With a heavy sigh, he gathered up his clothes that he’d folded so carefully in his suitcase and began hanging them up.
While he did that, I grabbed a bra and underwear, jeans, and an old Cure T-shirt from my own suitcase and headed into the shower. I couldn’t even look at him right now. And if I wanted to have any chance of getting myself out of this situation, I needed to pull myself together and continue to act like the poor, helpless female who waited around while the men decided what they were going to do with her.
Yeah. Fuck that.
I’d get myself out of this situation.
Somehow.
Because there was no way in hell I was going back to my father without a fight.
CHAPTER13
Enzo
Icouldn’t get Sera’s face out of my head as I made my way downstairs before dinner to see if Luca had made any progress with his father. The hurt that dimmed the light in her eyes. The anger. The betrayal.
This was not how this was supposed to go. Dammit.
I wanted to run back up the stairs and drag her out of the shower and back into the bed. I wanted to hide from the rest of this fucked up world that was trying to tear us apart.
I wanted to stop time.
But no matter how much I wanted all of that, it wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t hide and hope everything was just going to go away. Because sooner or later, the things that were trying to separate us would find us, and I needed to be prepared.
When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I pulled my sunglasses out of the inner pocket of my jacket and straightened my tie. It was black, as was my shirt and slacks. My usual attire when I was on duty.
When I arrived in Luca’s office, he and Tristan were already there waiting for me, chatting quietly in the small sitting area in front of his desk. I nodded hello to them both and took my place beside Tristan.
Luca wasted no time in getting straight to the point. “I spoke with my father, and I was able to convince him to give us until the end of the week before he’ll notify Ciro that we have his daughter. I told him I needed the time to get what information I could from her about her father and what he’s doing up in Dallas, which I plan to do.” He gave me a pointed look, and I held back the immediate denial that was on the tip of my tongue. He was right. She was a source of information and we needed to use her as such. When he saw I wasn’t going to object, he continued what he was saying. “We have until Friday.”
“That’s only four days,” I growled.
“I know,” he told me. “And I’m sorry, my friend. That was the best I could do.”
Tristan’s quiet voice broke the tense silence that fell between us. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place, Enzo.” There was no judgement in his tone. The words were spoken only as fact, and nothing else.
I met his calm gaze, and, after an initial flash of anger that swiftly faded, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right,” I admitted. I turned back to Luca. “I should have brought her to you the instant I knew who she was. I shouldn’t have hidden her from you. And I ask for your forgiveness for not trusting you. I was thinking with my cock instead of my head.”
“Women have that effect on you sometimes.” A small smile turned up one corner of Luca’s mouth. Before Veda’s appearance in his life, he would not have been so gracious about all of this. But I would never go so far as to say she’d made him soft. If anything, having her gave him more to protect. More to live for. And much less merciful to those who would threaten what he now had.
Restless, I rose from the couch and paced over to the window, my mind spinning as I searched for some way to change the course of my own actions. My heart began to race, and my lungs felt tight. I closed my eyes, fighting off the panic. “There’s no way of getting her out of this, is there?” I asked after a moment.
“There is one,” Luca said, and I tensed as I anticipated his words. “If you would just make an offer for her—”
“My answer is still no,” I bit out.
“If you want to keep her, it’s the only sensible solution,” Tristan agreed.
“Who the fuck says I want to keep her?”
“Why else would you be acting this way?” he countered.
“And what way is that?”
“Like an overly possessivestronzo.”
I wanted to deny it, but again, Tris was right. Still… “Marriage is a lifelong commitment. Not something I would ask of someone I’ve known all of a few weeks.”
