Page 46 of One Step After Another

She didn’t reply.

That annoyed him more.

Getting to his feet, Luca asked, “How are your people even going to find you? Rumor is you work for an organization called The League, right? I hear they don’t take kindly to their members going AWOL.”

Penny laughed darkly, turning around and placing her hands on the edge of the metal sink while she faced him. “Nice try. Who do you think I was just talking to, anyway? God? They can find me anywhere in the world within a few feet of my current position. I don’t need to be carrying anything for them to do it, either. I am what they track.”

What?

“Are you saying they have a chip in—”

“How did you find me today?” she interjected, reverting back to the calm, unbothered demeanor like a light switch had been flipped. It was almost disconcerting to him how easily she could mask or change her emotions altogether. That was new, too.

“Luck,” he admitted. “I wasn’t there looking for you.”

“Don’t think I’ll believe that when less than a few weeks ago, you showed up at another job of mine, too. I’m not that stupid, Luca. We will find out who you’ve made contact with that’s been feeding you information on me, and it will come to an end. Do you understand that? If you keep causing problems and showing up where you’re not supposed to be, the next step is to make sure you can’t. Permanently. I’m trying to warn you here. Stop whatever this stupid shit is before they—”

“They—The League?”

Penny dead stared him.

Luca didn’t care.

“Give me something,” he urged, widening his arms like he was asking for peace. “I’m only trying to do what Naz and Roz can’t. You know that’s why I’m here; why I’ve always looked for you since the day you went missing. I changed my entire life to look for you.”

Now, he was wondering why.

Penny was unfazed. “I’m asking you to stop.”

“I can’t.” Luca chuckled, shaking his head when he muttered, “I could make a call right now—get my sister and Naz down here. All they want is to see you, know you’re okay, and talk. After everything they did for you, can’t you give them that at least?”

“You do that, I’m gone.”

Luca’s brow raised at the threat. “Seriously?”

“This time, I might not leave you alive.”

“Shit, don’t promise a good time, Penny.”

His comment had zero effect.

That was the thing that sent his anger spiraling more than anything else had in their entire conversation. How she seemed so ... unaffected. Indifferent, even. The mere mention of Luca’s sister and best friend, people who had cared and loved and protected Penny until she turned eighteen and then disappeared, did absolutely nothing for her.

Or so it seemed.

“They love you. Fuck, they thought you loved them! You can’t be that removed from what happened five years ago that you don’t even care about them or what you did to them when you left. Why? That’s all they want to know, Penny. Just tell me why.”

His shouts did nothing, too. The rare sight of his temper when he stepped closer to her wasn’t even a blip on her radar. She was like ice. Beautiful, cold, and unmoveable. Who was this woman?

“Don’t you care at all?” he asked, his tone tempering a bit. “Your godson is five years old. We still call him little Cross but not to his face because he doesn’t like people thinking he’s tiny. He still carries around the bear with you made for him, though. Listens to the recording of you playing the piano every—”

“Shut up.”

Ah, there it was.

Luca found the nerve. He hit it with a punch that sent Penny pushing away from the sink to close the distance between the two of them until she was face to face with him and her stare was anything but cold.

“He knows your name,” Luca murmured. “He knows your face; Roz kept pictures. They do love—”