Page 45 of One Second After Another

Luca sighed, ghosting his hands over the curves of the matte black beast. From the handlebars, down the seat, and even over the rear flare. “I’ll see you again soon,” he told the bike.

That was a lie.

Soon, it would be at the bottom of the river.

“You can always buy another,” Penny said with more care to her tone. He didn’t know if it was a genuine concern for his feelings or just her patronizing him, though. It could have gone either way. Damn woman.

She also wasn’t wrong.

“Fuck it,” Luca muttered.

Grabbing the back of the seat in one hand and the left handlebar with his other, Luca pushed the bike to the end of the dock. There was never much movement at the shipping docks this time of night. The shift change made sure of that, and he was grateful because it worked in their favor when they needed to make the bike disappear. He was sure there were probably a few dozen people scouting for a matte black Ducati Superbike with two possible drivers. Letting them find the machine would only connect him to the shooting.

The Ducati hit the water with a plop and a splash. Luca watched it sink from up above before he bent down to grab the helmet he’d tossed on the dock earlier. With a few larger rocks in the bottom of the helmet, he expected it to sink.

Another item he could replace. Like the bike, too. But goddammit, it still hurt like hell to watch the bike disappear under the depths of the water while the helmet bobbed and struggled to fall beneath the surface as well.

Penny was soon at Luca’s side to survey the scene down below as well. Without warning, she reached beneath the jacket he’d given her after they arrived at the docks. She didn’t say she was cold, but he saw her shiver and that shit wasn’t okay. Not when he had a perfectly fine leather jacket that she could use.

The white strands of her hair fell over the shoulder of his jacket as she stretched her arm toward the water. With two well-aimed shots of her gun to the helmet, it finally sunk below the water with a bubbled glub-glub, and that was it. A sad little goodbye, really.

The night was almost over.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Luca told her.

Penny’s right eyebrow quirked up when she replied dryly, “Might as well use the other bullets for something useful.”

Ouch.

He said nothing when she dropped down to sit at the edge of the dock. Instead, he moved to stand behind her so that at the very least, he was there if she needed him. For anything.

“It’s not over,” she told him.

“Not yet,” he agreed. “Now we go back to the drawing board and figure out where we go from her.”

Down below, her head bobbed with a nod. He couldn’t help but notice how she didn’t correct his use of we when it came to their next plan. Hell, wasn’t that a battle won in itself? He sure as fuck thought so.

As the silence stretched on, another question nagged at Luca. It would be in his best interest to stay quiet and not ask it, but he wasn’t the type. For one. But for two ... he hated to think Penny might be hurting in that moment because of what she had done—in some way—and he wasn’t helping her.

Fuck him for having a heart.

Right?

She probably didn’t want him to ask anything at all. Silence and running were her best friends, after all. He couldn’t help himself, though.

“Did you get a hit back at the restaurant?”

Penny’s shoulders stiffened, but otherwise, she didn’t move on the dock below him. “I did—and while it wasn’t Allegra, it was about as good as her.”

“Who?”

She’d been able to recognize them as they passed? Shit, he’d been breaking seventy at that point. After they’d gone by entirely, he gunned it further and brought the front tire up from the road. At least by then, Penny had been back to holding onto him. God knew they didn’t need to end up rolling across pavement at that point.

“Penny?” Luca asked when a minute passed without a reply. “Who was it?”

Her head tipped down, and he hated that he couldn’t see her face to understand why. Her next words helped a bit with it. “My grandfather, Charles. He would need to go eventually—had the original plans moved forward, he was next on the list. Essentially anyone else was useless and easy kills. They could send teams for them. It would have left me with only Allegra and ... she would have had to know it was me.”

“Coming for her,” Luca supplied.