“I need…need…to see him. Take me to him.”
“See who?”
Like everyone else, Tiernan wasn’t aware of her relationship with Achilles. She made sure of it.
She didn’t want Achilles to get into trouble with his family.
“Ach…Achilles,” she coughed out. “H—he saved me. He should be h… here.”
He opened his mouth, about to argue, but something in her expression told him she wasn’t backing down. “Go rest. I’ll find him for you.”
Achilles was being treated just down the hall. She and Tiernan stopped outside his room, where two Camorra soldiers stood on guard.
“Let her through.” Her brother jutted his chin at his sister. “She’s the girlfriend,apparently,” he muttered in annoyance.
“Don’t care if she’s the fucking pope,” one of the soldiers spat sideways. “No visitors unless Don Vello says so.”
Tiernan’s expression clouded. “What if I tell you the next time I have to repeat myself, your windpipe is going to be used as my fucking?—”
“Let her in,” Luca ordered from the darkened room. He stood up, waltzing over to them. “But first, I want a word.”
He reached the door, lowering his head to whisper in her ear. “Privacy.”
“Tiernan, leave,” Tierney snapped.
Her brother’s hooded eyes promised to shed blood at the slightest provocation. “Fine, but remember I’m around the corner, Ferrante. And very trigger-fucking-happy to take you and everyone in your family tree down.”
“Well aware.”
He left. Luca still stood in her way, blocking the entrance. He was huge, handsome, and well dressed. But so impersonal and dead that he reminded her of a shark.
“How’re you feeling?” She knew he was asking just to be polite.
“Been better.”
Luca’s cold gaze swept along her face, sending an ice cube down her spine. He wasn’t supposed to know she and Achilles were together, though she guessed he had a good idea now.
“Is he…is he okay?”
“He’s awake, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Can I see him?”
“You can, and you fucking will. Because once you get in there, you are going to break off your little affair whether you want to or not.”
Her eyes widened. She knew, of course, that it was the logical thing to do. That Achilles deserved better. But with everything he’d done for her, it was hard to imagine doing this to him.
“B—but we love each oth?—”
“Stop right there.” Luca clapped a heavy hand over her shoulder. “You’re a smart girl. You know as well as I do this shit won’t last. Don Vello won’t let it. He has big plans for Achilles. He sent me to tell you this is over. So it is over. Either you break it off, or I’ll break you. Now, which is it going to be?”
She stared in his vacant, merciless eyes and knew he’d kill her without so much as a blink. Luca Ferrante was just as cruel as Achilles, but unlike Achilles, he’d never shown a trace of humanity or emotion to her.
And he wasn’t wrong. They were doomed from the beginning. A Romeo and Juliet of the underworld.
“I’ll let him make that decision.” She stuck her chin out.
“If he picks you, I’ll kill you myself,” Luca said. “And while you don’t give two shits about your own life, he does. It’d break him like nothing else. I advise you to think carefully.”
