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“Be careful.”
Luca swallowed and angled his chin up a fraction. “Why? Your father seems to want to keep me alive. I hardly think you’re going to kill me.”
Dom’s lips curled to one side. “One thing you should know about me, I live to break the rules. Why do you think he was so mad tonight? Your life would merely require some knee bending. Sobecareful.”
Luca sighed and was about speak when there was a knock at the door. Dom straightened. “Don’t move.”
Where the hell would I go?Luca thought as Dom disappeared to, hopefully, collect their food. Not that he was really thinking about that anymore. His mind was too busy trying to put two and two together. He would happily skip the meal if Dom would just tell him what the hell was going on.
A minute later, Dom reappeared with two dome-covered plates and placed one down on the table in front of Luca. Dom handed him a fork and nothing else, and Luca raised a brow. “What, no knife? Scared I’m going to attack you?”
Dom took the chair to his left and eyed him. “A fork is a deadly enough weapon when you know how to use it. But in this case”—he removed the dome to reveal a simple but beautiful pasta dish—“you won’t need one.”
Luca’s stomach growled at the familiar aromas wafting off the plate, but before he dug in, he looked at Dom. “How do I know this isn’t poisoned?”
“You don’t.”
Luca looked at his meal then back to Dom.
“I’m not testing it for you.” Dom dug into his own pasta. “If you want to eat, eat.”
Well, shit, Luca wasn’t dead yet, and the fooddidsmell amazing. Harnessing a little more of that bravery, he twirled some of the pasta around the tines and shoveled it into his mouth. When he was still alive after several hearty forkfuls, Luca glanced at Dom to see him remove an envelope from his pocket.
Dom placed the envelope on the table in front of Luca’s plate and gestured to it. Luca’s breath caught and his hand stilled halfway to his mouth.
“You want answers? Your first one is in there.” Dom picked his fork back up and scooped up another serving of pasta. “Still feeling brave?”
While part of Luca was desperate to see what was inside, another part knew that whatever it was, it was going to change his life forever. Then again, everything had changed the moment he’d been abducted, so why not just go all in?
Food forgotten, Luca moved his plate aside and reached for the envelope. It was small and thin, not nearly big enough to give him the who, what, when, why, and where.
It’s okay. Just open it. Nothing has to really change if you don’t want it to.
He pulled out the contents, a single photograph, and looked up at Dom in confusion. “What is this?”
“It helps if you look at it.”
“But I don’t know any of these—” Luca’s words cut off as he zeroed in on a woman in the center of the photograph. His heart skipped a beat as he looked at her. Her medium brown hair covered her shoulders in waves, but it was the same dark eyes he looked at in the mirror every day that had him barely able to breathe. And on her cheek…
Luca reached up to feel the freckle that matched hers and found himself shaking his head.
“I-I don’t understand,” he said.
“You’ve never seen those people before?”
He shook his head, still staring down at the picture. There was a broad older man with silver hair and jowls that sagged standing beside the woman. Flanking the two of them were two younger guys, maybe in their early thirties? They had the same sunken eyes as the older man, but there was a fierceness in all the men’s expressions. Luca didn’t get the feeling they were good guys, or ones he’d want to meet face to face.
“She looks like me,” Luca said.
“No. You look likeher,” Dom said. “Gabriella. And lucky for you. The other two looked like they were beaten in the face with a meat tenderizer.”
“Who is she?”
“You know who she is.”
“I don’t. I’ve never seen her before…” Luca’s words trailed off as he felt a sting behind his eyes. No, this wasn’t right. She couldn’t be…
“I thought everyone recognized their mama.”
