Dark Queen - Ker Dukey Page 0,49
sure they share a cell with the vilest creature in there. By the time they’re done, they’ll wish for a bullet.
“Do you know who’s behind this?” he asks, awarding himself a scathing glare.
“Someone well out of their league,” I grumble, splitting away from him when I see Marcello coming down the hall from the back entrance, a visible pulse in his neck.
“What the hell happened?”
“Those brothers,” I growl, planting my hands on his shoulders, squeezing to alleviate the coiling of my muscles.
I want blood.
I want to throttle the life from those bastards until their pulse stops, only for me to bring them back to life and start all over again.
“Bring it all down,” I tell him though gritted teeth. “I want everyone on this. Deplete their accounts. Send a Leto message to everyone who ever supplied for them. Make their men suffer—but save those bastards for me.”
His eyes gleam with pleasure. “On it.”
“And, Marcello,” I call before he makes it to the exit. “Don’t involve Antonio. He’s done enough.”
Chapter Thirty
Alyssa
The door opening causes me to jolt up from the couch. I’d fallen asleep, the adrenaline fleeing my body as fast as it came.
Luca stands there, staring at me, another man at his back. “Take her home,” he tells this man, making my stomach lurch.
Do I not need to speak to the police or stay with him just to be sure it’s safe?
The man with him is wearing a cheap tweed jacket and week-old scruff covers his chin. Stress lines wrinkle his face when he asks, “Who is she?”
Am I invisible?
“She’s no one of importance,” Luca tells him, turning his gaze from me. The cruel words wound me like a physical attack.
My breath shudders from my lungs. An overwhelming cloud of sorrow sits heavy over my heart.
I could have died tonight, doing Hannah and what I thought would be him, a favor. Simon reminded me that being here could put a stain on my position at Swan, and this is what I am to him?
No one of importance.
Getting to my feet, I will my legs to carry me and not buckle beneath me.
“I’m Detective Morels,” the man informs me, opening the door. I don’t give Luca the satisfaction of my gaze.
I’m taken through the same back entrance I came through earlier tonight. This is the exit I should have left through. If I had, though, those men would have made it inside. I quake at the thought of how many would have perished.
When we get outside, I give the detective Simon’s address. The dorm curfew has passed.
“How do you know Mr. Leto?” he asks once we’re inside his car. I squirm a little. Fast food bags and wrappers litter the floor and it reeks of smoke and sweat.
“I don’t know him,” I say honestly, looking out the window as we pass reporters camped out in front of the club.
“Just got unlucky, huh?” he muses.
“It would seem so, yes.”
He lights a cigarette, the toxic plume of smoke filling the small space.
Inconsiderate asshole.
“What about those marks on your neck?” My hand instinctively reaches up to stroke the skin there.
“It’s a sex club, Detective. Some of us like it rough.”
The lie empowers me.
I like the bruises Luca’s hands and mouth left on my flesh—a reminder of how badly he wanted to mark me, taste me.
We fall into an uncomfortable silence. I don’t even wait for the car to come to a full stop outside of Simon’s apartment before I open the door and jump out.
“Thanks,” I mumble, slamming the car door closed and running up the steps, rapping my knuckles on the door.
My heart lodges in my throat when he doesn’t answer.
What if he’s not here? I’d slept a couple of hours on that couch but maybe he was held up giving a statement back at the club.
My heart skitters when I hear movement.
When the locks click and the door opens, tears spring to my eyes and I launch myself at him, needing comfort.
He catches me, his arm tightening around me, squeezing. “Oh my god, Alyssa. I’ve been so worried about you,” he breathes. “I’ve been calling you.”
Pulling free, I wipe my hands down my face and pat my pocket. My phone must have fallen out in the mayhem.
Ushering me inside, he pours me a glass of water and brings it over to the couch where I sit down before, I fall.
“I wasn’t sure if you made it out of there.” His brow creases. He’s wearing loungewear, his hair rumpled.
“Did I wake you?”
His brows