Cara's pov
It took me a good minute to pull myself together and gather my wits Luca had so effortlessly disorganized.
I licked my dry lips and tried to balance my shaky legs that lost their strength almost since the moment my stepbrother had interrupted my conversation with Cadain. I was proud of myself, really, for holding off all through the rollercoaster of events that had spurred by in the short span of the last thirty minutes.
Luca and Cadain had almost got in a fight, Luca and I had almost made out in a space where anybody could have walked in with my mother being the one to almost catch us.
It was a lot, really.
Plus, he did, in fact, read the horrifying texts. Just another thing I gave him to be cocky about.
I was maundering my way back to the patio when a lanky soldier appeared in my way. I dragged my lowered gaze to his face, my eyebrows pulling together.
"The don said to take you home." His surprisingly thick voice said.
I squinted at him, trying to place where I remembered him from. I looked from his face and eyed his form and it was then I noticed my purse in his hand.
My face pinched into a frown.
I wanted to refuse, maybe because he had insolently taken my property and was cocky enough to think I'd let him follow me anywhere just because Luca said so. I could make things difficult for him by walking back to the patio and ignoring him. However, the patio was also somewhere my mother was and I wasn't foolish enough to go back there.
I grudgingly took my purse from him, feeling a reluctant gratitude for his impressive insight of bringing it to me. I had been nervous about retrieving it myself and facing my mother again, this time without the reassuring presence of Luca to protect me from her badgering.
My irrational side was still miffed by his presumption though, and my "thank you" came out rather forced. He could have asked me to leave with him instead of just telling me.
He ignored my tone and moved past me without saying a single word.
"You'd be taking me to work." I corrected in a voice loud enough for him to hear, my irritation building as I wondered if Luca hired or inducted his men based on their similarities to his annoying personality. He was sick and narcissistic like that.
I straggled behind lanky all the way to the waiting car, my heavy platforms trying to keep up with his long strides.
The journey back was silent, not that I expected lanky to suddenly turn chatty. I wasn't in the mood to talk to his stranger ass either.
"Ah!" I exclaimed as I finally remembered where I knew him from.
I caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. "You're one of my stalkers."
His expression blanched at my choice of description but I was too pleased with myself for recalling his face to care. My memory was similar to that of a goldfish sometimes, so excuse me for feeling proud.
The familiar building of Rico's drew up and the car hurtled to a stop. I got out, waved at lanky like we had been friends all our lives and jogged the very short distance from the car to the door.
The bar was bustling and full, the air stuffy with the body heat of the unusually tripled number of denizens.
"Where the hell is my beer?"
"I need another mug!"
"Hey waitress over here!"
I found Diana at her usual spot behind the counter, fetching drinks from the bar stash for the waiting waitresses, her movements quick and mechanical. She has always been able to function well under pressure.
I set to begin my shift immediately and soon I was moving amongst the different levels of intoxicated customers, taking and serving orders.
"They just keep pouring in," Diana groaned as I returned from serving my tenth order.
"Tell me about it. I wonder why the bar is super popular these days." I muttered. I expected the place to lose traction with my terrifying mafia stepbrother now looming over the place like a bad weather but I was wrong. Our customer base had multiplied significantly and no matter how hard I tried to come up with the reason why, I couldn't.
"Must be because of the new business." Diana interrupted my thoughts. She reached under the counter and took out an empty crate, before filling it with equally empty beer bottles cluttering up the counter.
My brows knitted, "what business?"
Diana paused her task and regarded me with a blank expression. "Cara, do you even work here?"
I shrugged. I did but it doesn't mean I have to be fully immersed in the affairs of the place. I was just an employee and my interest in the place was enough for my wage's worth. There was no going extra mile with me. I've learned that all of that bullshit pays no one but the ones on the receiving end.
I was good at my job and that's all that matters.
Diana sighed and shook her head. "Your stepbrother began a gambling business a week ago. Two of the whore rooms was renovated into a space for it." She wiped at a spill on the counter surface. "Most of the men are only here because of it."
I took the information with a hint of incredulity. Luca had brought one of his dirty businesses to Rico's. It wasn't supposed to shock me but it did. It never crossed my mind that he'd turn the place into other illegal establishment of his.
My eyes scanned through the men laughing and drinking. "Why aren't they down there? If that's why they're here."
"No booze there." Diana replied, amusement playing on her lips.
A scoff left me. Shrewd, shrewd Luca. Of course he would find a way to make sure the bar was affected by the new business. He was going to exploit them equally. Most of them couldn't resist a bottle of beer anymore then they can resist gambling their lives away. I couldn't help but feel admiration towards him. It was clear why he was stupendously rich.
"Luca sure knows what he's doing," Diana said, twisting the bracelet on her wrist. "No offense to Rico but that man barely kept the place together."
I laughed. "True." I strangely felt proud of her commendation, even if it had nothing to do with me. Luca being the capable man he was wasn't my business in a way and I had no right getting filled with pride over his capability.
But I did and it was embarrassingly delusional and conceited.
"Your stepbrother has done more in such a short time than old Rico had in his proclaimed years of running the place." She leaned closer, her posture similar to a stretching cat. "I find it hot so I don't blame Julietta and the others."
My spine stiffened. "What happened to Julietta and the others."
Diana rolled her eyes. "Right, I forgot it was you I was speaking with." She pinned me look. "If you were a little less oblivious, you'd have picked on the girls trying their luck on your stepbrother."
A tightness suddenly wound around my chest. Rage and jealousy rearing its ugly head as a possessive feeling burned in my stomach.
This cannot be good.
I was going to ask who and who exactly but Diana suddenly straightened up and resumed filling her crate. "Welp," she whispered. "Speak of the devil."
I felt him before I saw him, my back alight with a heat I knew emanated from his strong gaze.
My body spiked alive with swarming butterflies and the awareness of everything else dulled until it was all I could feel and perceive only him.
He made his way to where I sat and I knew this because the heat in my belly rose with each step he took. Diana clanked bottles in front of me, her deftness and expertise suddenly failing her, all because of the latest presence in the bar.
A presence that drew the focus of everyone else like the point of gravity. A presence that unsettled, disconcerted and excited women with the ease of a gliding eagle.
"Shouldn't you be working?" His low pitched voice said beside me and I tried to stifle the trembling of my rib cages.
I slowly faced him, preparing myself for the hitting force of his gorgeousness. I was not prepared enough.
I flipped my hair. "Only if there's something to do." His handsome face looked exhausted but there was a fiery light to his grey eyes. I wondered why he was here, he had mentioned having a "very important business" to attend to back at the mansion.
My eyes trailed to the stiff set of his shoulders and I wanted to be the one to massage them into relaxation.
His eyes darkened as if he read my thoughts. "My office. Now." He ordered before sauntering away, taking all the tension with him.
I slid off the bar stool, not missing the foreboding look Diana gave me. She probably thought I was about to get scolded for something I had done wrong. I flashed her a weak smile before making my way to the boss' office, my heartbeat pitter-pattering in my chest.
If only it was that.