????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 21
THE DRIVE back to the city seemed shorter without all the uncomfortabletension between Luca and Caroline. She hummed when he pulled into the
parking lot of his apartment building. It was a nice area, and he could feelher drawing conclusions. Well, let her draw all the conclusions she wanted,
he didn’t have much to hide from her.
“Are you in the penthouse?” she wanted to know.
Luca parked the car. “No.” He didn’t need a penthouse. He carried boththeir bags, but made Caroline walk ahead of him so he could keep an eye on
her. She commented on the fancy mirrored elevator, but he didn’t respond.
He opened the door to his apartment and let her in first. He wasn’t asconcerned about her being a flight risk as he had been, but still. Better safethan sorry.
He set down their bags and watched Caroline take it all in. She lookedslightly disappointed. “It’s so…” she trailed off, searching for the rightword. “Minimal.”
Luca exhaled sharply throu-ghhis nose. It was minimal. He didn’t need alot of things and he hated clutter. So the living room had the essentials—a
suede sofa and an armchair, a large TV, an end table with a box of tissuesand an unremarkable lamp, a plain coffee table with four coasters in a stack
on one corner, a small shelf beneath the TV for movies and a gamingconsole. There were few decorations,
only the abstract painting Tessainsisted he hang on the wall over the sofa so his apartment didn’t look like a‘broke college student’s w-et dream.’
Caroline scrutinized everything, probably looking for somethingincriminating. She wouldn’t find it. He watched her wander into the kitchen. Again, only the essentials. A table and four chairs, a blender and a
toaster on the countertop, a sponge by the sink. Everything else was putaway neatly in the cabinets.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head and opened one of the cabinets curiously. Perfectlystacked and coordinated dinnerware. “You’re a neat freak, aren’t you?”
Bold. But she was getting bolder the more time she spent with him.
“Does that bother you because you know you won’t find any dirt on me?”
The bolder she got, the more he would push her.
She closed the cabinet and turned around. She couldn’t look at him longbefore her eyes fell to the dark wood floor. “Where am I sleeping here?”
Changing the subject. She was so cute. “That’s up to you.” He walkedback into the living room and sat down on the sofa. “You could fitcomfortably on this sofa if you wanted to. I do have a spare bedroom if
you’re not interested in the couch.” He paused, giving her a meaningful upand down as she followed him into the living room. “Or you can sleep withme.”
She shifted her weight and took a breath. “What if I try to kill you?”
“You won’t.” He lowered his voice to a dangerous growl. “The rules wediscussed before still apply, gattina.”
She crossed her arms and lowered her chin. Even when he was seated,and she was standing he felt like he towered over her and he could tell she
felt it too. “What’s that mean? Gattina?”
“Kitten,” he all but purred. “And aren’t you just? My little kitten? Il miogattina?”
She shivered, obviously affected by the pet name. “Is that Spanish?”
She took a tentative step forward, tense, but in the best way. He drew her in
like a moth to a flame. Of course, he didn’t want to burn her, but she likedthe danger and he liked that she liked it.
“Italian,” he corrected, tilting his head to one side.
“You speak Italian?” She sounded impressed.
“Sì, parlo italiano,” he smiled slightly. “Questo ti eccita?” Does thatturn you on? She didn’t answer, of course, but it was entertaining to watch
her squirm. He beckoned her closer with a curl of his finger. “Now,
do youremember the rules?”
She stopped right in front of him. “I’m not allowed to kill you or runaway or tell anyone you kidnapped me.” She said it with half a pout, and it was adorable, and he wanted to kis-s her.
“Good girl.” He patted his lap, indicating she should sit. “Can I trustyou while I’m gone?”
She sat tentatively on his thighs. “Yes?”
He pulled her closer by her hips. “You don’t sound sure. I don’t want tohave to lock you in here.” He spoke close to her ear.
“I won’t run.” Her voice trembled and he loved it.
He nipped at her earlobe with his teeth. “You know you wouldn’t makeit very far.”
She shivered and turned her face to kis-s him. He ate her up candy.
Hishands coasted up her wa-istto hold her tight against him. She ran her hands
throu-ghhis hair and scratched his scalp with her fingernails and it felt sonice.
Luca thought he could kis-s her forever. He loved the way her breathhitched when his hands drifted under her shirt. He loved the warmth of her
skin and the feeling of fragility. He could break her so easily. And she wa-sso beautiful when she was broken.
He almost didn’t notice his phone buzzing in his pocket, but it was alittle too close to something else, so he pushed Caroline away and fished itout.
“Hello?”
“Hey, are you back in town? I need some help planning the wedding.”
Giovanni. Luca had been expecting the call from his older brother.
“Yeah. I’ll be over in a minute.” Luca hung up and nudged Caroline outof his lap. He stood up and straightened his clothes. “I’ll need a raincheck
on this. I’m going to be out for a while. You can help yourself to the TV, ororder food. I’ll leave my card on the counter.” He grabbed his keys andpaused to look back at her. “There’s also a gym and a spa in the building,
and a little convenience sto-re. Do what you want, just don’t leave thebuilding, understand?”
She didn’t get up from the couch but bowed her head. “Yes.” He would
ruin her when he got back, and she looked like she knew it.
Giovanni’s apartment wasn’t far. Luca walked right in the unlockeddoor to find his brother hunched over the kitchen table with his head in thecrook of his arm.
Luca sat down across from him and looked around. Gio kept his things
neat, but he had more stuff than Luca did. He was sentimental like that and
couldn’t just get rid of something. Luca picked up one of the ugly vintage saltshakers that used to belong to Nonna and played with it until Giovannilooked up at him.
“Hey,” Luca said.
Gio leaned back and ran his hands throu-ghhis hair. “Hey.”
That simple exchange conveyed a wealth of information between thebrothers. Giovanni was stressed and reluctant to ask for help. He didn’t
want to get married, and he didn’t think he had a choice. Luca understood.
“Did you get to review that security footage?” Giovanni asked, avoidingthe problem.
Luca would let him work up to it. He needed that sometimes. “I did.
Whoever did it was good. They covered their tracks.” Luca still didn’t
understand why someone would destroy a gym like that. It was the solace
and the safe place for many young people, not just the Moretti boys. It hadbeen home to him and his brothers and he still felt a jagged tear in his heart
where the gym used to be.
“Does that mean you don’t have anything useful to tell me?” Gio asked.
Luca set down the saltshaker and folded his hands on the table. “That
means I doubt I saw anything you didn’t.”
“Tell me what you saw.” They did see things differently. Giovanni
tended to see the big picture while Luca fixated on the details. Theybalanced each other out that way.
“The cloth that covered the cameras was soaked in gasoline. All thecameras were covered at the same time, so we’re looking at least three
people.” Luca shrugged. “But that doesn’t narrow it down. The one cameralooked like it was covered with a uniform from the fancy hotel on tenth, but
it’s ha-rd to tell. You might look into the employees though.”
Giovanni nodded slowly, distracted, a million miles away. “I’m worriedabout Alessandro.”
Luca snorted. “You’re worried he’s gonna steal your girl? Because letme tell you, it’s too late, bro.”
Giovanni sat up straight. “No, I don’t care about Lorna.” He stoppedand made a face. “That’s not true. I do care about Lorna. I don’t care whoshe fu-cks, but I do care about her as a human being. Just not as…” he
trailed off.
“Not as a wife.” Luca finished for him.
Giovanni sighed and slouched. “I don’t want to marry her.”
“I know.” Luca picked up the saltshaker again and admired the glossy,gaudy colors. A moment of comfortable silence pa-ssed. “How’s Delilah
doing?” Giovanni’s long unrequited crush on the Gym owner’s daughterused to be a major point of teasing
between Luca and his older brother, but
it didn’t seem so funny now with the gym in ashes.
Giovanni didn’t look up from his hands on the table. “Pretty well, allthings considered.” He glanced up at Luca with a weariness in his eyes that
made Luca’s heart ache. “She lost her job and her livelihood because of me,but she hasn’t stopped talking to me, so that’s a good sign, right?”
“You can’t take all the blame, you know,” Luca reminded him. “I was atthat gym just as much as you were. So were Antonio and Alessandro.” Luca
looked at the blank wall but saw the picture of the charred bricksAlessandro showed him.
“We all had our names and our little handprints onthe wall.”
Somber silence settled around them. Luca picked at a place the paint
chipped on the saltshaker, lost in the warm, gold-tinted memories of the
gym. He startled when Giovanni smacked the flat of his hand on the table.
“Spar with me?”
That surprised Luca. “Why, because you want to hit something?”
Giovanni smiled a little for the first time that day. “Yeah.”
Luca set down the saltshaker and stood up. “Here in your living room?”
He’d be careful not to break anything, but if Gio threw him into the coffee
table, it would hurt.
Giovanni stood up. “No, on the ashes of those old blue mats.” He rolled
his neck and cracked his knuckles. “Where else?”
Luca smiled. Giovanni’s sense of humor wasn’t broken, which meant hewould be okay. They all would. It still hurt, and probably would for a longwhile, but they would heal in time. Gio would catch the people responsibleand Luca pitied the fools. He helped push the couch to one side so they hadroom to spar. Besides. Giovanni was probably right, and it would feel goodto hit something.
TBC