????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 15
Copy and have your life shortened ????
CAROLINE DIDN’T TRUST LUCA. He knew that. It was evident in her wary
gaze and her defensive posture, clenching her robe closed and crossing her
legs. It was evident in the sting of the cut on his neck. That surprised him
more than anything else. She went for the throat. It had mostly stopped
bleeding now, but he could feel the collar of his shirt warmly damp with
thick blood and crisp where it had already dried. This had been a nice shirt
too. Part of him was tempted to take it off, because a w-et blood spot against
your collar isn’t comfortable, but he knew that would make things worse,
and he really did want her to trust him. “You don’t know for sure that you
can trust me, but I hope you’ll consider it.”
She let out a puff of air with an eye roll. “I don’t trust the mafia.”
“That’s fair,” he said carefully. “But I’m acting against the mafia’s
wishes right now in keeping you alive.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Her w-et hair fell into her
face and dripped onto the pink quilt. The dark stain of water spread over the
delicate paisley pattern beside Caroline’s hip. She looked delicate, perched
on the edge of his little sister’s bed with dripping hair and an
oversizedbathrobe. The ballerina plucked from the top of a music box, dunked in thesink, and discarded when another toy became more interesting. That sort oftragic melancholy hung in the air around her. The dim incandescent lights inthe room cast an orange-y glow around her that reflected off the water
droplets clinging to her eyelashes and dotting the perfect porcelain skin ofher cheek. She blinked her round, doleful eyes at him.
“What would it taketo change that?”
“Divine intervention.” At this point, only an act of God would make
him kill her. And he wasn’t sure he believed in God, so the chances of that
happening were pretty slim. He couldn’t break this delicate porcelain
ballerina. He couldn’t hurt his
frightened little gattina.
Caroline pressed her li-ps together and squirmed on the edge of the bed.
“So you’re offering to help me find out what happened to my father?”
“Yes.” Luca thought he knew what happened, and he was willing to
prove it. It might even make her like him. “Let’s settle this. I don’t like the
bad blood between us.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked up at him throu-ghthick, dark lashes.
“What if you’re wrong and your family did do it?”
He shrugged. “Then we’ll have an
answer.” He didn’t think it was
likely, but on the off chance that she was right, he had to be prepared for
that outcome. He didn’t think it really mattered one way or the other, aslong as she had the proof she needed for closure, but he would much preferhis family to be innocent.
She thought about it, chewing her li-p in the most adorable wayimaginable. “I don’t trust you,” she decided.
“I know.” He hoped he could change that. If she’d just give him achance. That was all he needed. A chance to show her that he meant noharm and that he could help her.
Another pause. She su-cked her bottom li-p back between her teeth andstudied him like there would be a pop quiz later. “Fine. Let’s do it. But ifyou kill me, I’ll haunt you forever.” She sounded deadly serious.
He raised his eyebrows, more than a little amused. “You believe inghosts?” He didn’t peg her as the type. Too practical. Too invested inconcrete evidence.
“I thought you knew everything about me.” The distaste in her voicebordered on resentment.
He hummed noncommittally. He did know most everything about her,
He knew she couldn’t handle jump scares in horror movies. But it didn’tmatter if it was a ghost or a masked man with a machete doing the scaring,
she still jumped three feet in the air every time. Luca smiled to himself. “I’lllook around and do some research and get back to you.”
“You’ll look around?” This was the most sas-sshe’d ever taken withhim. He couldn’t help the way his smile wide-ned, and this time she didn’t back down. “No. I am an investigative journalist. I will do my own
looking.”
“Your own looking,” he echoed. “Why would I let you do that?” This
obstinance was new, and he didn’t dislike it and that was a problem because
if he liked her anymore, he might do something he’d regret even more than
not killing her in the first place.
She held up fingers to count her reasons. “I have connections. It’s my
family. And I don’t trust you.”
He tilted his head to the side. She probably did have connections as a
journalist, but he suspected his own connections were better, being a
powerful member of the business.
However, it was an excuse to spend time
with her, so he’d play along. “All right.” He knew they’d find out that his
family had nothing to do with her father’s death, and better to be by her side
when that realization came so she could fall into his arms like the heroine in
a vintage film and they could ride off into the sunset.
“So you’ll take me back to New York?” She sounded a touch too
hopeful.
“No,” Luca scoffed. “You might not trust me, but I don’t trust you
either.” They had to be careful, discreet. They couldn’t just waltz around
like everything was fine. Don Moretti had eyes everywhere and if he saw
Caroline alive with Luca, there would be too many questions he couldn’t
answer. Caroline would be dead, and Luca would get much worse than a
slap on the wrist for disobeying a direct order. “We need some groundrules.” She probably wouldn’t follow them, but then at least he tried, right?
And it wouldn’t be his fault when she was killed, and he was martyred as anexample for anyone who might be tempted to disobey Don Moretti.
She bit her li-p. Maybe frustration, maybe something else, Luca couldn’ttell. But she really needed to stop biting her li-p or Luca would do it for her.
“Fine,” she acquiesced.
Luca held up one finger. “Rule number one, you do not leave my sightunless I give you permission to do so.” She looked scandalized and herolled his eyes. “Just tell me when you need to go to the bathroom. I’m not
unreasonable, Caroline, but I can’t have you running.” She swallowed hardbut nodded. He didn’t believe that she wouldn’t try to run. He’d have towatch her like a hawk. He looked at his hand and held up a second finger.
“Rule number two, you don’t try to hurt me. That means no stabbing,slashing, slapping, or kicking me in the balls.” He had to specify that last one because apparently she had a pension for that. She exhaled sharply
throu-ghher nose and looked away. So she found this funny? His voice
turned a bit dangerous. “Killing me won’t fix your problems, do you
understand?”
“Yes, sir.” She bowed her head, scared again.
Finally, some respect. He allowed a slow smile on his face. “Good girl.”
He swore he saw her shiver, but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was wishful
thinking. He held up a third finger. “And rule number three, you don’t tell
anyone we might pas-sthat I kidnapped you and you don’t act like you’re
scared of me in public.” She nodded shallowly, looking miserable. “Do you
agree to follow these rules?” He needed some kind of verbal contract at
least. She seemed like the type not to go back on her word.
She sighed and fidgeted her hands in her lap. “Yeah, sure.”
“Good.” He rubbed his hands together and traced the stinging cut over
his knuckles. “We’ll go back to your apartment tomorrow morning to pick
up your files.” The front door banged open and Luca heard his brother’s
voice. He and Lorna were back, hopefully with dinner. Luca stood. “Do you
need anything?”
She looked surprised that he would ask but shook her head. “No.”
He walked into the bathroom to pick up the razor blade and put it in his
pocket. She didn’t need the temptation. “Goodnight.” He closed the door
behind him before she could bite her li-p again and ruin his resolve.
Alessandro did back dinner. The good buffalo wings, but Luca would
need a chainsaw to cut the tension between Alessandro and Lorna, so Luca
excused himself from dinner early. In the relative solace of his room, he
pulled out his laptop and started sifting throu-ghdatabases to look for
anything about Caroline’s father. Mr. Peter Wells appeared on very few
docu-ments. Luca pulled up a payroll from years ago for the company.
Apparently, Mr. Wells had been on the custodial staff. The database files
were supposed to be clean in case anyone stumbled upon them, so Luca
couldn’t tell if he was even involved in the Moretti business beyond thecover company. His employee ID photo looked vaguely familiar, but maybe
he just looked enough like Caroline for Luca to draw the connection.
Nothing appeared out of sorts from a business perspective. Of course,these accounts were meticulously combed throu-ghby professionals to makesure they were squeaky clean, but sometimes, bits and pieces sli-ppedthrou-ghthe cracks. This looked pretty solid though, records of his shifts, his hourly pay, bonuses, benefits. He used a few of his sick days throu-ghout his
time with the company, took a week off after Christmas every year, and
always went home early on Caroline’s birthday. He took one sick day the
week before he died, but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about
Mr. Wells in the official company records.
A secret,
biometric pa-ssword protected database housed the actual
mafia dealings in well-organized folders. Luca cleaned it up every few
months because some people—Luca wouldn’t name names, but one of them
was currently flirting with Giovanni’s fiancé—didn’t like to put their
paperwork where it belonged. Luca could check there for more information,
but his father received an alert whenever someone logged in, and Luca
didn’t have a good excuse, so it wasn’t worth the attention, and the
questions, and Caroline’s probable death.
A quick internet search pulled up the death certificate. It cited
anaphylaxis as the cause of death. Luca cli-cked back to the company
database to check his employee profile. It didn’t list any severe allergies.
That struck Luca as odd. He thought he remembered that Caroline’s father
died in some warehouse accident.
But he couldn’t find a record of that
without going into the secret network and alerting his father to what he was
doing. He browsed the internet for anything that could shed some light on
the situation. Newspapers from around the date of Mr. Wells’ death, current
events, company reports, anything and everything. Caroline was right and
something was definitely off about the whole situation, but the paper trail
just wasn’t there. Or wasn’t where Luca could easily access it.
He looked at the clock at 2:03 am and decided to call it a night. Caroline
had done her research, had been
investigating for as long as she’d been
a
journalist, surely she had something Luca didn’t. And hopefully whateverthat was would shed some light on the situation because they were runningout of time. They’d been running out of time since he hadn’t killed her, butthe longer they went, the more dangerous everything became. And she’donly just started to give him a chance. He wanted nothing more than to
prove his family’s innocence and save Caroline’s life. She was important tohim in more ways than he was ready to admit to himself. For now, it wasenough that he liked her and respected her as a writer and a human beingand didn’t want to kill her.
TBC