Page 85 of His Dark Vendetta

“Luca.” I tucked his hair behind his ear.

“Hm?”

“Luca, look at me.”

He flattened his palm over the scars on my belly and lifted his gaze.

“I know you’re going to hurt me,” I said without accusation and ran my fingers over his hair. Resisting my feelings for Luca was as impossible as resisting the instinct to breathe. I couldn’t force them away even knowing his troubled soul might never love me the way I loved him.

He clenched his teeth, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. He ran his thumb back and forth over my belly.

“And I can live with that as long as you promise not to break me,” I said with sincerity.

He wanted to reassure me that would never happen. I saw it in his eyes and the way his expression tightened. But he fought the urge; his nostrils flared with the effort of holding back a promise he couldn’t keep. “I can’t promise you that,” he said, and his gravelly voice cracked under the weight of his honesty.

I stroked his hair and kissed his forehead even as a tear slid down my cheek. I closed my eyes, relishing the feel of his hair beneath my fingers and his forehead beneath my lips.

He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into the cocoon of his body until my cheek rested against his chest. He draped a leg over mine and nuzzled his face into my hair. His big body shook around mine, and he clung to me as if I might disappear from his arms.

I snuggled closer and planted soft kisses on his chest. “It’s okay,” I whispered, unsure if I meant the words for Luca or myself. “We’re going to be okay.”

ChapterTwenty-Six

Siobhán

“Wait,” Dominic said, his eyebrows pinched in confusion. “I thought she was sleeping with that other guy.”

“No,” I said. “They were just flirting in the hot tub, remember?”

“Flirting?” He scoffed. “If that was my girl, she’d never be in a hot tub with another dude. No way.”

I rolled my eyes. “The double standards with you made men are unreal.”

He glared at me. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You have your goomars and that’s perfectly acceptable, but God forbidyour womanenter a three-foot radius of another man.”

“Alls I’m sayin’, is if she knew what was good for that other dude’s health”—he raised his eyebrows and gave me a serious look—“she wouldn’t get in a hot tub with him.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

It was Friday afternoon, and Dominic and I sat on the couch watching reality TV. Luca and I had spent the past three days in bed making up for two years of pent-up frustration and not discussing the fact that Sex Fest 2024 would have a final performance. But today he had meetings, and he couldn’t get out of Friday night at The Dollhouse. So our sexcapades were put on pause, and he asked Dominic to come over and keep me company.

Luca wasn’t worried I’d leave, which was good, because I didn’t want to. I was on vacation after all, my interviews rescheduled or cancelled, and I hadn’t had a break from Terme or caring for my parents in… Well, way too long given that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a day for myself.

He played the violin in the mornings while I drank my coffee. I made him watchDouble Indemnityin bed one afternoon, and as I suspected, it blew his mind. We took long walks through the Lynn Woods, and he showed me where he docked his fishing boat on Birch Pond. He even took me to Walden. We ate turkey sandwiches on a blanket under a tree overlooking the water and pretended the quiet picnic was our normal and not a fantasy that might never happen again.

And now I was binge-watching reality TV with one of his friends while he worked. A welcome yet surreal change of pace, even if the scene had no place in my long-term reality.

I was surprised he’d asked Dominic of all people to come over. The man had been shot at least once only five nights ago. I couldn’t imagine him wanting to do anything but stay home and recover. But when he showed up at the house, he seemed fine, like nothing had happened. I asked him how he recovered so quickly. He shrugged and said the bullet had only grazed him and it wasn’t a big deal. Not exactly how I remembered things going down Monday night.

The strange feeling I’d missed something important resurfaced and gnawed at my thoughts. It chewed on them in quiet moments, any bit of down time. It was the same uncanny feeling that had buzzed my brain the night at The Dollhouse. And even though it thrummed louder and with more persistence, I still couldn’t put a finger on the source.

A key rattled in the front door.

“Luca! È Gina!” a woman’s voice called, and the door swung open. “Ho portato le lasagne!”

Gina DeVita appeared inside the front entrance carrying a foil-covered baking dish in one hand and her keys in the other. She wore big sunglasses that hid half her face, and with her pressed dress shirt and slacks, she looked like an Italian Jackie O.

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