Three to Fall (Saint View Slayers vs. Sinners #3)

9. Hayden

9

HAYDEN

I ’d never chopped vegetables as aggressively as I did while watching Luca and his father and their friends on the restaurant security cameras. I resented every slice of my knife, and the sharp blade took chunks out of the chopping board because I wasn’t being careful.

I needed to settle down before I took a slice out of my finger and ended up with yet another round of Hawk’s stitches. But Luca’s presence always got under my skin.

Especially with him and Kara in the same room.

I didn’t want her anywhere near him. But it seemed that was inevitable today.

I just needed to cook quicker. Get them out of here faster.

Kara came over from the sink where I’d basically hidden her, busying her with washing dishes, and I relaxed an inch at having her close to me. She rubbed a soothing hand up and down my back, not saying anything, but just knowing her presence was all I wanted.

“They’ll be gone soon, and then we’ll get the party back on track. Luca said it’s just an hour.”

She had a lot of faith in Luca’s word.

I did not.

Kara’s hand pausing on my back should have been the first sign of trouble, but it was Luca’s shadow falling over me before I realized there were other people in the kitchen.

His father and his friends all stood behind him.

Luca cleared his throat. “So this is where all the action happens…”

I glared at him. “What are you doing back here?”

“Just giving my father and his friends the grand tour of the place while we wait for our meals.”

“Kitchen’s off-limits,” I snapped. I nudged Kara toward the back of the room, away from Luca’s friends and their leering stares.

An older man narrowed his eyes at me disapprovingly, but his words were directed at his son. “You let your staff speak to you like that?”

“I’m not his staff,” I bit out.

Luca changed the subject. “Chaos is an amazing chef. The food is getting rave reviews…”

Luca’s dad wandered into the kitchen, peering into the frying pans on the stove and strolling about the place like he had every right in the world. He paused behind Kara and cocked his head to one side, studying her. “And who’s this pretty thing? Too pretty to be hiding away back here if you ask me.” He glanced at his son. “What have I told you? You put the pretty ones out in front where we can see them. Nobody wants to be served food by men.” He offered me a fake smile. “No offense.”

Anger bubbled up inside me, but Luca stepped between Kara and his father and gave me a ‘I’m handling it, settle down’ look. Which only made me want to hit him more.

Luca cringed, getting my message loud and clear that neither he nor his family were welcome in my kitchen. “Come on. Let me show you the sex club side. That’s where all the action really takes place.”

His father nodded and went to follow, but then he paused, bending over to pick something up off the floor. He opened the folded piece of paper and then looked at Kara again.

“Is this your daughter?”

The man flashed a photo of Kara and Hayley Jade. One I’d had printed for her that usually sat on her bedside table.

Kara dried her hands quickly and reached for the photo. “Yes. Thank you. That must have fallen out of my pocket.”

Luca’s dad moved the photo out of her reach. “Pretty runs in your family.” He showed Luca the photo. “She’d go six figures at an auction.”

The blood drained from my face. I lunged for the man, but Luca stepped in front of me swiftly, cutting me off before anyone else noticed I was moving.

He snatched the photo from his father’s fingers. “That’s not funny. She’s a child.”

But his father clearly wasn’t joking. “Yeah. A pretty one. Big market for that if you want to stop being such a princess and do as you’re actually fucking told for once.”

Luca lowered his voice, eyeing his father and the other older men all watching on curiously. “We’re in the way of my staff. Let them do their jobs. Tour’s over.”

Luca’s dad eyed him in challenge, neither of them budging an inch, the standoff real in their rigid postures. Father against son.

Luca was an inch taller, and I knew he had a gun at his hip, currently hidden beneath his suit jacket.

But his father had a domineering presence that couldn’t be ignored. As well as three friends ready to back him up if it came down to it. They all watched him, taking their cues from the elder Guerra.

Seconds felt like minutes.

Until he smiled and put his hands up in mock surrender. “Of course. Of course. It’s your business now. You get to run it as you see fit.” He turned to his friends. “Let’s go see if our drinks are ready, yes?”

They all relaxed visibly and walked out of my kitchen as a pack.

Luca let out a long sigh tinged with relief and leaned his elbows on the metal countertop, breathing hard.

All of us left in the kitchen stared as Luca’s shoulders shook silently.

I jerked my head at Jonie and Mitchell, my kitchen staff. “Take a break. Out in back somewhere. Go through the maze. You go nowhere near those men. Got it?”

They nodded quickly, pulling off their aprons and scurrying out.

Luca sucked in a deep breath and lifted his head. “Thanks.” He turned to Kara. “I’m really sorry.”

Her mouth dropped open. Then closed. Then opened again. “You are?”

She took the words right out of my mouth.

He straightened, clearly trying to get himself under control. “What he said about your daughter…that’s…I’m just sorry. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

I went to say something, but she cut me off, obviously needing to say some things of her own. “So you have a physical reaction to the idea of a child being sold but zero care when that person is a woman?”

Luca scrubbed his hands over his face. “At least they’re adults.”

“Not consenting ones.” Her voice was sharp. Unforgiving. “Don’t go thinking you’re some sort of hero just because you drew a wobbly line in the sand about not trafficking children. That doesn’t forgive your sins.”

Pride swelled inside me, watching her stare Luca down and confront him with the truth. She was so different from the quiet, meek woman I’d once known.

I’d loved her then. But I loved this version even more. She was brave. Bold. Unafraid to stand up for others, even if she didn’t always stand up for herself.

I’d never seen Luca so rattled. It wasn’t just Kara’s words getting to him. Something else had to be going on.

I folded my arms across my chest, waiting for some sort of explanation.

“You know my sister is married to one of those guys? My baby sister, I should add.” The bitterness in Luca’s tone filled the kitchen like a frost had just rolled in. “Their wedding was last weekend, and I had to sit there in the front row and watch it.” He shook his head. “She’s barely ten years older than your kid now.”

“That’s horrible,” Kara whispered. “Fifteen is still a child.”

Luca nodded. “It was. It is. My sister cried through the entire ceremony. But my father determined she was available, and Lorenzo made the highest bid.” He swore softly beneath his breath. “You know my father didn’t even react to Isabella’s tears. He just sat there, completely unmoved, even when she begged him to stop it. And when Lorenzo got pissed off and backhanded her to stop her crying, my dad put a gun to my head because I dared to reach for mine.”

All I could see in my head was an image of a slightly older Hayley Jade, dressed in all white, crying while a priest bound her in holy matrimony with a man old enough to be her grandfather.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I muttered.

But Kara held Luca’s gaze. “My world wasn’t so different to yours. My marriage was arranged and not one I ever wanted. Nobody stood up for me either.”

I couldn’t stand hearing any of it. Didn’t want to think about the horrors that child had suffered for the past week at her husband’s hands.

Anger swelled inside me rapidly. I stared at Luca, unable to understand him. “What are you doing, man? Is this really the life you want for yourself? For other people?”

Luca lifted his head wearily. “What exactly do you expect me to do? I tried—”

Oh, he was a piece of work. “You tried? Is that seriously how you’re sleeping at night, knowing that old man is raping your sister? Could you look her in the eye and tell her you truly did everything you could to save her?”

Luca stared at me. “You and I aren’t all that different, you know. Once upon a time, you were just as involved in this world as I am.”

Except we were different, and we both knew it. “I was a twenty-five-year-old kid with no money, no prospects, and no direction. I was desperate. But that still doesn’t excuse what I did to Kara, and to the other women we held all those years ago. I made mistakes. I owned them. And I grew the fuck up. I made a choice to get out. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you can’t do the same if you wanted to. You have a choice to make. And it’s yours.”

Luca pulled back his shoulders, buttoning his suit jacket, but his eyes still showed the raw vulnerability of his true feelings. “Choices like that are a luxury, Chaos. Not one all of us get to make.” The guards came back over his eyes, darkening them as he built his walls up around himself once more. “Get our meals out. We’ll eat and then we’ll be gone. I won’t bring them back here. This place is yours.”

Kara watched him walk away. “What did he mean by that?”

I didn’t know but there was one thing I did. That nothing Luca said or did was ever as it seemed. “Probably nothing good.”