After a mad rush of planning, there’s nothing to do on Thursday. Lil hasn’t been getting up early like she normally does. Long nights fighting with herself before waking us up have taken a toll. We crawl out of bed hours after Luca does, grab coffee, and retreat up to our living room to read. We’re both ready for some downtime. If books don’t work, I’ll hit up my craft graveyard and see if anything makes the dopamine rush. I kind of want to bust out the metal stamping stuff again.
Would Luca wear a necklace? ‘Property of Ariana DeVille’? Nah, too possessive. But he is mine, so… maybe. Or The Grim Goliath! Oh my god, do I have a frog stamp? Shit, I don’t think so.
I pull out my phone.I bet I can have one by the end of the day, though!
Chapter 61
What just happened?
Luca
There’s a big difference between choosing to stay home and being stuck in the house. Ariana’s had too much time to think about who’s watching her. She’s kept herself busy planning our wedding, but she needs all the distractions she can get. I’m happily giving her distractions of the orgasm variety every fucking chance I get, but we obviously can’t just do that all day long.
Not that we haven’t tried.
But with our wedding only a couple of days away, she’s mostly run out of things to do for the moment. Under normal circumstances, a day of reading on the couch would be a good thing. But this is far from normal circumstances.
My girl is stressed. We’re all stressed. No letters or pictures have shown up. Ice neck and stalker shit go hand-in-hand, and there hasn’t been any stalker shit.
Marco and I are going over camera footage again with Parker when a loud knock pulls our attention toward the door.
“What?” Marco barks out.
Sully pokes his head in. He’s been around the house a lotmore lately. The girls might annoy the shit out of him, but he loves them like little sisters. “Boss, you have visitors.”
“Who?” Marco’s eyes narrow with suspicion and my hackles go up. People don’t just show up at the DeVille compound.
Sully’s face is unreadable but he glances at me for a second before he answers. “Your brother and his wife.”
“Fuck,” Marco and I growl in unison. Parker chuckles and I flip him off, which just makes him laugh harder.
“Give us a minute,” Marco says. Sully nods and closes the door. “You didn’t invite them, right?” Marco asks me.
With a scoff, I shake my head. “Fuck, no. Coincidence? Bad luck?”
“Or a traitor.”
I meet his gaze, really hating that idea. “How likely is that?”
“It happens. Not often, not in my crew. It’s been a very long time. I made it clear twenty years ago what happens to traitors.” He cracks his knuckles. “But even with Parker checking into everyone constantly, I can’t rule the possibility out.”
“I’ll kill anyone who’s made Ariana, or any of us, unsafe in our own goddamned home,” I snarl.
Marco claps me on the back. “Let’s go see what the fuck those assholes want. Parker?—”
“Already on it. I’ll let you know if I find anything sus.” Parker’s fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up all kinds of shit as we leave the room.
Dad stands with his hands in his pockets, taking in the pictures on the walls. Mom’s pointedly not looking at the photos, tapping her foot with her arms crossed. She takes one look at me and sneers.
“God, Luca, you need a haircut.”
I don’t respond. Ariana loves my hair this length. I love when she digs her fingers into it and tugs a little too hard. I especiallylike when her hands get all tangled up in it. That means I’m doing something she really likes.
“Anthony, Tina, what brings you here?” Marco asks, his tone even and his expression masked. He gives nothing away. Mafia boss mode activated.
Mom scoffs at him, her face giving away the fact that she’s a bitch. “We’re here to take Luca home.”
Dad’s head snaps toward her. “That’s not?—”
