Lunar Crest University (Forbidden Fruit)

Chapter Forty-Four

LUCA

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22ND, 2023

T he smoke burns my lungs, stinging like a bitch and making it hard to see, but I have to get to her. I know exactly which room he’s holding her in—he’s a creature of habit and things with Javier never change—but it takes me longer than I wanted to get there after the explosion. I have to get through all of his little minions.

He has a lot of fucking men, more than I remember him having, but once I started this plan, it was like a domino effect. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

Between my pistol, pump-action shotgun, and hunting knife, I clear the thick crowd of them in just under four minutes. I’m a little rusty, but it’s like learning to ride a bicycle. You don't ever really forget how to do it.

The lock on the metal door is broken off when I get to it—of fucking course. Javier wants to make sure she never gets out of here. So, I take my boot and kick it, over and over again until my leg hurts and my grunts are raspy. When it finally bursts open, I have to pause for a moment to take in a slow, shaky breath. My lungs can’t take much more of this.

The red glow of the emergency lights illuminates two people in the middle of the room, lying on the floor. I immediately recognize that curly head of hair, and I’m two seconds away from questioning why the fuck Levi is here until I see Finley’s still body lying next to him. My steps slow as I gape down at them, watching as Levi twists his head to look up at me. His eyebrows furrow in anger for a moment before he sits up quickly, in a panic. His eyes are wide and his pupils are dilated, and now I have a terrible feeling in my stomach.

“Help,” he croaks.

I circle them, and my chest seizes when I see the pool of blood around her. Everything that happens after feels like a weird fever dream. Collapsing to my knees on the concrete, I cradle her head in my hands, waiting for those green eyes to flash open and look at me, but they don’t. When my palms graze her cheeks, a weakened groan escapes my lips at how cold they are.

“No. No, no, no,” I mumble, pressing my lips to her forehead as my vision blurs.

She can’t be dead.

Finley can’t be dead.

“She was stabbed. Twice.” Levi’s voice sounds a million miles away. “She passed out literally two seconds before you started kicking at the door.”

Scooping her head up, her arms dangle as I prop her in my lap. Her dead weight rests on me, and it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t scare easily. I don’t scare at all. But the thought of losing her puts fear in me that feels like it could quite literally kill me.

“Finley, baby?” I pat her cheek softly, my shoulders sagging even more when she doesn’t flinch. “Wake up. Can you hear me? Wake up .”

Levi grabs one of her hands, and fuck , I hate this. I hate this.

We can’t stay here. The fire will consume the entire building soon, and she needs help. My brain goes into overdrive as I start to move, pressing my fingers to her throat as I assess the wounds on her stomach and her right thigh. A sigh of relief leaves me as I feel the tiniest, faintest thrumming against my fingers.

“There’s a pulse,” I say in a rush, laying her head down gently as I take my hunting knife and rip the sleeve of my sweater off. “It’s barely there, but it’s there. We need to tourniquet her leg and get out of here.”

For the slightest second, my nostrils flare in frustration that Levi didn’t think to do this already, but she’s not the only one who has been through trauma tonight. I clocked the cut on his neck the moment he sat up earlier and how skinny he seemed compared to normal. He just watched his best friend bleed out until exhaustion. I have to let it slide that it didn’t cross his mind. There’s no going back now.

“What do I do?” he asks.

“Here.” I hand him the torn piece of fabric. “Tie this off above the stab wound on her leg. Tie it tight.”

He looks at me like I’m crazy for a minute, and I’m sure he has an overwhelming amount of thoughts circling his head right now, but he swallows thickly and nods before doing what I ask. More blood oozes from the wound as he ties it around her thigh, and he hisses uncomfortably as it gets on his shaky fingers. Swiping his nose with the back of his hand, he looks up at me again with a newfound uncertainty.

“Is that right?”

I nod. “Now help me get her up.”

Throwing her arm over my shoulder and wrapping mine around her waist, I hoist her from the ground. My heart stutters as I watch her limp body sag in my hold. Levi groans as he puts her other arm around him, and I can see the fresh tears on his cheeks. Finley would want me to comfort him, I know that, but he’s a grown man. So, I comfort her instead, even though I have no idea if she can actually hear me.

And maybe it’s more for me, I don’t know. But I do it anyway.

“Come on, baby,” I say into her ear, walking her toward the open door with Levi’s help. “I’m getting you out of here. You’re going to be fine. Hear me? Hear what I’m saying? I’ve got you, Princesa .”

My old contacts came in handy today. I’d found a scapegoat for the explosion at my house on the drive here—some poor fucker who would take the blame for it instead of allowing the police to fully look into it. My guys are already on their way here to take care of the smoke and fire here at the compound, so no one would come snooping around to see where all of it was coming from. I have my bases covered. I always do.

There’s even a medic on standby who can take care of Finley and use the cover story I’d come up with in two minutes as I was rigging this place with explosives.

I just have to get her to him, and he’ll do the rest.

I just have to get her to him.

There’s just one minor flaw in my plan. I haven’t run into the sorry son of a bitch responsible for this, and I know he’s here. He wouldn’t leave. Javier needs to see this through, so I know he’s still creeping around here somewhere, waiting. Typical of him to allow all his men to be killed while he sits back.

Turning right out of the doorway, we hurry away from the fire and smoke down the hallway. I know this compound like the back of my hand. Getting out of here won’t be an issue, but not knowing where Javier might be…

Keep going.

She’s my main focus.

She is always my main focus.

Even when I see a shadowy figure step into the end of the long hallway, she’s my main focus. Even when I make out the sadistic grin and split eyebrow immediately, she’s my main focus. I will get her out of here, no matter how I have to do it.

“Sad,” Javier’s voice carries down the hallway, making Levi halt in his tracks and forcing me to stop with him. He’s a good ten feet away still, but he takes short strides toward us. “She had so much potential. Sí? ”

“Hold her,” I tell Levi.

“No, Serrano?—”

“ Hold her .”

The look in my eyes must scare the hell out of him, because he takes her from me without more hesitation, bringing her down to the ground with him as he cushions her head with his lap. I take one last glance down at her, observing her soft features and blood-stained skin. It’s another very fucking loud reminder that I’m about to make Javier’s death as painful as it can possibly be. Normally, I’d prefer to slowly torture him, but she’s my main focus.

Time is dwindling, and she doesn’t have much more to give.

“I’ll say,” Javier continues, laughing darkly. “You surprised me, Luca, blowing up my compound like this.”

“You blew up my fucking house.”

I start my trek down the hallway toward him, the glow from the fire illuminating everything in an orange hue. My skin is dirty with blood and ash, and smoke lingers in the air.

“Should’ve just paid me my money,” he says, two feet away now.

We circle each other, and I catch the glint of a knife in his hand as he fiddles with it in his fingers. Eager. Like he’s ready for this. He never fucking plays fair. Fist fights are always out of the question for him because he doesn’t know how to defend himself unless he has a weapon in his hand. I yank my knife out, tossing it back and forth between my hands as I slowly walk around him.

“I was trying to,” I grit out.

“Then you just killed my men instead.”

My lips twitch. “And it was too fucking easy.”

His knife zips through the air toward me, and I jump back just in time as a chuckle filters through my lips. His pace picks up as he grows more frustrated, and that tells me I’m cornering him right where I want him. His anger issues would have always been his downfall. He’s too irrational, doesn’t use his tiny fucking brain to think things through before he lets his rage take over every situation. Case in point: my laugh only pisses him off more, and he steps at me again to swing the knife in my direction.

It’s why he always had me do his dirty work.

He could never do the shit I did successfully.

“Testy,” I comment, flashing him a shit-eating grin.

He goes to slice at me once more, this time higher, but I duck as his arm flies over my head and jab my blade into his ribcage. In and out. A clean stab, a painful one. Javier growls out as he halts his movements, and I take that moment to step around him and lodge my knife into his back. I hear the gargle in his voice as he tries to yell, and it’s all the confirmation I need to know I’ve hit his lung.

“Still letting that anger get the best of you, Javi?”

He chokes out another growl, swinging his arm around as he turns to face me, nicking my bare arm with the tip of his blade. Blood trickles down my skin, but it’s just a surface injury. A fucking splinter.

“I take that as a yes.” Smirking, I lower myself into a fighting stance as I start to circle him again.

He stumbles to keep up with me, and I can see the crimson liquid trickling from the sides of his mouth as he chokes on it. His lungs are filling with blood. It’ll be just like drowning, but that’s not good enough for me.

“I expected more of a fight from you,” I taunt. “You had so much potential .”

He lunges at me with his knife out, and I step aside just long enough for him to almost fly past me, except I grasp the back of his head and smash it directly into the concrete wall. The crunch of his nose is like music to my ears, and so is his yelp of pain afterward. He staggers away from me, holding his nose as he sputters on his blood.

“ Serrano ,” Levi calls from down the hall. “Her pulse. I can’t find it!”

Fuck .

I used to want nothing more than to make him suffer for everything he put me through. For all the fucked up shit I’d endured since meeting him. For hurting my Finley. But she is my main focus . She’s sweeter than revenge could ever be for me.

If she dies, none of this matters. None of what has occurred today would mean anything. I wouldn’t mean anything. I’d never felt like more of a person than when I was with her. Not a monster, not a killer, not a bad guy. She put a morally broken man back together with her tiny hands and loved every piece of me, despite how ugly some parts were.

Tugging my pistol from my waistband, I can practically feel the single bullet left in the chamber burning through my palm as I point it directly at his head.

“You lose,” I say.

The shot echoes in the hallway, deafening and an end. It’s a sound of solace and freedom that I never thought I’d get to hear. Watching the bullet fire directly between his eyes is an image that’ll be engraved in my brain forever. A memory to replay over and over to remind myself I am finally free. A lullaby to help me sleep at night.

Two hundred and eight ? —

No.

I am free.