Page 3 of One Second After Another

So why was she looking up her mother?

And why did she leave when she found her?

Those were answers Luca didn’t have and wouldn’t have the time to figure out. At least, not at the moment. The yelling from outside the hotel room brought him back to reality and out of his self-pity in a flash.

“Open the door or I am breaking it down,” he heard called.

Well ...

Time for him to go.

It took all of two seconds for Luca to realize what Penny had done and why there was blood in the bathroom. She told him once that The League could find her no matter where she was. He bet the blood wasn’t the only thing she left behind for them to find. Might they find a tracking chip at the bottom of the sink drain?

He didn’t plan to find out.

How would this situation end for him if Cree—and whoever was with him—broke down the hotel door just to find Luca in there alone? Fuck, they already threatened to kill him. He wasn’t about to give them another reason to see it through.

He did like being alive.

Even if he didn’t know why.

Luca was just beginning to scale the ledge of the hotel room’s small veranda when he heard wood crack as the door was kicked in. Lucky for him, it wasn’t the first time he had to make a quick exit ... or take an unconventional route of escape.

Unluckily for the people in the hotel room below Penny’s, too. Because the naked couple—the redheaded female riding her partner on the bed facing the veranda down below where Luca landed—certainly hadn’t expected him to dart through their hotel room with a quick, “My bad!”

The woman shrieked, scrambling off her partner and grasping for the sheets that really did nothing to hide her body. The man only swore.

“Nice tits, though,” he called over his shoulder.

They didn’t even have time to react. He was already exiting their smaller hotel room before the two even fully understood what had happened. The hallway was empty. He had no idea what was happening above his head a floor higher or if this plan of his would even work.

If he could call it a plan.

Could he if he didn’t know what he was doing?

Likely not.

What did it matter?

Luca doubted running would work for him—Nevada wasn’t his territory, after all. He didn’t have connections, didn’t know the streets, and on top of that, still needed to get out.

Would it work?

Probably not.

Fuck him if he wouldn’t try, though.

Where are you, Penny?

That was the real question.

The entire fucking problem, honestly.

• • •

LUCA ALREADY HAD A familiar number dialed, and the cell pressed to his ear with the call ringing through when the remaining man in the airport bathroom finally left. Without washing his hands—disgusting prick.

Not that Luca had time to focus on that. Naz picked up his best friend’s call in less than two rings, but that wasn’t surprising. How many weeks had he gone now without even a text to Naz to explain what was going on?