“Brando saw you kill a man—when he was a boy?”
“My sons were never boys,” Luca said, his voice fierce. “Always men. This is why they were forced to watch. To see what it took and to know what to do. How to kill as proper men.Il onore.”
The honor.
The entire remark was spoken so casually, like we were discussing how he’d thrown his sons in the water and forced them to either sink or swim, as though this was merely a rite of passage for a Fausti man.
A mad rush of heat surged in my face, and I reached over, sticking my fingers in Luca’s hole.
Damn!Feeling around, I found two holes.
He growled at me, but I kept my voice even when I told him it was for his own good.
Brando had gone silent, but I could hear him breathing through the speaker. He’d never told me that before. That he saw Luca kill a man, on purpose, when he was six or seven. The thought nauseated me.
Brando requested our location once more.
Not long after, the gates opened to the estate, and two men had to jump out of the way to avoid being impaled by the speeding bullet.
Uncle Tito waited in front of thecastello, men next to him, along with Dr. Musa, ready to spring into action.
The doors were yanked open once I came to a complete stop, Luca hauled out at the same time I was. A trembling, hot, firm hand brought me out, my feet hovering above the ground as he pulled my body to his.
He knew I wasn’t, but I said the words anyway. “I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”
“You’re covered in blood,” he said. “Your dress—” He lifted it from my skin, showing me the huge rent in the fabric.
A bullet had torn a gaping hole over the shoulder, and the skin on my neck burned as though someone had suddenly lit a match and held it much too close.
I hissed when his hand touched my neck. “What the—”
“What did I fucking tell you, Scarlett!”
He took me by the shoulders and shook me, hard enough that my teeth rattled. Then he slammed my body into his, the impact like hitting a solid wall, and held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
“My neck?” I barely got out.
“A bullet grazed your neck,” he said, his voice hoarse. “A little closer and you’d be—” He couldn’t even say the word.
I could. A little closer and I’d be dead.
43
Scarlett
The men came to a conclusion while we waited at Luca and Maggie Beautiful’s estate.
The doors to the Ferrari had saved our lives. For the most part.
The door had been a shield against the attackers, but in my eyes, Luca had been the hero. He showed no fear, and at the end of the ordeal, he hit Nemours in the back and killed the other two men—even if one of the men had tire marks across his chest.
After Dr. Musa had checked over the graze on my neck, she declared me all right and gave me a medicated ointment to apply to the spot daily.
I appreciated it.
Though the bullet had just grazed me, it felt more like a burn, and thank God it didn’t need stitches. Studying the wound, her expression had mirrored Brando’s, and her word were close to the same. “Il tuo angelo era con te.”Your angel was with you.
If Brando were to get any more tense, he would have snapped like a string.
