Page 47 of One Step After Another

“I’m protecting them!”

His shouts had done nothing. Hers cut into his heart like a hot knife through butter.

“From what—who?” Luca demanded. “Do you know where we come from—who Naz is? The Donati family isn’t little fish, babe. Don’t be stupid.”

Penny didn’t even blink. “From me, people like me ... people I came from and—”

That was it.

She clammed up.

A door had almost opened, but Penny slammed it shut before Luca could even get his foot on the threshold.

“I can’t go back,” she told him, “and it’s better if they don’t know ... so neither will you. I won’t say more. Because the more you get, the faster you chase me, Luca. Today, it might have been a good thing but the next time, it might kill us both.”

Luca’s jaw ached from how hard he clenched his teeth. “I’m not going to stop.”

“You don’t know anything about the world I live in. It’s not like yours. This is dangerous.”

“Not any more or less dangerous than mine.”

She barked out a dark laugh, her gaze hardening when she asked, “Do you wanna bet?”

Luca knew her history all too well. Some, he had learned during her time with his sister and friend. A lot, he stumbled upon in his first few years chasing after her. The shit the public hadn’t known—how deep the pedophile ring really ran that her father was heavily involved in and used to traffic her sexually up until she was nearly twelve. Adding all of that knowledge to what he had seen and heard today, he had to wonder ...

He couldn’t stop himself from asking, “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? You’re tracking them all down ... you’re killing pedophiles.”

Penny only smiled.

Wicked.

Icy.

“Oh, it’s so much worse than that, Luca. And you’re already in over your head—just stop before you drown.”