Page 49 of The Secrets We Keep

The high from the guy in the alley had faded, and she had two other names on her list she could easily take out without raising her uncle’s suspicions. One man had a lethal tree nut allergy and a very predictable habit of meeting a mistress about thirty minutes outside Cefalù.

It would be easy to follow him to lunch at his usual spot and slip hazelnut oil into his food. Maybe she’d be bold enough to ask Luca on a date. He seemed to enjoy watching her kill the last guy. And she enjoyed him after. She’d almost forgotten what it was to be claimed by Luca. The high was better than any drug.

The water in the kettle boiled, and she poured it over the strainer, letting the tea steep before adding sugar and a squeeze of lemon. The door handle rattled, and she jerked toward the sound, the spoon she was stirring her tea with falling against the side of the mug with a clink.

When the handle rattled again, she slid a knife from the block and crouched below the counter so whoever it was couldn’t see her reflection in the windows. The lock clicked, and the door swung in, jeans-clad legs stepping over the threshold.

Shoving to her feet, Sienna advanced, knife raised, stopping a hair’s breadth from the pulse point in Luca’s throat before recognizing him.

“Fucking Christ, Luca,” she said in a whoosh of breath, lowering the knife and taking a step back.

“I don’t know whether to be turned on or worried you’ll gut me next time I come over,” he said, closing and locking the door behind him. “Both, I think.”

“What are you doing breaking into my apartment at this hour?” She settled the knife back in the block and set her spoon in the sink.

He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “Is it breaking in when you gave me a key? I think the better question is, what are you doing awake at two in the morning?”

“Oh, and you were going to just slip into bed and let me get my beauty rest?”

“Of course, baby girl,” Luca replied in mock offense, fingertips grazing the underside of her breast.

Sienna rocked her ass back against his already hard cock, grinning when he groaned softly in her ear. “Something tells me otherwise.”

“Fine,” he replied, flicking his tongue against her earlobe. “You caught me. I can’t get enough of you. So sue me.”

“I can hardly say I mind, as often as you get me naked when you come over. Which is to say, every single time.”

He chuckled low in her ear, scraping his teeth over her skin and making her shiver. “Why stop a winning streak, then?”

His hands pushed under the hem of her sweater, his cool fingers dancing over her hot skin as he eased it up.

“Let me shut down my computer program first.”

Pausing the upward exploration of his hands, he glanced over her shoulder at where her laptop sat open on the coffee table. “You were working at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said by way of an explanation.

She hadn’t woken up Luca with nightmares yet. He was too heavy a sleeper. If he knew about them, he’d likely only worry. And what good would that do?

“Plus, Ciro has—”

“If you say he touched you…”

Laughing softly, Sienna set her untouched tea in the sink and crossed to the living room. “No. It would seem he’s embroiled in a little corporate espionage. Potentially on behalf of Gallo Industries, though I haven’t confirmed how he’s getting paid.”

“Who else if not for Gallo?”

“That would be the ultimate question, I guess. But for the last six months or so, he’s been doing side projects for a firm in Paris trying to hack various corporations.”

“What corporations? Italian ones?”

“All over Europe,” Sienna replied, pulling her laptop into her lap and backing out of all the systems and files she’d accessed. “They look like very well-protected shell companies. If I had to guess, I’d say they all link back to the same corporation.”

“Have they been able to get in?”

She shook her head, altering the user logs to reflect Isa’s credentials and clearing her keystrokes. “It looks like they keep hitting different subsidiaries, hoping to find an in. But the level of security is truly impressive. Even if they could get in, I can’t imagine they’d have much time to steal anything of value.”

“Interesting.”

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