Page 60 of Diary of a Biker Queen

Luca lit up a cigarette, the flame from his lighter casting a warm glow across his tan skin. “You returned library books late. Repetitively.”

Despite myself, I cracked up laughing. “Wow. I mean, that definitely is quite the sin to be punished for. Nobody likes an overdue fee.”

He took a drag on his smoke and turned his head to blow it out so it didn’t go all over me. “What do you think I did? ‘Cause fuck knows my parents are just as bad as yours. My father anyway.”

I fought the urge to ask him for a drag. I knew I couldn’t, but it would have been nice. “You were one of those people who claps when a plane lands.”

His smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “I hate those people. Guess I deserved this then.”

But we both knew nobody deserved the childhoods we’d had. Or the parents we couldn’t seem to escape, even as grown adults ourselves.

“You don’t,” I said quietly.

Luca stared at his cigarette slowly burning away. “Neither do you.”

I didn’t ask if he truly meant that, even after the way I’d lied to him. It was clear he did. That sent a sparkle of warmth through me.

Luca grinned over at me. “Want to make a pact? We kill our parents, take over their empires, and then…”

“Then what?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow. “Become them?”

He shook his head hard and fast. “No. Fuck that. I’ve already walked too far in my father’s shoes.” He stared off into the darkness in the direction of Kara’s place. “I don’t want that anymore. I never did, I just thought I didn’t have any other options.”

I sighed out heavily and rested my hand on my now very obvious baby bump. “I don’t want it either. For me, or for him.”

Luca raised an eyebrow. “Him? It’s a boy?”

I shrugged. “Just a gut feeling. I didn’t find out.”

Luca’s brow pinched like it pained him. “I need to kill my father before he’s born then.”

A trickle of fear worked its way in around the nice feelings being in Luca’s company created inside me. “Don’t say things like that.”

He looked over at me. “I have to. We bought ourselves some time by telling him your baby was a Guerra. But you know it’s opened up Pandora’s box. He’s either going to want that baby raised in his house, beneath his guidance…”

“With me an optional part of the equation, I’m sure.”

Luca nodded grimly. “Or…”

I swallowed thickly. “Or he’s going to want all of us dead.”

“Definitely a viable alternative in his mind, I’m sure.”

Anger rose inside me so swift and strong, all of it fueled by a deep-rooted instinct to protect my child, no matter what. I shifted until I was staring Luca directly in the eye. “I’m going to kill your father.”

His amusement showed in the crinkles at the edges of his eyes. He winked at me. “Deal. You kill my old man, and I’ll kill yours.”

A smile twitched at my lips. “Stop talking dirty to me.”

He laughed out loud at that. “You’re all right, Matish. You know that?”

For the first time since everything had gone down on the plane and in Scotland and with Lynx, I felt like I was really seeing the real Luca again, the one who hid behind sharp words and threats. “I don’t know if I ever told you I was sorry for what happened—”

“I don’t need your apologies, princess.”

I grabbed his arm, forcing him to face me. “But maybe I need to say them.”

He smirked at me. “There’s better things you can do with your tongue.”