Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(82)

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.

“It’s not up to you.”

“Nic will never forgive you.” My voice cracked and I cursed the weakness it betrayed, but Luca didn’t seem to notice. Or care. He flicked his gaze to Calvino again. “Nic is not my concern right now.”

He peered his head around the open door, into the next room. When he turned back I was already on my feet again, swaying. I stumbled forward.

Luca cocked his head. “You’re coming with me, Sophie.”

“No,” I heaved, pushing forward until we were standing together at the door once more. “I told you I don’t respect your authority.” I staggered on and nearly tripped over the threshold.

Luca caught me again. I tried to hit his shoulder, but I faltered and he grabbed me by the waist, anchoring me to him so that I was half-floating and half-standing. “That doesn’t change anything.”

I tried to wriggle free, but he wouldn’t let go of me. “I hate you,” I heaved.

“Then this probably won’t help,” he replied. Before I could respond, he swung my legs upward and caught them beneath one arm, pulling my body into his with the other. I kicked out as hard as I could, but he only held me tighter, crushing me against his chest.

He carried me through a second, larger room. It was a dimly lit sitting area strewn with empty pizza boxes and cans of Coke. There was a muted poker tournament playing on a huge flat-screen TV, which was surrounded by wide leather armchairs.

I continued to struggle as agony coursed through my body, pushing through my vocal chords in banshee moans.

“Shut up,” he cautioned as he opened another door and we plunged into the darkness along the second-story landing. I didn’t shut up. I screamed until my voice cracked and my throat stung.

We reached the top of a winding staircase that parted into two identical paths. Luca descended quickly, his footfalls tapping against the marble until we were at the very bottom, standing in a large circular foyer with a white stone floor. In the center, a glass chandelier illuminated a mosaic of the Falcone family crest carved into the stone at our feet. My kicks were getting weaker and weaker.

“Please,” I said, looking up at him. My head lolled against his shoulder as exhaustion crashed over me. “Please don’t do this.”

Luca’s mouth was a hard line, stretching the faint scar above his lip. He didn’t look at me.

We reached the front door and stepped out into the night. Luca hurried into a jog. The house rose into the dark sky behind us; it was a gargantuan three-story mansion made of white stone. In the middle, the roof rounded and protruded from the rest of the house, supported by a semicircular row of columns.

The driveway was torturously long and dark. When we finally stopped, Luca hitched me away from his body and opened the door of his SUV, propping me into the passenger seat and shutting me in before I could try and tumble out. He jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. It roared to life beneath us. The clock on the dashboard read 10:04.

“Where are we going?” I already knew. I just wanted him to speak to me, to acknowledge what he was doing. Even yelling was better than the stony silence that stretched out between us. The quiet meant he was too focused on what he had to do, and that my pleas weren’t causing him to waver.

We drove in silence for a long time, speeding along deserted roads I didn’t recognize, until finally strands of civilization edged back into view. I tried to stay alert, but I could feel myself slipping in and out of consciousness as the pain ebbed and flowed through my body.

I tried everything to get through to Luca: I cried, I pleaded, I yelled, but he never replied. He never even looked at me. He just stared, face-forward, at the road, grinding his jaw and gripping the steering wheel so hard his fingers turned white.

And then when the clock read 10:57, almost an hour after leaving Lake Forest, we stopped. Luca turned off the highway and pulled around the back of a small service station. He parked the car, and for the first time since we had started driving, he turned to me. I stared back into his fathomless blue eyes, and waited as he shifted in his seat. He pulled something out of his back pocket, and my stomach curled with terror as he leaned toward me. He dropped it into my lap and for a moment I felt no pain, just surprise. It was a fifty-dollar bill.

Then he spoke quickly and quietly: “I took you from Felice’s house against your will. When we made it into town, I stopped at a red light and you escaped. You ran into a service station. I couldn’t come after you because there were too many people inside. I couldn’t risk getting caught. You called a cab to pick you up. You went home to your mother and you both fled Cedar Hill immediately.”

I started to shake, first my hands and then the rest of me. He was setting me free. He wasn’t going to kill me. “What about my uncle …” I said as tears pricked the back of my eyes.

Luca’s expression was unyielding, his voice dark. “You will not return home until after your uncle’s funeral. Valentino won’t keep us in Cedar Hill just for you. He won’t like it that you escaped, but he will be able to move past it once Jack Gracewell’s debt is settled.”

“But if — ”

“Sophie,” Luca cut me off. “You will never see your uncle again.”

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, you have to help him.”