Page 16 of My Sunfall

I snort out a laugh. “You got me there—Lucas never scowls or growls.”

“Now it seems he does. That’s what I’m saying, he’s not himself.”

Huh?

I shrug although she can’t see me. “It’s probably something work related. Or his drycleaner ruined his favorite suit.” I sound petty now, but I can’t help the disdained note from creeping into my voice.

“If you say so…” she carefully replies.

“Yep.” I try to sound cheerful. “Listen, I need to go now, but I’ll call back soon.”

“Okay, sis. Take care, and really, if you need anything, just call me or Erin.”

“Will do, love you. Kiss my favorite nephew for me.”

She laughs and we hang up. I start dismantling the phone like Erin showed me. Remove the battery and SIM card and scatter the phone pieces into several trash cans throughout the city. It sounds a bit extreme, but I don’t want to take any chances. There is a risk Matteo has put Lily’s phone under surveillance, and he might trace the signal back to me. Erin assured me she would tell him to keep out of this, and if she suspected anything she would sabotage his endeavor, but I still want to be careful. The last thing I need is a bunch of intense Mafia men showing up in town, guns blazing, to drag me back to hell. Hence, I drove an hour out to a nearby town to buy a burner phone and call Lily from there.

Now I am sitting in the car I bought with the cash I withdrew before I left Boston. It’s an old beater but still reliable according to the man who sold it to me. I lean back in the seat and frown, trying to process everything.

‘He has not been himself lately.’

What does this even mean?

He couldn’t be lacking for friends or female company, that’s for sure. He only has to snap his fingers and women will be falling to his feet. As for friends, he still has his close-knit group with the two men he grew up with, and Lily and Erin. So what is his problem?

A sharp pang of irritation begins to rise like every time I think of him lately. And I welcome the feeling, because I’ll take irritation over sadness and a broken heart any day.

I push the feelings down, deciding to go through them another day, and start my car to drive off. I need to go back to the small town I have chosen. I didn’t plan anything when I left and started circling mindlessly further and further away from Boston, I only felt I needed to put distance between my former life and my new beginning, a clean cut. When I drove through that town that day, only one and a half hours away from Boston, things clicked into place and I felt like my future might be tied to that place. I stopped and looked for a cheap apartment to rent. I got lucky when I found not only an apartment to rent over the small coffee shop, but also a job at that same shop. The owner, a motherly lady named Edna, has immediately taken me under her wing, and I will be eternally grateful to her and to fate for leading me to her. Now I work at the shop five days a week and I have my evenings off since the shop caters to the day crowd.

That gives me the perfect opportunity to pursue my other plan. My hands go clammy and I nervously chew on my lower lip, because this is another meaningful step I am taking toward my new self. I hope that luck will be on my side again this time.

Chapter Nine

Lucas

The room reeks of hopelessness and fear.

My hands grip the edge of the handrests hard enough to make the metal creak. “Fucking tell me,” I shout, leaning over the bastard in the chair. “Where did Chiara go?”

His eyes are wide in terror, his body shaking like a trapped animal. “I told you, I don’t know!”

Liar. I can hear it in the way his voice shakes. I have been questioning the fucker for forty minutes straight now, ever since I came back from her house and brought him with me. I hadn’t planned this, but when I saw him, I fucking knew he had to know something.

Earlier, I returned to her father’s house once again, because what else could I do? I didn’t knock this time I just strode in like I owned the place. I knew that Francesco was not there, since I had him confined in the clinic. The housekeeper tried to block me with her small frame when she saw me in the hallway.

“Mr. Romano, please—”

“Move,” I said in a low voice and she must’ve heard the threat in that one word because she let me pass, face pale and hands wringing.

The second I opened the door to Chiara’s room, her faint scent hit me. Fresh, soft and flowery, and I inhaled the air like it could save my soul. The bed was neatly made—it obviously hadn’t been used for some time. I sat down on the edge, trying to imagine on which side she preferred to sleep. Then something caught my eye—a light pink scarf thrown over the back of her chair. I stood to pick it up and brought it to my nose. Her scent flooded my senses, and I let myself fall on my back on her bed with the piece of fabric over my nose. When I closed my eyes, I could almost feel her nearby. But still, there was something missing. The scent of her warm skin, the awareness of her being close tingling over my spine. The melodic sound of her voice. The warmth of her laugh brushing over my skin. It wasn’t there, and all I had left of her was the scarf and the scent of flowers, cold and painful in my lungs.

I laid like this for hours, breathing in her perfume and hoping it would soothe my frayed nerves. But all it did was awaken a deep hunger. And with it, the certainty that she had been more than just a friend despite what I’d tried to convince myself for a year and a half.

I remember exactly the moment my eyes met hers for the first time. It had been in this very room. She was sitting on the bed, eyes downcast, pale and sad, and I had moved the chair in front of her to sit and question her about her sister. Then she lifted her hazel gaze to meet mine and I plummeted and drowned in her eyes. The amber irises rimmed by pure emerald captured me and never let go. My heart thundered and my breath caught in my throat. As for my brain, it couldn’t remember a single question I was going to ask her. I had fumbled through the interrogation like a goddamn novice, trying to hide my nervousness behind a flirty smile. But she didn’t bite. She never did. Even when we got closer, she treated me more like a pesky brother, teasing me lightly or sending me a pointed gaze when my antics went too far. And I pushed further and further, only realizing now that I did it because I wanted her attention. No, I needed her attention.

‘Phoebus.’ That’s what she’d called me, after some goddamn asshole in her favorite gothic novel. A fucking dumbass womanizer. I grit my teeth, heart pounding in my chest as I inhaled through her scarf. That might be what I had been, but that was before I met her. If only she knew the truth. From that day our eyes locked for the first time, I had lost interest in the chase, in the hollow laughter and the easy company of women whose names I immediately forgot. One look at her and it was over.

But I pretended otherwise, I told myself I was too busy with hunting down Manticore, with keeping the famiglia safe, that I was too weighed down with responsibilities to waste time on women. I tried to keep up appearances, flirting and dallying around even though I never stayed interested enough to take anyone back to a room at the guest floor of The Bastion. But the lies I had told myself lifted like a veil in her room, on her bed, and I realized with shattering clarity that the reason I stopped was because from the moment I looked into her eyes, there was no one else. There never could be. My head spun from the realization, and I would’ve dropped to my knees, had I not been lying on her bed.