Page 15 of His Dark Vendetta

All at once, the rose-colored glasses came off, and harsh reality replaced the dream I’d conjured of our star-crossed love story. Luca Moretti hated me, and there were no secret warm feelings behind his hatred.

His arms tightened around my waist, and I pushed at his chest. “What’s wrong with you?” I looked past his shoulder into my living room. “And how the hell did you get in here?”

“Not important.” He glanced at my fingers still gripping his shirt. He released me and peeled them apart, tossed my hands aside, and stepped back. I didn’t know if I wanted to push him farther away or crawl back into his arms. “Put some shoes on,” he ordered. “We’re going for a ride.” Luca’s abrupt demand was as surreal as his unexpected arrival.

I followed him into the living room and crossed my arms. “Luca Moretti, back from the dead. You know, I haven’t even had the time to process the fact you’re alive much less standing in my living room, and you’re ordering me around?” I scoffed. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell happened and why you’re here.”

The vintage lamps cast shadows across his face. They highlighted the salt in his beard and gave his mahogany eyes an almost reddish glow. Trepidation added itself to the storm of my emotions, but then he donned one of his signature flashy smiles, and damn if my heart didn’t beat faster even knowing it was fake. Luca was alive and so was our second chance.

“Fine.” I grabbed my sneakers from the entryway and sat at the dining room table to put them on. “Where are we going?”

He looked at his watch. “I want to show you something.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the microwave in the kitchen. “At one in the morning?”

“You sure have a lot of questions,” he snapped.

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Come on,” he barked, voice devoid of teasing or taunting and filled with impatience. He opened the door and stared at me from the landing. “Let’s go.”

I grabbed my purse. “There better be coffee wherever we’re going.”

I closed and locked the door behind me and dropped the keys in my purse. Luca’s hand clamped around my biceps.

“Ow!” I winced and pulled away. At least, I tried to pull away. His grip tightened, and he dragged me down the stairs. “What the hell, Luca? You don’t have to squeeze so hard. Jesus.”

He spared me a fleeting glance but kept his punishing hold and pace all the way to the sidewalk.

“In fact…” I yanked my arm back. “What’s with the manhandling? I can walk on my own.”

He stopped and glared at me, examining my face as if looking for a lie, then resumed marching up the street.

I hurried after him, my curiosity getting the best of me. This behavior was odd even for him. He’d been an asshole ever since The Incident, but this was next level. I wanted a chance to talk to him, find out how on earth he was still alive. And if the opportunity presented itself, chew him out for what he’d done to Marco and Anna.

We turned into a cul-de-sac. A bright red Ferrari was parked in the shadows.

“Holy shit.” I snorted. “You drive a 308 GTS Quattrovalvole?” His head snapped up, disbelief evident in his frown, but you don’t spend as much time as I did in a chop shop as a kid without knowing a thing or two about Ferraris. “Why am I not surprised?”

He opened the passenger-side door. “Get in.”

I glared at him as he climbed in on the driver’s side. He ignored me and started the engine. It rumbled to life, loud and fierce, and he finally spared me a glance.

“What’s wrong with you?” I snapped. “Here I am, all happy you’re alive, and you’re being an even bigger asshole than usual.”

“What’s wrong withme?”

He peeled out of the cul-de-sac onto the empty residential street, and the disgust in his voice reverberated over the scream of the tires. The force threw me back against my seat. I felt around for the seat belt, my trepidation growing with each rev of the engine.

“Happy I’m okay…” He scoffed and slapped me with another angry glare. His eyes flashed, wild and erratic beneath each passing streetlight. “Like you give a shit about me or the DeVitas.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You lied to me.” He slammed on the accelerator and took the next turn like we were on an F1 course, flinging me into the door. “Not once, but twice.”

“We’ve been over this—taking speech lessons to get rid of my Southie accent is not lying.”

“You told me you’re Irish.”

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