Page 24

24

Luca

It’s 2.30 p.m., and exhaustion creeps into my body. I’m running on fumes, and I need to crash before the dinner tonight. I need to be on my A-game.

I’ve not seen Layla since I sent her off with Rome to get what she needs from her apartment and a dress for the dinner, but I’ve been kept updated with their movements via Roman's moaning.

One more meeting, then I can go home and sleep for a few hours.

Henry Bishop, my IT guy, walks into my office as I spark up a smoke.

“Hi, Luca.” He closes the door. He looks relaxed, in jeans and a long sleeve Henley. His hair is a mess, no doubt from tugging the roots while he deals with whatever IT problem is in front of him.

He flops into the chair opposite my desk and opens the laptop, pushing his glasses up his nose, his bright green eyes alert and intelligent.

“I wanted to run something past you,” I say, not bothering with small talk.

I fill Henry in on Layla’s idea, using a Deliveroo type model to distribute the drugs. He listens intently and thinks it through.

“It’s doable,” he says finally, shifting forward. “It will need to be hosted on the dark web, with no fixed IP address. Could have it set up like our current network. IP will refresh every 60 seconds. People will have to have a VPN to access the app, to protect themselves and us.”

“Deliveries?”

“Could be through one of our more trusted distributers. Would need to be a café that already has good traction through the app.”

“Risk?”

“Medium. Doing a pilot first will allow us to see how the model works and streamline if we want to scale. It’s a brilliant idea! Piggybacking onto a well-known business model.”

“Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ones.” I rub my lips. “What about the drivers?”

“Could be standard Deliveroo drivers. The product will be packed in food containers and sealed. They deliver the product thinking it’s food.”

I grin. Fucking brilliant. Why hadn’t we thought of it sooner? So simple. We have just extended the number of our drug dealers to completely oblivious delivery employees.

“Any thoughts on scalability?” A pilot is great, but we need to consider the next level. The Albanians are smart, this may not be a unique idea for much longer.

If, in fact, it hasn’t already been done.

“We just need to think about what restaurants are worth doing, and how many we have in our network. If there are gaps in our territory, we will need to look at procuring new restaurants in those areas.”

“Or embedding our people to distribute the orders through existing restaurants.”

“That aren’t ours?”

“Exactly.” I snap my fingers. “If it’s our restaurants, it’s our premises, our liability. The paper will always be able to be traced back to us. If it’s our people, we can embed them as employees to each restaurant. Harder to track, as they have no paper ties back to us. Can we get this set up, test it?”

He nods and pulls his laptop closer, tapping on the screen and keyboard then folds the laptop on itself, so it becomes a tablet screen and lays it flat on my desk.

“Would need to check, but Martin has the Little Hub Café. He covers this core area.” He draws a circle with the pen. “If we put some of his guys in this chicken shop,” he points to the screen, “we can test the model and extend his territory where we already had a blind spot the Albanians are leveraging.”

I lean back and nod. “Set it up. We have a new shipment coming with the new product in five weeks. We need the men in position then, along with all supporting tech.”

“Got it. Do you want to see the final design?”

“No, just make it easy to use. Think ordering an Uber when you're blind drunk.”

“Cash only, right?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.” Henry stands and grins.

“You’re on point, Henry. Link up with Roman on product distribution. He’ll help work out the logistics of getting it to where it needs to be for the boys. We also have a new business venture in the works with Asher Black.”

“Really? Since when do The Covenant want to deal directly with us?”

“Really, this isn’t The Covenant though, this is Black himself.” I stand, shrugging into my jacket. My pillow beckons. “Black Logistics happen to provide the solution to our Thames problem. I’m going to hook you into the discussions, I want you in the Black Distribution systems, I want all the information you can find, along with a list of security risks.”

“You’re asking me to hack your new business partner?”

I walk around the desk and put my arm over his shoulder. “When you say it like that it sounds terrible. I need you to search for weaknesses.”

He throws his head and chuckles. “You can polish the turd as much as you want, Luca, but when Asher finds out he’ll be pissed.”

“Meh.” I shrug, opening my office door to him. “He needs me as much as I need him, he needs to understand where his weaknesses are. Just like we need to be aware of where ours are.”

“I have multiple pen tests running daily, we have no security weaknesses.” He looks affronted.

“I’m not talking about technical weaknesses, brother.”

I lean against the doorframe to the master suite and stare at her for a minute. She’s in my bed.

The covers are pooled around her waist, she’s half hugging, half lying on the pillow with her arm thrown over it. Her lips parted as she breathes deeply in a peaceful sleep.

She’s naked.

I stare at the woman who has become my obsession. My weakness. The woman who has possibly given me a solution to push ahead of everyone.

I’m trying to work out why and how she has gotten under my skin so much and so quickly. Ever since she opened that car door and pulled me out of the wreck, I’ve been drawn to her. The sass, the innocence, the fear.

She’s like a drug.

And I can’t wait to take another hit.

Pushing off the frame I start to undress, my body lethargic and heavy. I want to shove my head between her legs. My dick already hard at seeing her in my space.

But I need to sleep.

I set the alarm on my phone for 6 p.m., giving us three hours.

I pull the covers off and climb in, the space between us too vast, but I don’t close the distance. Rome filled me in on her tears in the car, then the phone call, she knows what I’ve done. Whether she’s worked out that it was me who paid off her debt, remains to be seen. I pushed her this morning. As much as I need to be on my A-Game, so does she. That mask she has spent her life perfecting, I need her to put it on so they all believe what we have is real.

As I pull the covers over my naked body, she mumbles and her sweet coconut and vanilla scent washes over me, bringing me peace, quietening my mind as sleep pulls me under.

I wake to the sound of running water.

Layla is gone.

Reaching over to my phone, it’s 5:59. Pressing the button next to the bed the curtains automatically rise showing the last of the setting sun over the London skyline.

After checking my phone and making sure nothing has burnt down within my empire, I climb out of bed and walk to the bathroom.

My body still sluggish from the afternoon nap, making me feel groggy. She’s in the shower, her back to me as water cascades down her body. She doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge me, just pretends I’m not here, even though we can both already feel the tension thickening the air between us.

I cross the steamy bathroom, the condensation building on the mirror. Opening the door, I climb in and my dick twitches. “Layla.”

Her head is bowed, her chin dropped so low that all the water runs over her head onto her face.

It’s then that I see the slight rising of her shoulders; she’s hiding her face from me because she’s crying. I reach out to touch her shoulder.

“Please don’t touch me,” she whispers, brushing me off, stepping to the side and covers her face.

“Turn around.” I demand but she stays still, I step around her, so I’m standing in front, my frame and her deflated form making her seem tiny and broken.

The stream of water is hot, the heat prickles my skin, and I notice how red she is from the onslaught of the heat. I reach behind me and turn on some cold. Then I slowly pull her hands away from her face.

“Tell me what happened.”

“No.” Her voice is a broken whisper, and it feels like a knife to my heart.

This beautiful woman who has so much more to give, this beautiful woman who I’m going to break and destroy. And for the first time, in all my shit existence, I feel something close to remorse about it.

She’s a pawn, Luca, remember that.

Is she though?

“I am a man of my word, Layla. I will protect you and those you love.”

She nods once and I wipe the tears and water from her face. Her eyes pierce mine searching for truth in them.

I may be a bastard, but I am true to my word.

“Was it you?” She says quietly her eyes beseeching. “Did you pay off my care home debt?”

“Yes.”

Her bottom lip trembles. “Why?”

“You negotiated.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” We look into each other’s eyes, and my dead heart slams against my chest, fuck me. I want her to be happy. I didn’t think she would look so devastated.

She rises up on tiptoes and presses the softest of kisses on my lips.

“Thank you, Luca.” She places her hands on my cheeks, and I can see it in her expression how grateful she is, and I’d be lying if I didn’t feel something warm grow inside me. “I-I can’t ever repay you. No one—”

“You don’t need to.” I say shaking my head. Because she doesn’t. “Turn around, sunshine.” She does as instructed, and I grab the shampoo. Taking my time, I massage some into her hair, creating a lather of bubbles that fall onto her shoulders and the space between.

I touch her softly, tracing the red skin along her spine before going back to her hair.

“Why have you marked your beautiful skin?” My fingers work deftly and tilt her head back. Her eyes lock with mine and she shrugs.

“Sometimes, physical pain is easier to deal with than the chaos of my head.”

“So, you hurt yourself?”

She shrugs, and it pisses me off. “Layla.” I grip her chin and force those beautiful blues to meet my gaze. “Life is messy. You need to use that pain—you need to find that strength and power through it.”

“I’ve spent years powering through, Luca. I’m fucking tired,” she says, clearing her throat. “So, I mark my skin because at least feeling that physical pain takes me out of my own head for a minute. It gives me back control, even if it’s just for a second.” She tries to pull her face away, her body tensing with anger, but I hold her firm and bend so that I’m level with her.

“I see you, sunshine, I see the life you’ve been dealt.” I touch the jagged scar on her stomach. “Turn that pain into a spark, and let it fuel you. Yes, life has given you a shit hand, yes, your life is complicated right now, but opportunities are arising. Use them. Use me.”

“Like you’re using me?”

My jaw tenses, and I turn my attention back to her hair and rinse off the bubbles. I move onto the conditioner taking my time to massage her head.

“You’re a solution to a current problem, this is a win-win for both of us.” Taking the shower gel, I run it over her shoulders, her stomach, her pussy.

A whisper of a moan passes her lips, as my fingers trace her.

“So there's nothing else to it then?” I don’t reply and she sighs.

“What happened to you? How did you get into this life?”

I don’t answer that question because it’s a story that isn’t for sharing. My journey is not a kind one. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to her. The difference is I let my pain fuel me, and maybe there is something else that’s familiar between us: the need to take control. She just does it in a more self-destructive way and, going forward, if I have to add her name to the list of people I have to protect her from, I’ll do it.

We’re quiet, our breathing heavy, as she moans while I continue to work her pussy and wash away her afternoon. My cock is rock hard, and I want to bury myself in her.

She rests her hand on my cheek, and I fucking lean into it, the softest of smiles tugs at her lips.

“Who would have thought Luca Knight could be so soft and gentle.” On tiptoes she places another soft kiss on my lips.

“It’s our little secret, sunshine, I’ll kill anyone to keep it safe.” Then I take her mouth in mine.

Fuck.

I’m in too deep.