Luca: A Steamy Alpha Bad Boy Cop Romance (Badge Bunnies Book 6) Read online

  “I wasn’t aware I had a choice,” I snipe back. Then I swallow. “Gio was a good man. I—I want you to find whoever did that.”

  Luca leans toward me and captures my hand in his. He hasn’t touched me at all in years, so this gesture now takes me completely by surprise. “Mychaela,” he says quietly. “I swear to you, I’m going to find them.”

  My pride wants me to pull away, to sniff at him and dismiss him with some offhand remark and get back to my menus. But I can’t. I can only lose myself in his brown eyes that pull me under deeper and deeper as the seconds pass.

  “I’ve missed you,” he adds under his breath, like that’s a secret I’m not supposed to hear.

  “I…I’ve missed you too,” I confess. That’s definitely a secret he wasn’t supposed to hear.

  He reaches up toward my face, slowly, like I’m a wild animal he doesn’t want to startle. The feeling of his rough fingertips against my cheek send me into a tailspin of emotion and memories. Before I know it, I’m leaning toward him. All I want is to feel his tender mouth on mine, those pouty lips that once knew exactly how to drive me crazy in the best possible way.

  His breath brushes my skin as he dips his head closer. I can hear both of our ragged breathing, and I wonder how I got here. When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t thinking about Luca Romano. If you’d told me that before the end of the day I’d be here, I would have laughed in your face.

  But here I am. Here we are.

  “Mykie,” he whispers.

  Kiss me.

  An electronic buzz hits my ears at the same time I feel his pocket vibrate. He jerks back as if burned, digging the phone out of his pocket. He clears his throat several times.

  “I’ve got to get back to headquarters to update my sergeant,” he tells me, rising. Then he fishes a little white card from his breast pocket. “This is my number, in case something else comes up.”

  He’s all business now. I take the card and nod, unable to speak around the lump in my throat.

  “I—thank you, Mykie,” he says, then turns and walks out of the office.

  Why does it always hurt when he walks away?

  3

  Luca

  “Fucking asshole,” I hiss to myself as I stalk to my car parked up the block. “What were you thinking?”

  I don’t know what just happened in Mykie’s office. Or what almost happened.

  What I desperately wanted to happen.

  I’m working. She’s working. Not only that, she hates my guts. It’s not fair for me to behave like…she’s mine.

  Still, I wonder if there was a part of her that wanted that kiss as much as I did. As much as I do. She didn’t pull away.

  She told me she missed me.

  “Fuck,” I mutter again, yanking the car door open and sliding behind the wheel. I slam it closed with satisfying force. I can’t think straight. Being near her again, touching her—it all makes me dizzy. It’s like no time has passed between us, even though the last five years since we were really together—in the way I crave all the time—have crawled by at a snail’s pace.

  I almost had her lips. Those plump lips capable of driving me out of my motherfucking mind. I could’ve had them.

  My hands are shaking when I place them on the steering wheel.

  By the time I make it back to HQ, I’m steadier. I called the security company Mykie’s family uses for the restaurant, and I should have an email with the link to access the footage in a few minutes. My head still spins with what-ifs, what-could-have-beens. I don’t have time to dwell on that, though. It’s time for a meeting with my sergeant, Tamra Davis.

  In the conference room where she waits, there are a couple of other detectives in the room too—Detective Sheila Acosta from the organized crime unit, and another homicide detective, Ryan O’Leary. I asked Sarge to invite them. They’re both relatively green, and this is a good case for them to shadow me on. I believe in mentorship to the fullest, and I think these two in particular have a ton of potential.

  I catch them up to speed on what happened last night and the developments I’ve come across today, including pulling up the email with the link to the security footage. We watch and rewatch it.

  “What’s your plan?” Sarge asks.

  “I’d like Ryan to do some knock-and-talks around the neighborhood,” I tell her. “In the meantime, I’m going to run the footage by IT to see if they can help me clear up the picture a bit more, and then start cross-referencing it with our database of assholes.”

  “And Acosta?” Sarge gestures to Sheila.

  I tilt my head. Here we go… “I’d like Sheila to revisit the case file on Nino Mancini.”

  Sarge’s brows shoot up. “He’s two months into a twenty-year federal sentence. Why?”

  I sigh. “Because we might have the wrong man in prison. That’s why. It’s an awfully strange coincidence that he worked for A Gem It Is, whose owner was just murdered, isn’t it? It seems there might be a connection here.”

  “How do you know Mancini’s not the one who organized the hit in the first place?” Sarge shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.”

  “I don’t know that, and it’s possible.” I shake my head. “But my gut’s talking to me, Sarge, and I have good instincts. I have a feeling whoever murdered Geo Esposito, whoever’s on that film, is a link connected to Mancini.”

  Sergeant Davis shrugs, then glances at Detective Acosta. “Well, you heard him. Get to work.”

  The two detectives nod and file out. I stand to head to my desk, and my sergeant stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “You really think Mancini could be innocent?”

  “I think he is,” I tell her. “I just need to prove it.”

  She levels a hard gaze at me. “You were quite involved with the FBI to set up the sting that ended in his arrest. He went to trial, he was convicted. That’s…quite a bit of crow to eat if you’re right.”

  “Then I hope it gets served with a side of barbecue sauce, because I’m not going to let an innocent man rot in prison.” I yank on the door to the conference room with more force than necessary. “He’s already lost six months of his life he can never get back.”

  At my desk, I send the video footage to my contact in the IT department who I work with a lot. He generally answers my requests speedily, and with this particular one, there’s no time to waste. Anything could help me—a barely visible tattoo, an injury of some sort, an identifying facial mark.

  Anything to help support Mykie’s uncle’s innocence, because my instincts screaming at me that it’s true just aren’t enough.

  My IT guy, Matt, gets back to me about an hour later. It’s barely four, but the pale almost-winter sun is starting to sink in the sky. I’ll stay as long as I need to tonight to make headway.

  “Hey, Luca,” Matt says, sounding excited. “I was able to clear up some footage for you. Want to come check it out?”

  “Be there in a minute.” I hang up and spring out of my chair, then stride for the elevator. I ride it up to the tenth floor, where IT is located. The people who work in this department aren’t sworn officers. They’re civilians with excellent skills we need, and who we perform intensive background checks on.

  Matt’s pacing in front of his desk when I arrive. He’s about six-six but lanky with a mop of curly brown hair. He looks a little like Shaggy. His eyes light up when he sees me and he waves me over.

  My stomach flips a little. He’s got something.

  “What you got?” I say, leaning over his shoulder as he flops back into his desk chair. He furiously pounds away at the keyboard, his fingers moving with lightning speed.

  “A scar,” he says excitedly. He brings up the security camera footage. I have no idea how he did it, but the picture is almost crystal clear, with nearly all of the grainy quality of the original erased. Matt pauses the video.

  The lower half of the suspect’s face is wrapped in a scarf, and he’s wearing a hat. When I first watched the video, I
thought we were screwed. But apparently, I failed to notice the man make a mistake.

  For a split second, he glances upward, toward the security camera.

  Matt zooms in on the man’s face, and I see it—a scar across the man’s right eye socket that causes him to have a droopy lid. It reminds me of those old-school pictures of Lucky Luciano from the late 1920s, early 1930s. Maybe the “lucky” part comes in because they still have their eyes, but based on the scar on this guy’s face, it doesn’t seem all that lucky to me.

  Actually, I take that back—I just got incredibly fucking lucky.

  This scar can be as good as an ID. If this guy is in any of the databases we use as law enforcement officers. That’s a big if.

  But it’s something to go on.

  I haul ass downstairs to get my laptop and hurry back up to ten, where I connect my laptop to three large desktop monitors for maximum workspace. I start my searches while Matt analyzes more of the video.

  About twenty minutes later with no hits, my cell phone rings.

  A little surge goes through me as I hurry to answer. “Mykie?”

  “Luca,” she says in a voice that’s almost steady, but I hear that slight tremor at the end. “I—I need you.”

  My blood surges harder. She…needs me.

  In the same way I need her?

  “What do you need?” I ask softly, turning away from Matt for a little privacy.

  “Help,” she says, and this time I clearly hear the fright. “Somebody broke into the restaurant. He just—he just left.”

  She might have said more, but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy running to the elevator, car keys in hand and the weight of my gun tugging at my belt.

  4

  Mykie

  Have you ever walked into a familiar area—your house, your job—and something just feels off? Or worse yet, something is off, and it’s immediately apparent.

  That’s an empty feeling.

  After Luca left me earlier, I stayed put in the office chair until I felt like I had my bearings. I went to take copies of the menus over to my parents’ house in the suburbs and make sure everything’s all good over there. They’re on vacation in the Bahamas until Christmas and will be back in a few days. Only when I arrived there, I realized I left said menus still sprawled across the bar.

  Christ.

  My half-eaten, cold lunch was still sitting there too. I decided not to let Bruno’s good food go to waste, so after gathering the menus and setting my purse on top of them, I grabbed my plate and carried it to the back to find a to-go box.

  Then the plate and the leftover food ended up on the floor, because a stocky man in black clothes and a ski mask was standing there. All I could see were his eyes and mouth.

  One of those eyes looked like it drooped at the corner, but that could’ve been the mask.

  Before I could open my mouth to scream, the man grabbed my face in one gloved hand and jammed the barrel of a gun underneath my chin with the other.

  “You’ve been talking to the cops,” he hissed in a low, whispery voice that concealed his true voice. “You should know better than that. What happened to Nino wasn’t anything personal—he was a convenient means to an end. But if you keep running your mouth to the cops, I’ll have to do you like I did Gio. You understand, Mychaela?”

  There was nothing else for me to do but nod frantically.

  “Good.” He released me, pushing my face and sending me sprawling backward. The kitchen door, which opens to the alley, stood open and he ducked around it and through the doorway without touching it.

  Just like that, he disappeared.

  I stumbled away to the front, to get my bag. With shaking hands I dug out my phone. I know what I was just told, but I wasn’t calling the cops…

  I called Luca. He just so happens to be a cop, but more than anything, he’s just…Luca. And for all we’ve been through, he makes me feel safe.

  After I called him, giving him only the highlights of what had just happened, I sank to the floor against the bar, trembling and waiting for the masked man to return and finish me off.

  That’s how Luca finds me a short while later when he shoves open the heavy glass door hard enough to damn near take it off its hinges, his gun drawn and aimed low.

  “Fuck,” he snaps, shoving the gun back into the holster on his hip under his suit jacket. He rushes to my side. “Mykie, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head, even though that’s not entirely true. My mouth and cheeks hurt where the man grabbed me, both externally and internally. That seems trivial in the face of what could have happened, though.

  “Stay here,” Luca growls as he straightens and withdraws his gun again. His eyes hold a feral anger that scares me. He strides toward the back of the restaurant as though he’s not afraid of anything at all.

  I lean back and close my eyes, willing my heart to slow down and my breathing to even out. I suffer from anxiety, occasionally requiring medication to deal with it, and this is not helping that problem. But instinct tells me I’m in good hands with Luca here.

  When he returns a few minutes later, he doesn’t look happy, but his gun is holstered. He catches sight of me still on the floor and, frowning, extends his hand to help me to my feet. I grip his hand, but my knees are still trembling. Finally, Luca hoists me into his arms and sets me on a barstool.

  I let out a little laugh. If that doesn’t distract you from your turmoil…

  But he keeps his arms around me. “I’m worried about you. Tell me exactly what happened, please.”

  He’s definitely not asking me.

  I describe the encounter as best as I can, which is detailed because it’s still so vivid in my mind. Luca doesn’t say much when I’m done. His dark brows are drawn together in a scowl, and his intelligent dark eyes reflect the speed at which I’m sure his mind is whirling. I expect a barrage of questions, to be asked to repeat what happened, but all he does is touch my cheek lightly, his eyes softening.

  “Little bruise here,” he says. “He really grabbed you.”

  I poke my tongue around the inside of my mouth carefully. The insides of my cheeks are tender. “Yeah. He did.”

  Luca mumbles a curse. “I’m taking you home.”

  “I still have to—”

  “No. You need to rest.” His tone leaves no room for protest, but the truth is, I don’t want to protest. I do want to go home. My mind feels like it’s been disconnected from my nervous system and I can’t find the wall outlet to plug it back in.

  “But the mess back there,” I say faintly. A feeling of pure exhaustion washes over me. “Whoa.”

  “Adrenaline crashing,” he says matter-of-factly. “It didn’t look like anything was broke but the lock to get in the back. Let me make some phone calls.”

  “I’ll call my parents.” I hold up my hand to ward off his protests. “Trust me. They’re going to want to hear this from me.” That, and they’re not going to want to hear from Luca. At all.

  It seems to require inhuman strength, but while Luca calls the police, I call my parents and give them the highlights only. Instinct tells me it’s better to tell them a burglar popped in and scared me than some guy who knows who I am and might be connected to what happened to Nino. As expected, they’re both terrified and insist on coming home from vacation as soon as possible, but I tell them a friend is with me and going to take me home, and all I really want to do is relax in a hot bath and get some sleep. It takes me about twenty minutes alone to convince my mother I’m fine, that what happened isn’t a big deal, and that they should stay and enjoy the last handful of days in the Bahamas. She relents eventually but threatens that she’ll be over as soon as they’re home to check on me.

  Did I mention I’m almost thirty?

  Police are arriving when I get off the phone with Mom. I cringe inwardly. It’s possible whoever attacked me is watching, and will be able to see I clearly didn’t listen to his explicit instructions to keep my mouth shut. A stab of i
cy fear hits me.

  Then I glance at Luca.

  The hard look is back in his eyes as he talks to a patrol cop, gesturing toward the back and talking animatedly. The patrol officer is nodding and recording notes in a small black notebook. He can keep me safe…I know he can.

  The rush of emotion confuses me. This man destroyed my family. I’m supposed to hate him. But every time I glance into his soulful dark eyes, at the hard line of his jaw and the tender set of his full lips, I just can’t bring myself to hate him, no matter how many times I said I did.

  I fell in love with Luca Romano when I was fifteen. I’ve never stopped falling.

  When he finishes talking to the cop, he walks over to me. “They’re going to investigate a bit more. They’re aware of the developments—the possible connection to the murder the other night. What’d your parents say?”

  “Threatened to cut their vacation short, but I convinced them to stay.” I lightly rub my aching cheek. “Said it was a burglar.”

  Luca draws in and exhales a deep breath through his nose. “That was probably a good idea.” He takes my elbow. “Let me get you home.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Leave it here. You’re in no condition to drive. We’ll get it tomorrow.”

  Somehow, that “we” makes me feel like he and I are in this…together.

  I live in a high-rise condo not far from the restaurant. I always liked living in downtown Ridge City, but now I have the weirdest feeling of being watched everywhere we go on the way home.

  I sink down in my seat, grateful for the tinted windows in his car. “Is this what paranoia feels like?”

  He chuckles a little. “You’ll get used to it.”

  I cut a sideways glance at hm. “Are you used to it?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “It’s probably a big reason why I’m alive.”