wipe at the crease lines.

“John’s sister.”

Her eyes widen.

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