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

25. Hayden

25

HAYDEN

I woke in the middle of the night, sandwiched between Kara and Hawk, all three of us still bare-ass naked from fooling around earlier. I blinked in the darkness of my room, trying to work out what had woken me, but my brain was still fuzzy with sleep.

“Answer your fucking phone already.” Hawk fumbled on the bedside table next to him until he found the offending device and dropped it onto my chest.

I picked it up and blinked at the blurry screen, trying to make out the time, but got sidetracked by Luca’s name flashing obnoxiously.

“Shit.” Instantly more awake, I scooted to the end of the bed, yanked on some boxers, and replaced the covers over Kara’s shoulders.

Hawk rolled into my spot, pulling her tight against his chest and spooning her from behind.

I let myself into the dark, quiet communal room. Everyone was still asleep, and it was almost pitch-black. But I’d lived here long enough now that I instinctively knew where all the furniture was. I sank down onto the cracked leather couch without bothering to turn on the light.

“What?” The greeting came out short and snappy, my entire body already on alert because Luca calling at this hour of the night couldn’t mean anything good.

Luca didn’t even say hello. Just barked an order down the line. “I need you.”

Oh, fuck him, calling me like I would just drop everything to come to his beck and call at two in the morning. “Don’t care. I’m going back to bed.”

“Hayden, please.”

I paused at the crack in his voice.

I was pretty sure I’d never heard Luca say please in the entire time I’d known him. Asking nicely wasn’t in his personality. There was never any room for refusal. He just demanded what he wanted, and ninety-nine-percent of the time, he got it.

He certainly never showed any emotion.

“What’s wrong? Is it Sinners?” I’d only left there a few hours earlier. My heart rate picked up as I mentally tried to remember if I’d switched off every gas burner and set the alarms.

“I’m at the hospital. In emergency. I won’t be here long, but I need you to come down. Please.” He ended the call before I could ask any other questions.

I swore under my breath and contemplated just going back to bed, but the kernel of worry inside me would keep me awake, I just knew it.

Luca had been off the last time I’d seen him. Upset over his underage sister’s marriage, and things had clearly been strained between him and his father.

It was the knowledge I was probably the last person he’d call if he had any other options that had me flicking the flashlight on my phone on and sneaking back into Hawk’s room to grab my clothes and boots.

I kissed Kara’s cheek softly, and she stirred, but I murmured softly in her ear, “I have to go out for a bit. Go back to sleep.”

She mumbled something but nodded, and I slipped out of the room. The other day when we’d been planning Alice’s funeral and memorial, I’d left a notepad and pen on the big communal table. I paused, jotting down a note that told them where I was going.

Couldn’t be too careful with Luca. Being summoned to his hospital bedside could end in any number of ways, and if I didn’t make it back for whatever reason, at least they’d be able to give the cops a starting spot.

The thought didn’t leave me particularly warm and cozy. For half a second, I thought about taking one of Hawk’s guns with me, but what the fuck was I going to do with one of those in the middle of a hospital filled with sick people and kids? Not to mention the fact I’d never get it past all the new security measures the hospital had installed after what had happened to Kara.

I drove into town, cursing myself for being this stupid. I tried talking myself out of it, the warning in my head practically a siren, but my fingers held the wheel steady, and my foot stayed on the gas until I was walking into the emergency room like the complete sucker I knew I was.

Gray was here somewhere tonight, taking on an extra overnight shift when one of his patients had taken a turn for the worse and was in the middle of an involuntary psych hold. But I hoped that wasn’t anywhere near the emergency room, because whatever was happening with Luca didn’t need to involve my family.

I blinked at feeling protective over Grayson. That had snuck up on me, maybe somewhere between him saving Kara’s life and realizing he’d watched YouTube tutorials on how to French braid Hayley Jade’s hair. He was terrible at it. Her hair had looked like a rat’s nest when he’d given his newfound skills a whirl, and Hawk had made jokes about this being why he wasn’t a surgeon getting paid the big dollars.

But I’d seen Hayley Jade’s face as she’d checked herself out in the mirror. She’d been absolutely thrilled and had been Grayson’s little shadow for the rest of the evening, following him around, gazing up at him with big, adoring eyes.

I doubted anyone else had noticed, but I had.

I entered the hospital and pushed all thoughts of my family aside. I couldn’t think about them right now. Luca could be your best friend if he wanted to be. Or your worst enemy. I never knew which one I was going to get until the moment I saw him.

I paused at the reception window and spoke to the woman on the other side. “Where can I find Luca Guerra, please?”

She tapped her fingers across a keyboard, then shook her head. “No one here by that name.”

I sighed and pulled out my phone to call him, having no idea what sort of alias he might have used and no desire at this time of morning to try guessing.

The woman interrupted me before I could make the call. “We do have an Isabella Guerra, though, with Luca Guerra listed as next of kin.”

I frowned. “Okay. That’ll work, I guess. Can you tell me where they are?”

“Are you family?”

“Sure.”

The woman looked too tired to argue.

“She’s been moved to the private ward. They don’t have visiting hours, so I guess you’re free to head up there if you want to. Floor three. Bed 327. Elevators are just behind you.”

I thanked her and made the short ride up, trying to make any sense of what was going on here.

But by the time the doors opened and I found Isabella’s room, I still had no idea what was going on. I knocked quietly on the open door, the room warm with a soft, rhythmic beeping coming from a machine attached to the teenage girl lying in the bed.

Luca sat on a chair, his arms folded on top of the mattress, his head twisted to one side while he watched over his sleeping sister. “She tried to kill herself.”

I leaned on the wall. “This is the sister your dad married off to that old prick you brought to the restaurant the other week, right?”

He finally lifted his head to look at me and nodded.

I had to fight to keep my expression neutral. I’d never seen Luca so wrecked. He had dark circles beneath his eyes, his normally neatly styled hair stuck up at all angles. There was no sign of his trademark suits or even the gym gear I’d seen him in once or twice. He wore a plain white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweats I suspected might have been his pajamas.

“Is she going to be okay?”

Isabella didn’t wake at our hushed conversation, but even in sleep her forehead was lined in a way no girl her age should have been. She should have been at school. Or cheerleading on the sidelines of a football game.

Not lying in a bed with a rock on her finger the size of Texas after having her stomach pumped.

“Doctor says yes. He wants her to stay for twenty-four hours of observation, but she can’t. I’ve got my guys downstairs, my bags packed.” His gaze met mine. “I’m taking her and running. She’s not going back to her fucking husband while I’m still breathing. I’m not fucking losing her.”

“I would do the same.”

He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded, pushing to his feet and putting his hand on Isabella’s shoulder. “Hey, Is. Wake up. We need to get going.”

The girl blinked sleepily, but I was still confused as to why I’d been summoned. It wasn’t like Luca and I were friends and he just wanted to say goodbye.

Isabella sat up groggily, and he pulled a sweatshirt over her head, like I would have to Hayley Jade.

He glanced around, clearly searching for her shoes, and I toed them toward him from beneath the end of the bed.

He crouched to pick them up, and when he straightened, he held his hand out to me. “Sinners is yours. I’ve already told my lawyers to sign over the entire business to you. You’ll get the paperwork in the next few days.”

I widened my eyes in surprise, but instantly, suspicion followed. Because nothing ever came from Luca without a price. “What’s the catch? The whole business is in my name, but I pay you ninety-percent of the profits off the books?”

Luca’s eyes hardened. “No. There’s no catch. You can’t send me any money. Or try to contact me. I need there to be zero trace if I’m going to get her away safely before her husband and my father find out.”

I stared at him, some deep-rooted part of me understanding what it was to suddenly be the father figure for a child who needed you. Recognizing this was him doing exactly what I’d taunted him with last time I’d seen him. I’d told him he needed to man up. Take responsibility for his actions and be someone he could be proud of.

He’d claimed he didn’t have the luxury.

But apparently now he was doing it anyway. For his sister.

He sniffed with a shrug. “Sinners was always supposed to be yours anyway. I only bought it to mess with your head.”

We both knew that wasn’t exactly true. He’d enjoyed building that business. I’d maybe even enjoyed having his guidance. At least I had when he hadn’t been trying to force me to do illegal shit for him.

“Where will you go?”

He grinned, helping his sister off the bed now her shoes were on her feet. “Who knows? Anywhere Is wants to go, I guess.”

She raised her head and stared up at her older brother. “Seriously? Even Str—”

Luca put a finger to her lips. “If you tell him we’ll have to kill him.” He gave me a solemn nod. “And I’d rather not hurt this one.”

The two of them shuffled to the door, Isabella wincing with each step and clutching her stomach but determined to leave anyway. I stood watching them, trying to wrap my head around owning my dream business. Not just a shitty ten-percent share. But the entire thing.

Luca glanced back over his shoulder. “Chaos?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful of my dad, okay? He’ll come looking for me when he realizes both Is and I are gone. Sinners, along with all my other businesses, will be the first places he tries.”

He disappeared around the corner.

Leaving me wondering if a gift from Luca Guerra was ever something actually good, or if it was just a nightmare waiting to happen.