Page 28 of Entwined Lies (Entwined #1)

Luca

Tony was gone. Wrapped in concrete and silence, buried with the consequences of his choices. That part of yesterday was clean. Handled the way things needed to be.

But her?

I kept replaying the moment Isabelle saw the blood on my arm.

It wasn’t a real injury. A graze, nothing more. I’ve worked through worse without blinking. Hell, I stitched myself up in the back of a club between meetings. It never meant anything.

Outside of Enzo and Nico, I could count on one hand how many people I ever let do something for me. Because nothing’s ever free. Every favor, every show of concern, comes with a string attached. Even loyalty has a price tag. People don’t do things unless there’s something in it for them.

Yet she hadn’t wanted anything. Just wanted me okay. And that cracked something open in me I didn’t know how to close.

I expected her to freeze. Or panic. Or worse—hover just enough to make a scene. That’s what people usually do when I bleed. Stand back. Let me handle it.

But not her.

After I refused to accept help, she didn’t ask. She ordered me to sit on the edge of the tub like she’d been patching me up for years. And I listened .

That alone should’ve surprised me. Yet it wasn’t what stuck.

What stuck was the way she looked at me. She was… scared.

For me.

Not the name. Not the reputation. Not the man who pulls the strings. Me .

And I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.

I meant to find her after. Sit with her. Pull her close and maybe say too much. But by the time I got to bed, she was asleep. Face relaxed. Hands tucked under her cheek.

This morning, I came down late. She and Enzo were already at the table, laughing softly over coffee. Like nothing happened. Like she hadn’t cared so much, it nearly broke me.

Now, we sat in the back of Enzo’s SUV, the space between us small. Too small for all the things I hadn’t said.

She put her hand on my thigh. Light. Easy. Like it meant nothing. But it meant everything.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to breathe like my pulse wasn’t already shifting gears.

Enzo caught my eye in the rearview mirror and looked away.

Her fingers crept up my thigh like they had no intention of stopping. When she settled right at the center and started moving—slow, deliberate circles—I nearly swallowed my own damn tongue.

For a second, I thought she was just teasing. Being cute. Then I realized—no. She was being strategic. This was psychological warfare dressed as affection.

By the fifth pass, my self-control walked out and left me to die with a hard-on and a very smug blonde pretending she wasn’t destroying me one casual pass at a time.

The worst part? I didn’t stop her.

The real worst part? Enzo was absolutely clocking this in silence, probably filing it away for future harassment .

“You’re playing with fire, Siren,” I warned her under my breath.

She didn’t stop.

Didn’t even blink.

If anything, her touch got bolder—more pressure, more purpose. As if she were fine-tuning a weapon, and I was the test subject.

I shifted uncomfortably, putting distance between us, but the strain was all too obvious.

“That little game of yours? It’s gonna catch up with you.”

She didn’t even flinch. Just kept her eyes locked out the window, voice all sweet and bullshit. “No clue what you’re talking about.”

When we finally pulled up to the building, I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Enzo, of course, noticed. Gave me one look. Didn’t say a word—just raised a brow, smirk fully locked and loaded.

“Give me a minute. I’ll catch up.”

There was no way I was walking in there with a hard-on that could cut glass.

Isabelle leaned against the open car door, one hand tucked into the pocket of her white shorts. Her legs demanded a second look—and I should’ve had enough sense to resist, considering everything.

I looked anyway.

But it wasn’t just her legs that had me biting down a groan. It was the cocky tilt of her head, the slow bite of her lip as her gaze dragged straight to the thick, obvious bulge pressing against my pants.

“Need anything?” she asked, voice all sugar.

I glared. “Yeah. You gone. Now.”

They left.

I sat in the car, wondering how the hell my entire morning had been derailed by one smug look and a casual hand placement. Took three minutes to lie to myself convincingly that I had my shit together. Then I walked in like I had a single thought that wasn’t her .

Enzo’s knowing grin greeted me as I stepped inside and dropped into a chair at the table. His expression said everything he didn’t need to: he was enjoying this far too much.

I glanced sideways at Isabelle. She sat there, legs casually crossed, eyes skimming the paper Chrissy handed her, like nothing in the world could touch her.

The room was soaked in unspoken truths. Thick enough to taste. Eyes flickered my way, then quickly darted back down. Tony’s name hung like a ghost between us, unsaid but impossible to ignore.

“We’ve reviewed the details. Parker’s charity event will be a security nightmare, but it’s manageable,” Nina said, handing me a list of names. “We’ll need bugs not only in his office but also in the library—that’s where he holds his casual meetings.”

I nodded, forcing my mind to absorb the details. This was the part I was good at—planning, executing, staying three steps ahead. Except now, I was barely a step ahead of my own fantasies, and that was a fucking problem.

“Parker’s office,” I said, refocusing. “It’s not far from the ballroom. He’s likely to keep that area closely monitored, especially during an event like this.”

Nina nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Parker will hold his speech way before the dinner. But you’ll only have a small window. Once Parker’s done, people will start moving around again. You can’t be seen anywhere near that office.”

Reid didn’t even look up. Fingers flying across the keyboard, eyes locked on the screen like nothing else in the world existed. “I’ll loop the cameras. Once you give the word, I’ll trigger it. You’ll have ten minutes, max.”

“Tight, but doable,” I said, forcing a calm I wasn’t sure I felt. My jaw locked up for half a second before I pushed the nerves down. “Get in, plant the bugs, get out. Fast and clean. ”

“The office is the bigger problem,” Isabelle said, her finger tracing the layout on the table. “If we get caught there, it’s over. We need to handle it first. The library is more manageable.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the security feeds. Just give me the signal when you’re ready to move,” Reid glanced up from his screen. “I’ll handle the rest.”

“Once the bugs are in, Parker won’t have anywhere to hide. We’ll know who he’s working with—and what he’s planning,” Chrissy added.

“That’s the goal,” I muttered, already running worst-case scenarios in my head. We were gambling big. But it was now or never.

“Triple-check your setups,” I told them, pushing the meeting toward its end. “We screw this up, we don’t get a second chance.”

And if I could keep my head straight, maybe we’d actually pull it off.

? ? ?

It was late in the afternoon by the time the three of us finally got home. I walked into the office, Enzo on my heels, already gearing up to unload the usual shit—territories, money, and whatever else needed fixing to keep the empire from bleeding out.

The door shut with a soft, almost polite click. A bullshit kind of sound, considering how much weight it carried. The day wasn’t done. Not even close.

Enzo started with the capos, detailing who was doing their job and who needed a reminder of how things worked around here.

His voice was steady, practiced, like this was just another day at the office, despite the fact that our version of the office usually involved bullets, threats, and occasionally a body or two.

Next came the finances. He walked me through numbers and projections, potential revenue streams, and any signs of trouble on the horizon.

I nodded occasionally, processing the information on autopilot. Years of doing this had trained me to handle business even when my head was somewhere else—somewhere dangerously close to a woman lounging in the backyard.

He finished up with the warnings—rival families sniffing around, potential disruptions in operations, the usual “someone’s always trying to kill us” chatter. Important stuff, no doubt, but my mind wasn’t really in it. Not today.

I glanced out the window, and there she was.

Lying by the pool, her body stretched out under the last of the sunlight. One hand was skimming the water, the other holding her phone to her ear. Probably Jake. Maybe her mom.

Her face was soft, unguarded, and something in my chest pulled tight, sharp enough to hurt.

Enzo kept talking, but his voice barely registered.

All I could see was Isabelle—and the fucking bikini that should’ve been classified as a weapon.

Delicate white with soft floral patterns, the top barely held together by thin strings.

The bottoms? The way the ties hugged her hips, how her curves poured into them—it was lethal.

Made it impossible to remember why the hell we were even talking strategy instead of me having her bent over my desk.

“Good,” I said. My gaze refused to fucking move. “Keep it up. Let me know the second anything changes.”

Enzo finally caught on. “You have no idea what I was talking about.”

I let out a laugh and shook my head. “Not a fucking clue.”

Enzo smirked as he propped himself against my desk, arms crossed.

“She’s in your head already?” he asked, glancing toward the window. “You’re gone for her. ”

“She’s fucking gorgeous—anyone can see that. But it’s more than that. She’s got this… hold on me. I can’t explain it.” The words came out before I had a chance to stop them, the confession surprising even me.

Enzo’s smirk softened into something almost understanding, a rare moment where the teasing edge was gone. “You’ve never been one to let people in, but her? She’s got you, and you’re not even fighting it.”

“It’s not about letting her in. It’s not being able to shut her out. She’s under my skin, and it’s fucking me up.”

Enzo watched me for a beat, unreadable, then nodded like it finally made sense.

“Looks like you found her. The one who’s different.”

I tightened my jaw until it hurt, the weight of it settling heavy in my gut. He wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t ready to admit it out loud yet.

“And what the fuck I’m supposed to do? I can’t walk into this thing half-cocked, thinking about her every goddamn second. Not with the gala breathing down our necks.”

He raised an eyebrow, a grin breaking free. “Half-cocked, man? That’s your problem? Handle it before you worry about the gala.”

I barked out a laugh, rolling my eyes. “It wasn’t a pun, smartass. I’m serious. I can’t afford to be distracted.”

“Relax. I’m only giving you shit. If she’s got you this tied up, maybe you should stop fighting it and start figuring it out. What’s the worst that could happen—you fall for her even harder?”

“I get that. But it’s all connected—Isabelle, my son, the Russians, everything. If I screw this up…”

“You won’t. You’ve been through hell worse than this. Didn’t break then. Won’t break now. But for God’s sake, don’t go into the gala half-cocked. We need you at full throttle.”

Enzo tossed me a wink before slipping out .

I laughed under my breath and shook my head, the sound rough and low in the empty room. Full throttle. Leave it to him to throw a racing metaphor at me in the middle of an existential crisis.

Enzo was a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t wrong. Maybe I didn’t need to fight this so hard. Maybe—just maybe—letting myself feel something for her was the key to getting through this without losing my mind.

I sat down at my desk, forcing my attention to the stack of paperwork in front of me. Numbers, contracts, plans—none of them are registered. She shouldn’t be in my head, but here I was—pen tapping, jaw clenched, thinking of her.

What the fuck is happening to me?

I’d faced down death more times than I could count, stared into the barrel of a gun without flinching, and now? Now I couldn’t keep it together because she stretched out by the pool like every fantasy I didn’t even know I had.

I dropped my pen on the desk with a clatter. There was no pretending I was going to get anything accomplished.

The chair scraped back hard as I stood, then I walked straight to the patio. But it was empty.

I swept through the house—hallway, living room. The second I stepped into the kitchen, I stopped dead.

She was still wearing that tiny bikini, leaning lazily against the counter like sin in human form, a carton of ice cream in one hand. She dragged the spoon slowly across her tongue, eyes locking with mine.

It was a challenge, not a goddamn accident.