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“You’re welcome.”
Chapter 9
Luca
Ilowerthegunand try to get my heart rate under control. Carina comes into full view, wearing nothing more than a lacy tank top and a pair of boyish-looking panties smeared with paint.
She narrows her eyes and slams a hand on her curvy hip. “I had that.”
“If you had it, I wouldn’t have had to take the shot.” Her dog, that normally vicious-looking beast, whines and sinks to the floor, paws extended, and I try to keep my annoyance at bay. She didn’t have it. If she hadn’t had the dog, and if I hadn’t arrived, she would be dead on the floor. That thought is too much to bear.
I pause, glancing at the animal. He’s panting softly. “Good boy,” I murmur, tucking my gun into my waistband.
I step into the apartment and close the door behind me. Carina hasn’t moved from her position. She’s as shaken as I am, but she’s not hiding it as well. I kneel down over the body to give myself something to do. Because if I don’t, my control will slip.
I pat his pockets but, of course, find nothing. A good assassin makes sure he’s clean going into a job. It’s the ones from the streets, paid only a few hundred, who wind up carrying their phones and identification. They are the desperate ones.
I pull the neckline of the man’s top aside, checking for tattoos, but he’s clean there, too. He’s thorough, not branding himself with a mark. He would be the type of man I’d hire for a kill. The question is, who hired him to kill Carina? I glance at her; she’s watching me intently.
“He has nothing on him,” I say. It’s obvious I’ve come up empty, but the silence is stretching between us, and I don’t want to say what I really feel.
I don’t even know what I’m feeling yet.
I return to examining the body and push up his sleeves, checking his arms. “What do we have here…” He wasn’t as careful with his ink here. I pause and tilt my head to take in his tattoo. A skull and a cross within a triangle.
“II Veleno,” I say. II Veleno is a gang, one who is supposed to be loyal to the Mafia. I think of the information I just received from the fed about the graffiti on the walls. Did the Scarpettas carry out their kill, and this is retaliation? I drop the arm, and it hits the ground with a heavy thud.
I allow myself to really take in Carina. Her hair is tousled, the dark strands taking on a life of their own. She looks good, all mussed and undressed like this. Sexy. Despite the dead man lying in the hall—or maybe because of him—I take a step toward her but halt as she raises a hand in the air.
“Don’t touch me! You just touched a dead guy.”
“Hejustdied, Carina.“ Her gaze holds fear mixed with adrenaline, and I shift my tone to teasing. “No, ‘Thank you, Luca, for saving my life’?”
“I had it handled,” she says again.
God, this girl.I fold my arms across my chest. “Okay, explain to me, please, how you had it handled. Because when I stepped in, he had a gun to your fucking head, Carina.” My arms drop to either side of me, and I glance at the body on the floor.
I could stand here and argue with Carina all night, which is perversely a favorite pastime of mine, but I need to get rid of the body first. I walk back and grab both his arms so I can drag him to the front door and out into the vestibule. I send a text to my clean-up crew to come dispose of the body, then step back inside.
When I return, Carina has a full glass of wine. She plants her hands on the counter on either side of the glass.
“So, you had it handled,” I prompt. I remove my suit jacket and place it on the counter. After rolling up the sleeves of my white shirt to the elbows, I turn on the faucet and scrub my hands.
She sniffs and walks away. Her footfalls have me looking up to see her rolling up the rug and lugging it to the door. It lands with a heavy thud in the hallway.
She doesn’t look at me as she returns to the island. I finish washing my hands and take a towel off the oven door handle.
“I would have fired first.” Her response is weak, and she fucking knows it. “And Baccio had him.”
As one, we look at Baccio. Carina’s demeanor changes instantly, and she sinks to the floor beside him, where blood is pooling on the hardwood floor. “Oh, my God…Baccio…Luca, I think he was shot!”
Her horror galvanizes me. “Try to keep him from biting me.” Bending, I use my knees as leverage and scoop the dog up in my arms, grunting under the weight of his solid frame. “Grab towels!” He’s surprisingly docile as I carry him to the elevator in the hall and punch the button with my elbow.
Before the elevator doors open, Carina is back with an armload of towels, dressed in a long puffer coat and a pair of black Doc Martens. We descend to the parking level in grim silence. She doesn’t speak until we’re in the back of my SUV, one of my men speeding us toward an emergency veterinary clinic that sometimes, ironically, operates on my men.
Having located the source of the bleeding, she’s pressing down with a combination of strength and tenderness, determined not to cause the animal pain but equally bent on stopping the flow of blood. She looks up at me over his matted fur, her eyes bone dry but burning with agony. “I can’t lose him, Luca. I can’t even explain what he’s been to me in the past few years.”
The past few years.
