“That’s it?” Luca prodded.
I let out a deep breath. “No,” I grimaced. “He…he said fucking you must be making me brave to talk to him the way I was.”
Luca’s voice dripped with ice. “He said what?”
My stomach dipped, but I wasn’t going to lie. “He said fucking you must be making me brave, but…”
“But, what?” he snapped.
“That…that even if I am…spreading my legs for you, I wasn’t shit without a wedding ring, so I’d better watch how I spoke to him.”
The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the room watching Luca Benetti slamming his fist against the wall. My scream came out of nowhere, and instead of Ciro calming Luca down, he was before me, with his hands on my shoulders, rubbing up and down. “Remy?”
I pulled my gaze away from watching Luca destroy the drywall and fell into Ciro Mancini’s sunlit eyes. “Wh…what?”
He was looking at me how a cop would look at a hysterical witness. “Remy, I need you to listen to me,” he said sternly. “We need you to tell us exactly everything that was said. Word for word.” He shook his head. “You can’t leave anything out.”
My eyes flew back towards Luca. “Luca-”
Ciro shook me. “Remy!” I looked back up at him. “Luca’s fine. I need you to tell me what was said.”
I did as he asked, and I knew through Luca’s pacing he still heard every word I said. I told them everything from when the man sat down to when I stormed into The Ruby. And I didn’t leave anything out because I knew I was in way over my head with this.
Luca’s phone rang, and he pulled it out and answered immediately. “What did you find?” Ciro took his hands off me, and we both turned to face Luca. He didn’t give anything away as he listened attentively to whatever the caller was saying. When he hung up, he said, “Phoenix’s got the footage. He’s going to head over to Sal’s and use his equipment.”
“Frankie and Robbie?”
“Have been told to stay put,” Luca automatically answered. “Alessandro and Umberto are aware there’s need for extra vigilance.”
Extra vigilance?
“I’ll see you at Sal’s later,” Ciro replied. He went to leave but must have remembered his manners because he turned to me and said, “It’ll be okay, Remy. We’ll take care of everything. It was nice to finally meet you.”
Was he crazy?
There was nothing nice about any of this.
“Uh…” He gave me a shit eating grin and wink before heading out, leaving me alone in his office with Luca. Now that he’s made it clear he has no plans to kill me, I wondered exactly what he planned to do with me. Because none of this shit was making sense.
Jesus Christ.
“Luca, I-” He put his hand up to stop me as he walked towards me, and I complied. I had a horrible feeling I was just causing more problems and it’d be in my best interest to shut. The. Hell. Up.
“I can see from your attire, you were working today,” he said, throwing me for a super loop. He wanted to talk about my clothes? “So, I’m assuming you need to go back to work, or are you done for the day?”
“I…I have…about three more households to visit today,” I told him. “After that, it’s just paperwork at the office.”
Luca’s hand slid up my neck until he was cupping my face, and I couldn’t pretend my entire body hadn’t shivered even if I wanted to. His hands were large, warm, rough and bloody from beating the wall. I liked that they felt rough. I liked that they felt like man’s hands, not soft and pampered. I could have done without the blood, but I wasn’t going to complain. He didn’t look like he’d appreciate it.
“I need you to listen to me, Remy,” He said. “I need you to continue your day as you normally would. There’s a good chance this man may have followed you, proving you a liar about not knowing me. At the very least, going to The Ruby, then here, to The Diamond, proves you know Ciro.”
“Should I be afraid o-”
His fingers gripped my face. The tick in his jaw was back and his eyes were bright in their darkness. “There’s only one man on this planet you ever need to fear, Remy,” he said through gritted teeth. “That man is me. No one else is a threat to you. Understand?”
No.
But I nodded anyway.
“Finish your day out, but go straight home,” he ordered. “I’ll have someone following you, so don’t get upset or worried. I’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”
“This is big, isn’t it?” I asked, knowing there was more to all this than I knew.
Luca’s thumb passed over my lower lip. “The biggest thing to ever hit Morgan City,” he whispered before kissing my forehead and escorting me back to my car.
Chapter 11
Luca~
I sat in Remy’s house waiting for her, very much like I had last night, and the rage that exploded earlier hasn’t dissipated at all.
I was still fucking furious.
After seeing Remy to her car and sending one of The Diamond’s guards to follow her the rest of the day, I had gone to Sal’s where Phoenix had already pulled up the image and information on Emery Aldos. He had been exactly as Remy had described him, but his information was manufactured.
Phoenix being in real estate noticed right off that the address listed for him was false. It was an empty lot that we verified through city records. His file also claimed he was a restaurant owner, but the name and address of the restaurant came up with a location in West Virginia. Phoenix looked up the record of ownership, and there was nothing for an Emery Aldos. The man’s trace was a mixture of truth and lies, and I knew it’d take time to
