Right?
“You don’t know, do you?” Cree asked.
Luca swallowed hard. “I know some.”
“But you haven’t put it all together.”
“In a bit of a situation at the moment. I like to prioritize things I have to worry about if you know what I mean. Forgive me.”
That almost had the man smiling. Or smirking, maybe.
“Don’t feel bad,” Cree told him, “no one can understand Penny or what she went through. Not really because no one should have to know the horrors she faced. And not once, but again and again. To get the full picture, you would have to go back in time ... and that’s just not possible, Luca Puzza.”
He had the distinct feeling that Cree was trying to tell Luca something without actually telling him, so to speak. But with little sleep, hunger aching deep in his belly, and an unknown future waiting beyond the doors of the room he currently called home ... well, he just couldn’t pinpoint what Cree wanted him to know.
“You were her last hope,” Luca said. “This was it—wasn’t it? For what she was trying to do, whatever she ran from years ago, this was the end of the road. The last place to go.”
Cree’s throat flexed, and his jaw tensed like he wanted to say something, but he was forcing the words back. Eventually, the man replied, “Apparently not ... look at her now.”
What did that mean?
Cree turned to leave, but Luca was quick to speak up and stop the man, asking, “What are you going to do with me now?”
A sharp gaze looked back.
Luca was still unafraid.
“At least let me know—so I’m ready for whatever it is,” he told the man.
Cree’s broad shoulders lifted almost carelessly. “We haven’t decided yet.”
He didn’t ask why.
He already knew.
The League still thought he might be able to help them. Somehow. Maybe with Penny, or perhaps with something else. Who knew? Either way, they weren’t about to throw him away like trash when he could still be useful.
It was smart business.
Bad for him, though.
But didn’t they know?
“All I ever tried to do was help Penny,” Luca said at Cree’s retreating back as the man left the room, the beep resounded again over top the door, and they started to close him back in. “It never worked.”
That didn’t mean he would stop trying. It wasn’t his style.
“WHERE ARE YOU TAKING me?” Luca demanded.
His captor—face hidden by a black mask—said nothing as he continued shoving the barrel end of his rifle into Luca’s back. The action forced him to keep walking through the many corridors of the compound. All in silence, too, because other than the man’s gun driving into his spine every time the guy wanted him to speed up, shut up, or otherwise, he wasn’t getting anything from the man.
Fucking hell.
The long, empty hallways of The League’s complex still felt cold and impersonal. Like the walls and every closed door had secrets to tell—ones he wasn’t privy to. The entire place seemed full of ghosts that he couldn’t see, and there wasn’t a single part of him that liked it, either.
Luca didn’t recognize the path he was made to take with the armed guard still at his back. They didn’t pass a soul on the way as they climbed two stairwells to an upper level of the building where finally, he started to hear something. Low, murmured voices that he couldn’t discern well enough to distinguish between the number of speakers let alone the conversation as a whole.
He didn’t know what it was until he was walked right into the middle of it, though. One last jab of the rifle to his back, right between his shoulder blades, and Luca stumbled—still tied at his wrists—into a large room.
Walls of screens stared back at him. The handful of men inside the space stopped talking just long enough to turn his way. They—including Cree, and four other men Luca didn’t recognize—turned their attention back on the man standing behind the massive metal and glass desk that dominated the space.
They were still talking.
Luca just wasn’t interested.
The screens had his attention now. And the shit plastered on them. Images of faces—people—made up a pyramid. Some faces had been crossed out with large Xs while others were left untouched. It was the two faces at the very top that had Luca starting to see the bigger picture.
The Elite, he knew.
Who else would it be?
Some of the images with Xs were recognizable faces. Murders that Luca could easily connect back to what he knew about Penny’s business over the last few years. But only because he had been looking for her. Someone else might not see it, but he sure as fuck did. She had been taking them out one by one.
Then, he happened.
Or rather, he caught up to Penny.
What changed?
Allegra and the woman’s father sat at the very top of the pyramid.
That was the thing he missed ...
Allegra Dunsworth stared back from the screen. Her image held so much similarity to Penny that at first, it was shocking. It wasn’t the first time he saw the woman, but it was the moment that he realized what Penny must see every time she stood in front of a mirror.
Her mother.
A monster.
Staring back at her.
Finally, the conversation between the men in the room caught Luca’s attention enough to drag him away from the images on the screen.
“Another pet project for Cree to get under control,” the man behind the desk said. “At this point, I’m starting to think taking these on aren’t worth the trouble they cause us.”
“Dare—”
The man behind the desk held up a single hand, his steely gaze looking over every man in the room except Luca where he still stood just a couple of feet inside the doorway. “She was given directions, Cree. An order. One she didn’t follow. We only have one option, and I can’t help that you don’t like it. She’s put The League in danger of The Elite being able to trace and track us like we’ve been doing to them for years. Every single member of this organization is an asset. Ones we cannot afford to lose given the nature of this work, and you know it.”
“That doesn’t change that she’s only doing what we told her she would—”
“She was given orders!”
The shout silenced the room.
The man they called Dare regained his composure quickly, and finally glanced Luca’s way when he said, “Circumstances and loyalties change all the time. A by-product of the business. You don’t need me to tell you. She’s gone AWOL. We react accordingly and protect what we’ve built. This is your mess to clean, Cree.”
Were they talking about sacrificing Penny?
Dare pointed at Luca, saying, “Including that mess there.”
But what did that mean?
Luca wasn’t given the chance to ask, let alone speak before the man behind the desk nodded at him, drawing every gaze in the room to him when he said, “And you.”
“What about me?” Luca asked.
At this point, what did he have to lose? He only needed to get out. He just didn’t know what out meant or looked like.
“A request to make an offer for you has come through from New York,” Dare said, folding his arms across his silk-covered chest, making the fabric of his button-down strain from the action. Then, he added, “We’re at least willing to hear the offer from the Donati family.”