Chapter 4: The Ledger And The Scars
The back hallway is dead quiet. Sun streaming through the high windows feels like a holy blessing I don’t deserve.
My knees violently wobble, but I keep moving until he stops in front of a heavy oak door. He unlocks it and holds it open.
I hover nervously.
“You want space?” he asks, his tone even. “I can step out.”
“No,” I whisper. “Just… don’t close the door.”
He nods slowly, understanding more about me than I said. The office is warm, bright, and clean. He leans against his mahogany desk instead of sitting, crossing his arms loosely.
He lets me talk first, which is the strangest mercy I’ve felt in years.
“I didn’t mean to drag you into this,” I whisper. “You don’t even know me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says smoothly. “A scared woman ran into my bar. That’s enough.”
“You don’t understand,” I whisper, shaking my head. “The man you ran out… he doesn’t give up.”
“I noticed,” he says dryly.
That deadpan response pulls a small, broken laugh from my throat. It feels wrong, but it also feels like air.
He watches me closely. “I need you to tell me what he wants.”
“He thinks he owns me,” I say finally.
The boss’s sharp jaw ticks just once. “Why?”
“Because I left him,” I whisper. “And he doesn’t believe women leave him. He says running from him is the same as stealing from him.”
The boss straightens his posture. The absolute danger swirls under his tattooed skin like heat under concrete.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks softly. Too softly.
“Not in ways that show,” I breathe. “He likes to make pain feel like your fault. He likes slow damage.”
His dark eyes completely blacken. Not with anger at me, but with something primal and violently protective.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Amara,” my throat tightens around the answer.
“Amara.” He says it back to me, and the sound wraps around my spine like an anchor. “I’m Luca.”
Luca. His name feels like a massive conclusion I didn’t know I was walking toward.
“Amara,” Luca says again. “You’re safe here.”
“No one is safe from him,” I whisper.
“Tell me why he won’t quit,” Luca demands gently. “Tell me what you know.”
I rub my shivering arms. “I found something I wasn’t supposed to. Something he hid. Something illegal.”
Luca’s jaw sets like granite. “What did you find?”
“A list,” I whisper. “Names, transactions, numbers, his whole operation, basically. He kept it in this stupid printed ledger.”
I take a ragged breath. “And when he realized I’d seen too much…”
Without thinking, my hand reaches up and unconsciously grips my right wrist. “…he changed.”
Luca instantly notices the gesture. His eyes shift directly to the thin line of bruising poking out from my sleeve.
I pull my sleeve down, but I am too slow. He sees.
He stops leaning against the desk. He stands fully upright, his expression sharpening all at once. The air tightens like the room adjusts for the weight of him.
“Sit,” he says quietly.
I sit on the edge of the leather couch because my legs won’t hold me.
Luca kneels in front of me. That shocks me more than anything. He kneels like he’s giving me the one thing no man has given me: space to breathe.
He reaches out slowly. He lifts my wrist, his touch as gentle as sunlight.
The dark bruise looks worse in this lighting. Purple, faded yellow fingerprints embedded into my skin.
He closes his eyes for one long, dangerous second.
“Amara,” he murmurs, his voice a lethal rumble. “I’m going to fix this.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I shake my head hard. “Getting involved with me is a death sentence. He won’t stop.”
“I won’t either,” Luca says simply.
My breath stutters. “Why would you risk anything for a stranger?”
His gaze rises to mine, slow, certain. “You’re not a stranger anymore.”
“I don’t know who I’d be,” I confess, the truth tumbling out of me, “if someone actually protected me.”
Luca leans closer. “Maybe it’s time you find out.”
Something inside me breaks open then, quietly, and I’m terrified of it because it feels exactly like hope.
SLAM. We both jolt. The heavy door down the hall slams aggressively.
Footsteps thunder down the hallway. Raised voices. Someone is yelling Luca’s name.
Luca cracks the office door open. “What?”
One of his men shoves a phone into the crack, his face pale. “Boss, you need to see this now.”
Luca looks at the screen, and I watch the calm completely drain from his face.
“What is it?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer immediately. His jaw clenches. He turns the phone slightly so I can see.
My blood goes cold. It’s a video of me walking into the bar. A voice narrates in the background. Marcus’s voice.
“Find her,” he snarls. “Bring her to me. And the man protecting her? Break him.”
“He’s… he’s watching,” my mouth goes dry.
“He has people watching everything,” Luca says sharply. “But he made a mistake.”
“What mistake?!”
Luca locks eyes with me, a promise that feels like thunder. “He declared war. And he did it on my territory.”
“Luca,” I whisper, shaking uncontrollably. “He’ll kill you. He’ll kill everyone in this building.”
“Amara.” Luca tilts my chin up gently. “Look at me.”
I do.
“I’m taking you somewhere safe,” he says. “Somewhere he can’t touch you.”
“And if I say no?” I challenge weakly.
Luca smiles. A slow, dark, dangerous one. “You already trusted me once.”
“Those words were panic,” I lie. “Not trust.”
“Maybe,” he murmurs. “But you said them to me.”
He straightens up. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
I stand wobbling. Before I can take a single step, the building violently shakes.
BOOM. Something hits the front of the bar hard. We both freeze. Shouting erupts.
“He’s already here,” my heart fractures into terror.
Luca grabs my hand, grounding me. “Stay behind me.”
The hallway erupts with catastrophic noise. Men yelling, footsteps running. I can barely breathe.
Luca pulls me close. “Amara,” he whispers, a razor-edged vow. “I’m going to get you out.”
And then, deafening gunfire. Inside the building.
Someone screams. Luca violently shoves me downward behind the heavy mahogany desk just as the oak door explodes inward in a shower of wood and smoke.
“Amara, whatever you do, don’t—”
