Cara's pov
It's been three hours. One hundred and eighty minutes of waiting for a safe Luca to show up and ease me out of my state of anxiety.
I paced Luca's large living room, taking laps around the room. I gnawed at my cuticles, I stayed counting. The smart TV droned somewhere behind the ticking of numbers in my head.
For three fucking hours, this was all I've been doing.
I was losing my fucking mind.
"We have to call him." I whirled around to a tired Nino. Sergio had taken the other guys to keep watch in other areas.
Nino puffed a heavy breath. "For the sixth time, no. He's obviously going to be too busy to pick up."
His words would have gone completely ignored by me if it wasn't his phone I'd been begging to use. I'd forgotten mine back at the whorehouse, Luca had somehow evicted it from my pocket during our desperate scramble to get him inside me. All of that, yet we hadn't gotten what we wanted.
And now I didn't even know if he was alive or not. I gulped down a lump in my throat and shook off the negative thought. He was alive, probably even on his way back to me. He had to be.
I eased a tensed breath and glared at Nino. "There's no harm in trying."
Scowling, he returned, "this might appear foreign to you, principessa, but no one calls the boss unless he has given you a prior order you need to report or something of great urgency happens."
I crossed my arms, my eyes alight with stubbornness. "This is urgent. I need to know he's alive and well or I'd go mad right before your eyes."
Although it was very subtle, I didn't miss the way his eyes flickered with uncertainty.
Good, because I wasn't fucking bluffing.
Nino's mouth opened and closed. A passionate Italian curse left him.
"Language, soldier." I warned and it earned me a glower.
I held my stance. "Don't make me wait," I said, tone low. "There are enough breakable things in this living room I can channel my anxiety into."
Nino's eyes went wide, it was obvious he was seeing me in a new light. Crazy Cara, like my middle school bullies used to call me.
It was about time the infamous persona made an entrance.
Victory and cold relief welled in my chest when he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I immediately dashed for it.
"Just so we're clear," he said, jerking the phone out of reach. "You threatened me into this and since I don't want you getting cut by a piece of breakable, I have no choice but to do this."
My nod was instant. "Agreed."
"You'd tell the Don just that."
"I promise."
He gave me the phone.
My eyes flickered crazily as I scanned through his call history for Luca's contact. I got it after three scrolls. Hands shaky with agitation, I tapped the 'call' icon.
It rang and rang and…
I began gnawing on my cuticle again.
It went to voicemail.
Fuck! I called again. Same shit.
"God, Luca! Answer the fucking phone." Panic was rising in my chest, I couldn't hear what Nino was bitching about over the fucking roar in my ears.
I tried three more times and all three calls were redirected to voicemail. Frustrated, I let the last one record. "Luca, Angelo Salvatore! You better not be lying somewhere badly hurt! Pick the goddamn phone for Christ sake!"
I furiously tapped on 'send' and shoved the phone back to a half scared Nino. He took it quietly, watching as I resumed pacing like a mad woman.
Was he busy in an emergency meeting? Was he dealing with the cops over the explosion? My eyes snapped to the TV. There was yet to be any report on a bomb explosion so it couldn't be that, right? Rico's was probably still in one piece and-
I halted in front of the wide, state of the art intercom. Several men other than Sergio and Gavino, one of the other bodyguards, were at the elevator's entrance. I instantly recognized Dominic's cold countenance and-
Luca looked right at the camera, an agitated look on his face.
"Signorina," Nino warned, knowing what I was about to do.
I did it anyway.
He dashed after me as I ran for the foyer, catching up with me in seconds.
"Let me go!"
"You know you can wait for him to come up?" He gritted his teeth, struggling to hold my flailing body.
"Wait? Ha! I'd done that for three hours, I am the fucking queen of waiting and I would wait just right here in the foyer until he walks out of that elevator."
Nino let go of me. "Jesus. I really don't know how he takes it."
I ignored his obvious diss on my person, my heart careening out of control as I watched the floor count slowly go up almost excruciatingly.
They really needed a new elevator in the building.
The doors finally opened and Luca and his small army of men poured out of the elevator. I was prepared for the jolt of intense emotions to hit me. My eyes scanned the length of his body, looking for even a single scratch.
He had none.
Tears of immense relief and joy erupted out of my eyes like lava from a volcano. I bolted for him.
He swept me up in a tight embrace, the both of us forgetting that we were in the company of his men. I didn't fucking care that we weren't supposed to be displaying affection in front of other people. That we were supposed to be nothing but step-siblings at the moment.
I didn't care at all. I was just glad he was fine.
"I was scared out of my mind that something had happened to you. I thought he got to you here. It nearly killed me."
I had no idea what he was saying but I stroked his hair in an attempt to soothe him. "It's all over now."
I must have said the wrong thing because Luca gently pulled away. Cupping my jaw, he gave me a tight smile, his eyes scanning my face. "I'm so relieved you're okay."
I didn't notice the men disappearing from the foyer, giving us space. All my attention was on the hidden nuance of his words.
I'm so relieved you're okay…
No affirmation to my earlier statement. "Yes, it is," he could have said. Even a single "yes" would have sufficed but he responded with none of that.
I stared into his happy eyes and I saw something else behind the gleam, something that told me none of it was over.
"Luca…"
"Shhh." He brushed a thumb over my lips. "Hush, baby. You have no reason to worry. I will always keep you safe."
I shut my eyes for patience and when I opened them back, my frustration got through. "I'm not worried about me goddammit!"
For a smart man he could be annoyingly oblivious.
He blinked at me before smilingslowly in a way that made me want to punch him.
"It's never not good to know that you worry about me." He drawled.
"I'd have you know that right now, I am not worried about the harm a kick in your shin would bring you."
Luca pulled me in for another hug, snuffing out my annoyance with how tightly he held me this time. I burrowed into his chest and inhaled deeply on his manly scent, enjoying how nice this felt. How nice he felt. The errant thought that I might one day never be held by him clawed into my brain, filling me with a paralyzing dread.
As if Luca sensed it, he held me even closer and began to stroke my hair. I let out a tensed breath, wondering if we'd still be lucky the next time something like this happens.
I didn't know how long we stayed there, drawing comfort from each other when a scary looking Dominic burst back in. Not that the man was anything but, he just looked scarier than normal.
And as usual, he gave me the stink eye, his nose scrunching with disgust at the sight of Luca hugging before saying to him. "You need to see this."
Luca's happy expression shifted to something darker. The gentle way he pulled away from me contradicted the hard look in his eyes.
We followed Dominic to the living room and I noticed the TV's volume has been amped up. A brunette newscaster was on the big screen.
"... from our sources on site, the half an hour old disaster has zero survivors at the moment and a current death toll of thirty-five, all male in the age bracket of twenty to thirty seven. The rescue team are still doing their best to extract more bodies…"
Darkness radiated from Luca's body at my side. "Cara," he said in a deathly quiet tone. "Go upstairs. Now."
My eyes shot to him then coasted across the other men in the room. Something hard crackled in the space, taking away the comfortable ambience of the living room and replacing it with tension.
I glanced back at Luca, gone was the teasing lover of mine. Now he was another person, a dangerous crime lord. I knew better than to insist I stay with him.
Not wasting another second, I scurried for the stairs. My chest hammering as I heard the newscaster's next sentence.
"Fernando Cruz, the owner of the bombed establishment had been mysteriously found dead in his own home, along with his wife and two teenage sons. All bodies mutilated."
Goosebumps peppered across my skin and I stopped in my tracks.
"Cara," Luca's voice was a warning growl.
I ran up the steps, my stomach churning with an unpleasant feeling. I didn't know who the hell Fernando Cruz was but whoever that killed him had to be the same enemy Luca was fighting.
An enemy so evil, he hadn't even spared the two teenagers. An enemy that was very much capable of killing Luca and me in such a gruesome manner.
I felt sick, my throat uncomfortable with the feeling. I rushed for the bathroom the moment I got to the bedroom and I retched up into the sink. Hard.
A/N
Because of some uploading issues, the chapters got mixed up. This chapter is to be read before chapter 84: Anyone But You. Chapter 87 continues in the regular order