AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Seventeen
Scarlet
As soon as Luca leaves the apartment, I spring to my feet, opening kitchen drawers and cupboards, looking for a weapon. The closest thing I can find that could do any kind of damage is a butter knife and fork. I can’t help but pay attention to how the cups and mugs are placed in neat, even rows and are all the same. Plates and cutlery stacked in even piles of four look as though they have never been used. Not that Luca strikes me as the Jamie Oliver cook-up a storm every night kind of guy, but surely, he doesn't eat out every day.
I continue to snoop around every room of the apartment, but the entire place is like an OCD person's dream. I can't help but to start moving things around, feeling a deep satisfaction knowing that it will piss him off when he comes back to see I have disturbed his order of things. Clothes are folded in elegant symmetrical piles. Color-coordinated from darks to lights, not that there are many light ones. The shirts, pants, and jackets are mostly blacks, greys, and dark blues. Rows and rows of shoes all lined up like soldiers, the laces perfectly tied into neat bows.
In each drawer I open, I find much of the same. Neat piles of clothes, rows of watches, hats, and to my surprise, even a few suits and ties. His bathroom is masculine with rich grey granite tiles and black tapware. I laugh to myself, noting that everything in this place is shades of blacks and greys, dark colors to match his soul.
In the last drawer that I open while in his walk-in closet, I find a black box. Inside are some photographs, mostly of a woman who has the same eyes as Lucas. I assume it must be his mother. A dark-haired, olive-skinned child cuddling her leg as though if he let her go, she would disappear. More photographs of Luca as a child, a few of his father, and some of him and his brother when they were young and innocent, not yet tarnished with the blood of the world they’d soon grow up in.
I don’t know why, but the pictures saddens me. I know from the research I did that Luca lost his mom when he was just five years old. I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. At least when my mom died, I was an adult, barely just, but all the same. I have memories of her that I know no stretch of time would erase. I wonder, being so young when she passed, if he remembers her at all.
Luca’s father is tall and lean, serious-looking with eyes that permeate evil and chill me to my core.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Luca’s voice startles me. I drop the photos and watch them as they scatter on the floor. I didn’t even hear him come in. Imploring myself to stay schooled and calm, I turn slowly. Luca looks at the confetti of photos on the floor, pursing his lips and fisting his hands.
“If you didn’t want me to snoop, perhaps you should have tied me up.” I regret my words the moment they leave my mouth and internally kick myself for saying them.
“Is that an invitation?” He grins, cocking his brows. “I knew you’d be the kinky type, red.”
I snigger. “You’re so cliche. I knew you’d be the rapist type, butcher!”
The only movement or reaction from Luca is a blink. The skin on his knuckles turn red as he squeezes his fist tighter. “I warned you, red.” He reaches into the closet and pulls out one of his ties. “I warned you, and you didn’t listen.” Taking a step towards me, I inch back, only to hit a wall. He grabs one of my wrists tightly, wrapping the tie around it. I try to pull away, but I can't; his grip on me is like a vice.
“Let me go!” I yell, slapping at him with my free hand, trying to push him away. My fingers connect with his cheek, and I scratch my nails into his flesh. Deep crimson trickles down his cheek as his eyes fill with red hot smoldering rage. A low rumble from his chest has me cowering like a scared little girl. I poked the angry bear, and now I will pay. Stupid, stupid girl!
Before I can react any further, he has fastened the other end of the tie to the clothes rail at the top of the closet. I pull hard on it, but it just hurts my wrist and doesn't budge. He brings out another tie and repeats his action with my other wrist, leaving both arms stretched over my head and bound to the rail above.
“You bastard.” I spit at him, only causing him to chuckle. I yank hard, pulling all my weight down on the restraints, but the iron bar doesn’t move.
Pumpkin meows in the doorway to let his presence be known. Luca stands back a few feet from me, giving me a smug grin. “Now I have two pussies to play with.”
“You're disgusting!” I hiss.
“Come here, little kitty,” Luca calls to Pumpkin, who wastes no time in padding over to him and rubbing his head on the hem of Luca’s jeans, purring. He bends down to pick him up and scratches underneath his chin. Pumpkin laps up the attention, practically drooling on him. Traitor!
Luca looks at me with a pompous grin. “At least one of my pets listens to me.”
“I am not your pet!” I scowl, pulling on the restraints. The material rubs roughly on my skin, making me wince from the sting.
“You are a giant pain in my ass. So, until you start listening to me and doing what your fucking told, you will be treated like the feral animal you behave like.” He wipes his cheek, smearing the blood across it, then looks at it on his hand. I can’t help but grin with satisfaction as I see the welted scratch marks that now paint his face. When he looks back at me, there is an unspoken threat in them that silences me. I straighten myself, standing upright, and purse my lips closed. My chest heaves with so much anger and unspoken temper, but I skate on thin ice as it is, so I suck it all in.
Luca collects all the photographs off the floor and calmly places them back into the box. His eyes are absent as he regards me before he starts to walk away.
“You can’t leave me here like this. I can’t even sit down.” He ignores me.
Letting out an evil-sounding laugh, he says, “I can, and I will.” Then he leaves.
Eighteen
Luca
Why? Why do I let her get under my skin like that?
No one has ever gotten to me like her. I have killed more men than I care to count. Most deserved it. Some got in the way of defending those I was after. Scarlet, though, I am starting to think she has the capacity to kill me with the cruelest of weapons. Herself.
Pulling out my phone, I call Nicolai. He answers on the first ring as though he’d been waiting for my call. I don’t even know what time it is right now in Italy.
