Page 28 of Diary from an Inked Throne

“I can’t even with you,” I muttered, getting off him and turning on the shower again.

Except when he stood and put his arms around me, kissing my neck again, I knew how lucky I was for us both to be standing there.

And that despite our unromantic verbal sparring, we’d both meant every word.

7

LYNX

SIX WEEKS LATER…

Dear Diary,

Guilt is a hell of a thing. It eats people alive long before it kills them.

Istared down at my phone, at the text message that had come in an hour before.

I still had no idea how to reply.

Nyah:

Come home. I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me. I need to name the baby. Tomorrow at three at the Slayers’ clubhouse. Please come. I need you.

Luca had received an identical one on his phone, and he wasn’t doing any better than I was. If anything, he was worse. He’d taken one look at it, driven us to the nearest dive bar, and had told the guy serving drinks to just give us the entire bottle of whiskey.

So far, Luca had drunk at least three quarters of it by himself. Ice sloshed against his glass, amber liquid barely given the chance to get cold before he knocked it back.

I nursed mine. “We should leave tonight if we’re going to make it back to Saint View in time.”

Luca hung his head. His hair was so long it fell around his face, creating him a shield so he didn’t have to face me. “I’m not going.”

I frowned. “What? Of course you are. You read her message. She needs us.”

He turned to glare at me. “She doesn’t need me, Lynx! How the fuck could she? I promised I’d bring her baby back six fucking weeks ago. And nothing! I’ve had every man I have out searching for Enzo, and he’s disappeared like a ghost in the night, the baby with him.” He shook his head miserably. “I can’t go back there until I have her son in my arms. I won’t.”

I sighed, staring at the red neon bull’s-eye, lit up on the wall behind the bar. “None of this is your fault.”

He laughed bitterly and swallowed down another mouthful of his drink before he answered. “Isn’t it? Sure as fuck feels like it is.”

We hadn’t stopped from the moment we’d walked out those church doors six weeks ago. Thanksgiving had come and gone without any sort of celebration. We’d eaten turkey sandwiches at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in a town whose name I couldn’t even remember. Christmas had been spent somewhere in Vegas, after a tip-off that Enzo had been seen in the area, but it had led to nothing. Instead of watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, we’d been in an abandoned warehouse torturing one of Enzo’s acquaintances until he was so close to death we’d had to admit he obviously knew nothing.

Luca had ended the man’s life anyway, without so much as a blink of remorse.

There was no doubt in my mind he’d stepped into Carlos’s shoes.

Not because he wanted to.

But because finding Nyah’s baby had become his single-minded focus and nothing existed outside it.

I refilled his glass. “Drink.”

I didn’t need to tell him twice. He was so mentally destroyed over losing Nyah’s son, and his father’s death, and the role he’d now found himself in as Carlos’s heir that drinking had become his new favorite pastime.

I couldn’t even blame him. It was a hell of an empire to inherit. He’d fallen apart the day he’d realized a shipment of women had arrived, ready to be sold. Viktor had brought him the news, making a vital error in thinking that Luca was just like his father and would want to continue in that trade.

I’d never seen Luca lose his shit to that degree. I’d had to put my arm around his neck and choke him until he’d passed out to get him to stop. Viktor had been lucky he’d walked away with nothing more than a black eye and a bruised rib.

He hadn’t needed me to confirm Luca no longer wanted the Guerra empire to have anything to do with human trafficking. I’d told him to report back when all the women had been returned to their families.