Twisted Fate (Dark Heart Duet #2) - Ella James Page 0,95

want to sell to me, and at the start of the idea, I didn’t have the money anyway. But I was working on that. So finally he agreed he would sell exclusively to me. Said it would cut down on the hassle of dealing with the other buyers, who were almost always individuals; some of them really were wealthy businessmen thinking this is just like a mail-order bride.

“He agreed he’d sell them all to me, and Roberto told me he knew. He knew what I was planning, and he gave it to me. Like a gift, because he knows how I am.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking awkward for a moment. “Anyway.” He blows his breath out. “He let me…have this.”

I’m so floored, I feel dizzy. “How many people have you saved?”

“Don’t be looking at it that way, rosa. Not unless you want to know how many truckloads of H, or how much Fent or Oxy passed through me to pay for all of them. Every time we slice those dirty ropes off of their wrists and ankles, it’s a price tag of somewhere between fifteen and fifty thousand dollars. And we do it every month. We do it every month, for the last five and a half years, except this last one, which I fucking hate. But Aren and I went bad.

“He got in trouble with the FBI, I guess, and tried to sell me out to get his ass off the hook. All the while, trying to convince me he thought I was turning on him, so when the FBI came up with footage of me—gotten from his traitor ass—I would think they had been on us the whole time. And that he was also fucked. Anyway”—I watch as Luca rubs his temples—“that backfired. Turns out the FBI’s not so eager to move on someone playing hero. Not even if it’s a well-known bad guy like myself.”

“You’re not a bad guy,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. I step closer, wrap my arms around his waist. He’s breathing deeply, hugging me close. There are roses between us, their thorns prickling through my shirt. But I can’t help hugging him.

“These smell really good,” I whisper, trying not to cry more.

He sets them on a table and wraps me in his arms, holding so tightly it almost hurts.

“Sorry,” he says, low and husky. His hand comes over my belly.

“I didn’t really think”—I shake my head slowly—“but it was still upsetting.”

“I’m so fucking sorry. I should have told you. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“Knowing you, you probably didn’t want to get me caught up in it. Or you didn’t want to explain. You seem all too content to let me think whatever of you, without making any justifications or apologies.”

His hand cups my head against his chest. “That’s not true.” I feel his mouth move over my hair. “I want to make every apology, and then I want to make a few more. And after all that, I want to make some promises.”

32

Luca

I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I have to find a way. I have to make sure she knows that I knew before I found out she was pregnant. I knew that weekend back in February, when I was lying on the floor, half frozen, and her hands were on my face. I would have never brought myself into her life, but once I heard her voice and felt her warmth and saw her smile up close, I didn’t see how I could stay away forever.

The real surprise was that she wanted me, too. The real surprise is that she’s sitting in my lap in this armchair in Dani’s beige and tan and pale pink library—which features books that only have pale spines—and she’s stroking my hair and kissing my throat, and she’s got my hand folded over our baby.

“What will Jace say about this?” I ask, closing my eyes.

“Oh, Jacey has plenty to say. He knows all about us.”

I peer down at her. “He does?”

“He’s my best friend. Well, along with Ree and Dani. We’re a quad. Or like, I don’t know, we’re some shape that has me at the center and the three of them around me, being awesome.”

“And what does he think?”

Elise bites her lip, looking thoughtful. “He was willing to shift status to bi for me—for us—in case we needed him to say our baby was his.”

I don’t know why, but that, of all damn things, makes me