No miracles on demand for me.
“I told you it wouldn’t be long,” Luca says, answering the door.
“Please, tell me you are not this fucking stupid,” Nicolai asks, his voice growing louder as he approaches the cabin. I scramble to my feet, the rickety bed groaning under my weight. But Luca lifts the gun and points it at me, out of Nico’s sight. I stop in my tracks. “Who clipped David Ridge? Was it your son of a bitch brother? You don’t get to make those calls alone.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been here all night.”
“Where the fuck is the girl, Luca?” Nicolai climbs the stairs, and his shoes tap across the wooden porch in quick succession. He slams his palms into his cousin’s chest, sending Luca back. He points his middle and index fingers at the underboss’ temple. “Do you have any fucking idea the war you’ve started?”
“With a couple of lawyers?” Luca shrugs. “Not one I won’t win. They don’t mean shit to any of us.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. They’re untouchable.”
Luca nods in my direction and says, “But she’s not.”
Dark eyes slide across the room to find me sitting on the edge of the stained mattress. Blood has dried in ribbons around my legs like the candy cane on Dawn’s door. It hurts when I swallow, and my face ballooned where Luca hit me. A bruise in the shape of his hand is tender across my cheek and mouth. But I hold my hands up, alive and otherwise unharmed.
“Are you okay?” Nicolai walks in long strides.
“He has a gun.”
“We all have guns.” I would never turn my back to someone like his cousin, but Nico doesn’t even glance over his shoulder. He holds his hand out to me and says,“Vieni con me, piccolo.”
Nico Coppola’s dark brown eyes are flecked with tangerine and gold, like freshly fallen leaves in October. His pupils change in size, pleading for me to take his hand.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
They soften at this, and his brows deepen with understanding. Stretching his hand out farther, he beckons me forward. The tattoos on his hand continue around his wrist, where a sacred heart etched over his pulse looks to be actually beating. “Camilla, venire.”
His fingers close around mine, and I follow him outside. I assume it’s the cold that sends a chill down my spine, but a third set of footsteps follows closely behind us. Like all those times I thought I was being followed, it’s Luca.
Nicolai opens the rear door, and the cab light glows brightly in contrast to the dark surroundings. He stands guard as I slide into the back seat, where the glare on the windows makes it impossible to see out. My reflection stares back at me, and I look away.
“They followed her phone to your house, and then you bring her here? Anyone who knows you knows this is your spot. What the fuck are you doing, Luca?” Nico stands between Luca and the car, their voices lowering to mumbles from the back seat.
“Sending a message.”
“You killed their fucking father.”
“They should have listened the first time.”
“Lay low. Don’t show your face until we call.” A rush of cool air follows Nico inside the car. “You fucked up. I don’t know how we’re going to fix this.”
“Nicolai,” Luca commands in the voice of a killer, malicious, precise, and as dead as his eyes. Those who’ve died by his hand shift in their ditches and watery graves, terrified by the tone backed by sin even in the afterlife. It quiets the rustle of beach grass and freezes the ocean waves, and when I let out a shaky breath, it too is afraid. “Remember who you’re talking to. I don’t take orders from you.”
With the key hovering over the ignition, Nico simply says, “I haven’t forgotten. It just doesn’t matter anymore.”
The car engine roars to life, and the cab light shuts off. The glare disappears, and Luca’s standing beside my window. He knocks on the glass and circles his wrist, asking me to roll it down. When I don’t move, my fingernails biting into my palms, he opens the door and does it himself. He shuts it again, bracing himself just outside the opening.
“I took a trip to North Carolina,” he says, scrunching his nose in disgust. My spine straightens, and my stomach turns. “Saw the house you grew up in. Saw your parents. You have two brothers, Seth and … what’s the name of the other? The taller one?”
“Jonah,” I whisper, the name foreign after so long.
“They have wives and children. All daughters. None of whom are named after their aunt. In fact, I went into your parents’ house when they were at church, dumped out drawers, turned over mattresses, and went through some boxes. There’re no signs of you at all. No family pictures. No old report cards, school awards, or a finger painting that Mommy just couldn’t bring herself to take down after so many years. Nothing. It’s like you never existed.”
Meeting his stare, even as my hands shake and my heart quakes, I say, “They’re not my family.”
Luca lifts his eyebrows. “But the Ridges are?”
