Far from it.
“That was always Roz’s thing,” he added about his sister. “And I was just there to help or annoy her when she needed it.”
“I don’t think she needed the annoyance part.”
“And you clearly never had a younger brother.”
It was par for the course.
Basically siblings’ rights.
His joke went over Penny’s head when he glanced her way. The song came to a stop when he realized she wasn’t smiling or even looking at him. Her stare had focused on the wall behind the piano, emotionless and dead. It was impossible to miss.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Penny murmured, a fake smile tugging at the edges of her lips.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m a fantastic liar.”
“Hard to argue with that.”
Penny’s hands lifted like she was considering playing the piano, but stopped short of resting on the keys when she said, “You know, Roz was more of a mother to me in the time I spent with her than my own ever was for my entire life.”
This was not the conversation he expected. Especially not when she was supposed to be here for a briefing on her work. He didn’t think she would share that information with him, either, but he wondered why she had Roz on her mind. Particularly in a mothering sense.
He wasn’t going to pass the opportunity up to once again remind Penny that the woman she cared about enough to consider a mother still loved her and worried every day. Like a mother would.
“She still talks about you,” Luca said, letting his fingers zip down half the keys in the span of a second, the twang annoying even to his own ears. “Sometimes, she’ll be in random conversation and something reminds her of you ... it’s like she can’t help herself. You’re always on her mind. Those photos she took when you lived there? She hung them up with the family photos she had done with Naz and little Cross, too. You’re still there even if you’re not.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
Luca nodded. “I know.”
“Do you, really? Do you know how it aches inside my chest when you tell me that people I only wanted to help are hurting because—”
“That’s why I keep telling you,” he interjected, not unkindly even if he could plainly see her pain staring back at him from ice-blue eyes. “Because maybe if I do it enough, you’ll let me go back and tell them you’re okay. Even that would be better than what they have now, Penny. I’m only here because they want to know why.”
“It’s not occurred to you even once, has it?”
“What?”
Penny stood from the bench, muttering, “That I’m only here because they loved me, Luca. I don’t need you to tell me things I already know.” She didn’t give him time to dissect those words. With a wave as she headed for the door, she told him, “Let’s go. It’s time to leave before someone changes their mind, and your bed tonight ends up being at the bottom of a hole somewhere.”
Well ...
Okay, then.
PENNY DIDN’T HAVE A home.
She had a hotel.
A suite—a nice one, mind—that felt nothing like her. It was the first thing he noticed when she slid the card through the lock and opened the door. There wasn’t anything that suggested she had been here before, recently left, or even planned to return. Sure, the sitting room and small kitchenette were meticulously cared for and clean. The walls had a few scattered pieces of art that matched the decor. Likely compliments of the hotel.
But the place felt ...
Sterile.
Cold, even.
Penny must have noticed his curious stare sweeping the place because she was quick to say, “It does what I need it to, that’s what counts.”
“Which is?”
“A place to sleep.”
Was that all she needed?
Just a place to sleep?
Hell, people did that on the fucking streets. Not by choice in most cases, he knew, but still ... if all she wanted was somewhere to lay her head at night, then he was sure there were cheaper or closer alternatives to the complex that had taken them over an hour to drive to once they hit the dry desert land.
At least the view was decent. He took the chance to admire the sight of the Vegas strip lit up down below as he followed behind Penny without a word. She hadn’t suggested he should chase after her, but he also wasn’t going to give her the choice at the moment.
Up until then, Luca had been fine to play whatever game she had going on between the two of them. If doing so meant gaining more information on her and possibly being able to bring her home, then what did it hurt?
She called the shots.
He let her.
But the missed calls and piling texts on his phone that she hadn’t destroyed were starting to burn a hole in the back of his mind. Not that he’d answered any of them despite the growing frustration from Nazio’s messages and his mother’s constant stream of worries. Luca had been off the grid—unreachable by his family, friends, and even people who had jobs waiting on his back burner—for longer than he could excuse.
At this point, he was just playing with fire.
Inside a bedroom, Luca lingered by the doorway as Penny carelessly shed her clothing and tossed it to a nearby chair. She disappeared into the connected walk-in closet as he considered how to broach the fact that she was running out of time to make the choice of returning herself.
Not that he could force her to go back. The time for that had obviously passed long ago. He missed his chance there big time.
Luca knew that.
He wasn’t stupid.
There were other means at his disposal, now. Ways he could expose her current life and location to the people who wanted that information. Except he was quite aware that could be dangerous for her. Someone had tried to kill her. How long would the Donatis have Penny on their radar—just to know she was alive and well—before the news was passed on to someone else who only meant to do her harm?
It made him pause.
Fucked his plans entirely.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Luca didn’t know where to begin with his next move. He wondered ...
“Was that your plan?” His question came out quiet when Penny reappeared from within the closet with an item that she dumped to the bed. “Get me close, let me see just enough of your business right now that I have a basic understanding of the situation you’re in, and let me draw conclusions myself from there,” he clarified at her silent stare. “Because why else would you stay put with me for days, right? Why else bring me here, too? The devil you know is better than the one you don’t, huh?”
“Luca—”
“I think some of this was ... all accidental.”
“Some of it,” she admitted. “Most of it.”
“You’re being hunted, aren’t you?”
Penny didn’t flinch.
In fact, she smiled.
“It was bound to happen, Luca. One can only keep the company of monsters for so long before they start to notice you’re not quite the same.”
Appropriate, he thought.
Considering everything ...
“You just had to go and make yourself a very present complication while it happened,” she told him without any heat in her tone.