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“The chocolate croissants just came out of the oven, and we have panna cotta leftover from yesterday. Would you like some?”
Luka nodded. It wasn’t until he’d tried Nera’s food that he’d realized it could taste different than cardboard and cobwebs. He no longer denied himself when he stopped by the estate.
“Which one?” Nera asked.
The question of which one Alina would prefer made Luka’s face stiffen. He had no idea. She had talked so much, but what foods she liked had never come up, just the fact that she rarely had any. Not that she was at the Di Salvo estate to eat.
Nera didn’t seem to mind his hesitation. “I’ll bring you both.”
When she turned away, Luka was finally able to look at Giovanni. His ears were red, as they were so often now. Luka tilted his head toward the stairs.
“Bring it to the office?” Giovanni asked his wife, who nodded.
The silence that fell between Luka and Giovanni wasn’t unusual. Giovanni said more than Luka did, but he didn’t have a need to speak like so many others. Like Alina did.
Luka was surprised that he missed the sound of her voice. Her words had woven around him for days. He’d expected it to bother him, but it never had.
Giovanni sat behind the desk after they entered the office, but Luka never sat. They weren’t friends, not really. Friends sat and caught up. Luka leaned his back against the wall, where the dawn light filtering through the window didn’t reach.
He half expected Giovanni to lecture him on being up and about already. Alina had told him of the Di Salvos’ visit, though Luka didn’t remember it. Over the years, Giovanni had found ways to piece him back together a few times. He’d done that the first time, when they’d both been so close to death because of Luka’s efforts to kill him. Luka hadn’t been a man then.
He still didn’t feel like much of one. Alina’s face rose in his thoughts, the broken one after he’d tried to run.
“I need help,” Luka admitted, his hands closing into fists.
“Tell me,” Giovanni said, as Luka knew he would.
He just needed to find the words to ask his questions. That was always the hardest part. “Alina,” Luka said. Her name slipped out all too easily.
Giovanni’s face didn’t flinch or soften but remained stoic, as if he had been expecting this answer. “I met her. She seemed fond of you.”
A memory of her smile flashed into his mind, filling Luka with the need to return to the safe house. He rebuffed the desire. He’d make her smile disappear again if he did.
“I told her the safe house was no issue,” Giovanni said as the silence between them continued. “Does she need more protection than that?”
Luka’s mind formed the words he thought he’d come to say. The heat when he was with her, and the likelihood of things coming to a head soon with Ivankov, made asking Giovanni to protect her necessary. Time and again, Alina had told him about her loneliness over the years, that she had nothing to return to. With Giovanni’s protection, she wouldn’t need to go back to that life.
Luka’s mouth opened, but the word that came out surprised them both. “Sex.”
Giovanni’s eyes widened.
“You have sex.” Even to Luka’s ears, it sounded like an accusation. His saliva dried in his mouth, and his words ran out.
Giovanni’s hands came up to his face, and his eyes closed.
Somehow that made the next words easier. “You didn’t before.” The words were softer now, like the link between them had always felt.
Luka hadn’t ever met anyone even slightly like himself until Giovanni. It was why he hadn’t killed him, though he’d been capable of it. He’d watched Giovanni before he made his move. He mentally charted all his mannerisms; how he spent his days; the people he interacted with, which weren’t many, despite him being the son of a Mafia boss.
Giovanni’s face had remained calm and stoic the whole time Luka had spied on him. And he rarely spoke.
When Luka had come for him, Giovanni had eventually fought back in a way he recognized, as if he wanted to live in order to protect something, but he was silent the whole time they fought.
Luka had allowed some of Giovanni’s blows to land. He had allowed himself to fail.
Over the years, when Ivankov didn’t have any specific orders for him, Luka would find Giovanni. And he would watch.
He’d never once seen Giovanni with a woman. Or a man. Luka would have known. He would have needed to avoid him while that happened.
