all of a second.
Less, even.
The League would never forgive her for what she had done to them, but at least they trained her to be one hell of a shot on the back of a moving vehicle.
Charles Hatheway saw her—their gazes locked as the bike passed—when she pulled the trigger. She didn’t get to see it hit the intended target before they had already gone by, but she heard the screams.
Those were beautiful.
12.
Luca
“IS it appropriate for me to say a small prayer?”
Penny shot Luca a look from where she stood behind his beloved Ducati. He didn’t get to drive the machine nearly enough for his tastes. He’d spent a crazy amount of money for the bike and on it to get it customized just the way he liked. The damn thing even had its own storage unit in the city because he absolutely refused to drive it in the winter, or on any road that wasn’t pristine.
He loved the bike.
If he had a baby, it was it.
“Thought we agreed getting rid of it was the only option?” Penny asked.
Luca sighed, ghosting his hands over the curves of the matte black beast. From the handlebars, down the seat, and even over the rear flare. “I’ll see you again soon,” he told the bike.
That was a lie.
Soon, it would be at the bottom of the river.
“You can always buy another,” Penny said with more care to her tone. He didn’t know if it was a genuine concern for his feelings or just her patronizing him, though. It could have gone either way. Damn woman.
She also wasn’t wrong.
“Fuck it,” Luca muttered.
Grabbing the back of the seat in one hand and the left handlebar with his other, Luca pushed the bike to the end of the dock. There was never much movement at the shipping docks this time of night. The shift change made sure of that, and he was grateful because it worked in their favor when they needed to make the bike disappear. He was sure there were probably a few dozen people scouting for a matte black Ducati Superbike with two possible drivers. Letting them find the machine would only connect him to the shooting.
The Ducati hit the water with a plop and a splash. Luca watched it sink from up above before he bent down to grab the helmet he’d tossed on the dock earlier. With a few larger rocks in the bottom of the helmet, he expected it to sink.
Another item he could replace. Like the bike, too. But goddammit, it still hurt like hell to watch the bike disappear under the depths of the water while the helmet bobbed and struggled to fall beneath the surface as well.
Penny was soon at Luca’s side to survey the scene down below as well. Without warning, she reached beneath the jacket he’d given her after they arrived at the docks. She didn’t say she was cold, but he saw her shiver and that shit wasn’t okay. Not when he had a perfectly fine leather jacket that she could use.
The white strands of her hair fell over the shoulder of his jacket as she stretched her arm toward the water. With two well-aimed shots of her gun to the helmet, it finally sunk below the water with a bubbled glub-glub, and that was it. A sad little goodbye, really.
The night was almost over.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Luca told her.
Penny’s right eyebrow quirked up when she replied dryly, “Might as well use the other bullets for something useful.”
Ouch.
He said nothing when she dropped down to sit at the edge of the dock. Instead, he moved to stand behind her so that at the very least, he was there if she needed him. For anything.
“It’s not over,” she told him.
“Not yet,” he agreed. “Now we go back to the drawing board and figure out where we go from her.”
Down below, her head bobbed with a nod. He couldn’t help but notice how she didn’t correct his use of we when it came to their next plan. Hell, wasn’t that a battle won in itself? He sure as fuck thought so.
As the silence stretched on, another question nagged at Luca. It would be in his best interest to stay quiet and not ask it, but he wasn’t the type. For one. But for two ... he hated to think Penny might be hurting in that moment because of what she had done—in some way—and he wasn’t helping her.
Fuck him for having a heart.
Right?
She