Page 86 of Vows of Blood

"What are these?" I pause my attempts to bundle them together neatly and scan the face on top. Some of these faces I recognize.

"More photos. Corso brought them earlier." Luca slides off the bed and stands, reaching for the pictures with one hand, and for me, with the other. “Later. Come back to…”

I shuffle through the pictures, images of people from various angles, of a nightclub or strip club, or the outside of an office, someone working on the door of a bar, a street I recognize, not far from the restaurant.

And then I see him.

My fingers freeze, and I can’t speak. Instead, I reach out and grab Luca’s arm.

"Sienna?" Luca sounds far away, even though his fingers are tangled with mine, pulling my attention back to him. "What is it?"

I blink up at him, and hold the photograph up between us, my hand trembling.

"It's him."

24

LUCA

Moving to stand beside Sienna, I stare at the photograph in her trembling hand, and everything inside me goes very, very still.

"You know him?" Sienna asks, looking up at me with those wide, trusting eyes. “That’s good, right? Now you can go get him.”

Good that we know who did it. Not good because I was hoping the shooter wasn’t somebody from this pile.

This is a problem. A very big fucking problem.

Gently, I take the photo from her fingers, careful not to spook her. "Well done.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I need to speak to my brothers and deal with this."

Going to my closet, I pull out a fresh shirt and drape it around her shoulders, taking my time to do each button carefully, the movement helping to keep my racing mind calm.

"Luca, who is he?"

She can sense something’s wrong, wants to know what, but I shake my head. That information is on a need-to-know basis, and my beautiful bride most definitely does not need to know.

"I’m going out. Stay here. Relax." I'm already moving, pulling on clothes, and churning over the possibilities and implications. Dark shirt, dark pants, and wearing a black belt, I remove my holster from the depths of my large walk-in closet and slide my arms in, making sure I have what I need. When I pull another pistol out of a locked drawer and tuck it into the back of my pants, Sienna looks away. "Tony will be outside. Don't leave the house."

"You're scaring me," she whispers.

I pause at the bedroom door, turning back to look at her. She's sitting on the bed now, her dark hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, and the ring I gave her catching the light as she hugs her knees to her chest. She looks small and vulnerable, and nothing at all like the fierce woman putting me in my place just thirty minutes ago.

Crossing back to her, I cup her face in my hands and kiss her gently. "Don't be scared. I'm going to deal with this and be back for dinner. Trust me."

Her hand catches mine as I pull away.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to speak to my father."

“That’s not an answer.”

“I know.”

Concern is etched all over her pretty features. I kiss her once more, softly, on the lips, and then I'm gone.

Nico and Enzo are eating in the kitchen when I stride down the hallway, keys in hand, the picture tucked safely in my inside pocket. They take one look at my face and the weapons strapped to my body, then set down their forks.

“Fuck,” Enzo mutters, pushing to his feet, knowing that whatever’s going on, it’s not good. As I text Corso the picture number, so he knows who Sienna has ID’d, and instruct him to begin surveillance, my brothers fall in step beside me without question.