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Vincent ground his teeth in frustration. Nobody hadeverdared to call him Vinny, let alone another man he hadn’t seen as more than a kid for most of their time working together, but he didn’t argue with Luca. He needed information too badly to risk upsetting the man.
“Luca,” Marco pushed.
“I’m looking. Chill,” he said. “The garage has cameras. You’re both on candy camera as we speak, so keep the hoods up and don’t show your faces to the pillars. There are pillars in the center of the garage, right?” Luca asked. “No matter. I’m going back on the tapes now. Let me do my magic.”
Vincent decided that waiting wouldn’t do him any good. Waiting had gotten him nowhere in the past, and he’d pursue this piece of shit as relentlessly as he could. Waiting could be damned.
He shut off the ignition to his car and pulled up his hood, slamming the door behind him. Marco followed closely as they approached the car at the back of the lot, seemingly unoccupied. “Oh, I’ve found it. It was this morning. He got out and…” Luca paused, but Vincent and Marco didn’t.
They came within feet of the car when Luca’s voice bellowed through the line, louder and more serious than Vincent had ever heard him. “Back,” he shouted. “Get away from the car.”
Vincent and Marco spared only enough time to look at each other before charging away from it. Luca’s voice continued to spill through the line, but it became a secondary sound to the click and loud boom from behind them. They barely made it far enough from the car before it exploded in a fire that felt as if it scorched Vincent’s skin from where he stood.
The impact of the blast nearly knocked them each from their feet, but Vincent caught himself and continued running. Marco hit the ground briefly but sprung to his feet in seconds.
“Shit,” Marco shouted. “Fucking damn it.”
Vincent only turned and stared at the car that had been blown to shambles. “How the hell…”
Luca’s voice came through the phone again. “You’re both alive, right?” He answered himself before Vincent or Marco had the chance. “Ah, I see you both on the cameras. Good job hiding your faces.”
“How did you know?” Vincent asked.
“He bent and attached something to his car when he left it this morning. Must be remotely activated. He’s probably close.” Vincent and Marco looked at each other wide-eyed and ran to the car.
Marco thanked Luca before abruptly ending the call and addressing Vincent. “I’ll go on foot. You drive around the area. We’ll find him.”
Vincent nodded and spun his car in a circle, rushing down the garage and onto the main street. He scanned each face and each shadowed figure. He looked for any vehicle that behaved oddly, but he found nothing. There was no trace of the man who detonated the bomb. And by the time the police arrived minutes later, the chaos of the street and traffic turned mad.
Marco found him with a look of pure frustration on his face.
Once again, Krill Laker had proven himself to be a threat and nearly killed them both. And again, he’d gotten away.
15
She sat in Vincent’s car, surrounded by a silence that felt anything but comfortable. After the night that she’d changed his bandages, she’d been clear about how she felt about his occupation—about the mafia as a whole. She liked him. She’d go as far as to say that she felt something for Vincent that she’d never dared to feel for any of the lesser men she’d dated. Maybe it was because of his older age or his dominant personality.
Maybe she’d been craving a man to take control for a long while.
But a man in the mafia who stood for a purely evil entity couldn’t be the man she settled with. Even if she saw the good in his eyes, hidden beneath carefully constructed layers of masks.
“I can’t do this,” she finally whispered. Her heart pounded as she said the words, voicing them into reality. “I can’t.”
“Do what?” he asked, pulling the car onto a spot on the side of the street.
“Be with you.” His muscles stiffened as he put the car into park, his limbs moving with stiff maneuvers. “I have been thinking since the attack. I did so much thinking, Vincent, andit’s not that I don’t want to try this with you because I do. But the mafia… I told you how I felt about it already. I won’t be involved.”
He shook his head. “I heard your concerns the other night,” he admitted. “And that’s what we’re going to address today.”
“And I still want to go to art school in California. A relationship that long-distance won’t work.” She paused, considering. “If what we have would even be considered a relationship.”
“You’re mine,” he snarled, his voice growing in severity as he whipped his head toward her. She flinched slightly at the tone, and his face softened as he took a deep breath. The hard mask fell away, revealing the caring face beneath—the one that he showed only to her. “I listened when you told me that the mafia is all bad, but have you seen all the parts of it?”
“I see that youkillpeople,” she said.
“I kill horrible people who have committed crimes worthy of death. Pedophiles, rapists, and murderers,” he said. “And I brought you out today to show you that the mafia isn’t all the bad you think it is. Yes, there are bad parts, but there’s more to it than you know.”
Had Kiera been set in her resolve, she may have turned him away and refused to see more about the organization that he supported with such firm resolve. Vincent was a foot soldier for them, and Kiera knew she could not change his mind about it. But as she looked at him and saw the pure longing in his eyes with a hint of fear, she nodded without thought. What was one more day with him?
