Chapter 4

LUCA

“Okay, so quite obviously the plan is that you won’t have to come across any of these people. I’ll have it all sorted, and we’ll both be on our way to Paris before we know it,” I said a day later.

We sat across from each other at a freeway diner somewhere in Texas on our way to Miami. “But there’s still a risk you’ll stumble into danger, so you’ve got to learn to play the game.”

“I don’t even know what the game is,” Ella replied, taking a big slurp of some strange brightly colored iced drink.

“Don’t tell them you have a mate. Play along with their messed-up, twisted flirting, but don’t let them get too close.

“If they think they have a chance of getting somewhere with you, they won’t force it, and you have the control,” I explained.

“So you want me to flirt with them? Tease them? Kind of like playing hard to get?” she asked with a grimace.

I laughed at her expression and nodded.

“Just smile, hold your head high, and use your wonderful Jones wit—within reason of course. The last thing you want to do is look weak because they will attack you like the vultures they are.

“Oh, and if it really comes for it, go for the boss. If you have him in your purse, none of the others can lay a finger on you.”

“Got it,” she said. “Look confident and flirt…but not too much. One little problem, though, Luca.”

“What?”

“I have a huge fucking mark on my neck, and some of them already know I have a mate,” I said.

I looked at the inch-long mark Leo had left there years ago and sighed. She was right, that was gonna be an issue.

“Just say that he won’t be a problem or he’s dead or it’s a battle scar. I don’t know, think of something.”

“Do they know who Alpha Loren is?” she asked.

“Of course, they do.”

“Then surely they’ll work out who I am? I have both his scent and his mark,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

Before I could answer, the door to the diner swung open. Three masked men ran in, all pointing guns. The guy at the front desk instantly put his hands up, but it wasn’t him they were after.

Upon scanning the diner, they spotted us, and the guns were turned in our direction.

“Shit,” I cursed, “so much for keeping you out of this…”

“I’m guessing by your face that that gun is still in your glove box?” Ella asked.

“Yes,” I said, although checking my pockets just in case.

She rolled her eyes and sent me a look of frustration and despair.

“Fuck,” she said as the marching men neared us.

She grabbed a knife off the table and turned to them. But there was little a butter knife could do in a gun fight, and there wasn’t even an escape route either.

They were blocking the way to the only exit, and neither of us were about to risk getting shot.

“Hands up,” one of them barked, pointing the gun directly at Ella as the other two pointed at me.

We had no choice but to oblige and watch helplessly as one plucked the knife out of Ella’s hand.

I looked around the diner—it was fairly busy, and this was Texas. Surely someone would have a gun on them? But no one was coming to our aid; they were all just sitting there terrified and watching.

“Come with us or we will shoot your cousin,” one told Ella as he and another grabbed her arm.

I lurched forward, but I was stopped by a gun dangerously close to me held by the third man.

“Don’t move, gringo,” he growled.

I put my hands up and slowly stepped back.

Initially, Ella was fighting against the men trying to drag her out of the diner, but then the meaning of his words seemed to sink in, and she saw the gun pointed at me and let them.

I gave her a helpless look as I watched. There was nothing I could do, and that made me angry.

The third man stayed, pointing the gun at me as Ella was dragged away from the diner.

I could just about make out the license plate of a white van they were taking her to before the man with me thrust a piece of paper in my direction.

“From Guillermo,” he said.

I reached forward to simply take the paper, but the adrenaline rushing through my veins made me grab his wrist and pull him toward me. He fired the gun, but I’d twisted him so that it missed and hit a window.

The glass shattered over some people, but that was the least of my worries right now.

I was much taller and stronger than him and was able to get him so that my arm was around his neck, and my other hand was holding his gun against his head.

With my free hand, I unfolded the piece of paper and read the few words written on it.

They read:

~We got to him first.~

“Where are they taking her?!” I growled at the man upon looking out the window to see the white van gone.

He struggled in my grip and whimpered. From a few mumbled Spanish words, it dawned on me that he may not speak English beyond what he had been instructed to say.

I asked again in my broken Spanish.

“A el jefe,” he replied instantly.

To the boss.