Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Nearby, an engine roars. Tires scream as a car comes speeding down the street. I look over, confused that someone would drive so fast.
“Luca!” one of his men shouts and starts running toward us.
Luca looks back and freezes. “Tony, get the fuck down.”
The man coming toward us stops in his tracks, pulls a gun, and drops to the pavement.
Luca grabs me. He wraps his body around me and turns, throwing us both sideways, as the car comes to a halt and gunfire erupts from the windows. We slam into the pavement and I grunt as my shoulder hits hard. Glass breaks, alarms blare, and it’s like the heavens open up and a firestorm falls down on our heads. I think Tony’s yelling, and so are the other guards, and they’re returning fire but Luca’s only holding me, his body cradling mine, covering me from the broken pavement, chunks of car metal, and razor-sharp glass shards raining down on our bodies.
He’s using his own flesh and blood as a shield to protect me.
The gunfire stops and the car screams away. The sudden quiet is almost as bad as the noise, like air sucked back into a vacuum, and my ears are ringing loudly enough that I can’t hear myself speak. I try to say, “Luca, Luca, are you okay?” But there’s nothing. I groan in pain as Luca slowly disentangles us, his eyes wide, blood dripping down his face.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I have to read his lips to understand what he’s saying.
“I’m fine,” I say and reach out to touch his face. I wipe the blood way, letting it coat my fingers. Sticky and thick. “You’re bleeding.”
“Just the glass.” He picks some from a wound in his chin. He’s cut all over from a spray of shattered windshield. “Fuck, Tony.” He gets to his feet but doesn’t release me. The world’s beginning to come back now as the whooshing and ringing in my ears soften. Luca looks around wildly and spots his man lying on the pavement, down on his stomach, breathing hard. “Tony!”
He runs over, pulling me along like he’s unwilling to be parted from me for a second.
Tony rolls onto his back and laughs. He’s uninjured, and he grins like he won the goddamn lottery. Luca sighs with relief and kneels beside his soldier, shaking the man’s shoulder affectionately. “You motherfucker,” Luca says. “Scared the shit out of me.”
“Those bastards missed me. I was lying there out in the open and they missed. I thought I was fucking dead, Luca. I was praying and squeezing the trigger and fucking yelling like a maniac, but they were too busy shooting up—” Tony stops laughing and sits up. “Oh, fuck, Luca.”
We look back at the building and a cold fear runs down into my guts.
The restaurant is a mess. The windows are all broken and the door’s riddled with bullet holes. Everyone inside is huddled on the floor and someone’s softly sobbing. Luca gets up and goes over to one of the soldiers still in the doorway and checks his pulse, but he shakes his head. There’s blood everywhere, pooling into the concrete. “Gone,” he says. “Tony, call for help. I’ve got to make sure everyone inside is okay.”
“Already on it,” Tony says, cellphone held up to his face.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens blare.
The manager comes running out. He looks frantic and terrified. “Everyone inside is okay,” he says, hands up to his cheeks like he’s holding back a scream as he stares at the dead soldier on the ground. “Oh, fuck. Is that Marco?”
“We’ll take care of his family,” Luca says and grabs the manager’s arm. “Get everyone out the back. Clear the place. Nobody saw a goddamn thing, right? There are about to be a dozen cops here, detectives, the fire department, EMTs, every fucking reporter in the city. It’s going to be a madhouse. Get your stories down and get everyone out of here.”
“Right, I understand, but Luca—”
“Get everyone out. It’s going to be a fucking frenzy. You understand me? Nobody talks. Nobody knows what happened. It was a freak hit and run. Gang related.”
The manager nods and runs inside.
“Come on,” Luca says and drags me from the restaurant.
“Where are we going? Shouldn’t we help?”
“Tony and John can manage it. I need to make sure you’re safe. And we can’t be here when the reporters arrive. We’ll pay the cops off and make this all go away, but I still can’t be seen by some enterprising fucking journalist.”
“Luca, what the hell was that? Who were they?”
Luca’s face darkens. “I’ll bet my life those were Russians. Now come on, we’re going somewhere safe.”
“The house?”
“No, not my father’s house. We’re going to my place.”
Chapter 18
Luca
My head’s a mess as I drive away from the Upper West Side toward my East Village apartment.