Chapter 3 - Blood on the Counter"Down!"
Luca’s roar was instantaneous. Before the shattering shards of glass had even hit the floor, he had lunged across the counter, slamming Emma to the linoleum beneath his massive frame.
Crack-crack-crack!
Automatic gunfire stitched a brutal line across the diner’s back wall, splintering wood and shredding vintage Coca-Cola signs. Customers screamed, diving under tables and scrambling toward the kitchen doors.
Enzo Marchetti and two other guards were already moving, drawing sleek submachine guns from inside their jackets with terrifying efficiency. They kicked open the swinging kitchen doors and vanished into the back alley.
"Luca!" Emma gasped, struggling beneath him as the acrid smell of cordite filled the air. "Get off me! My mother—I have to call my mother—"
"Stay down," Luca commanded, his face inches from hers. His eyes weren't panicked; they were cold, calculating, and lethal. The casual billionaire was gone, replaced by the apex predator who ruled Chicago’s underworld. "If they knew about you last night, they followed you here."
"Who?!" Emma demanded, pushing against his chest. "Who are they?"
"Viktor Rostova," Luca said grimly.
The name meant nothing to Emma, but the icy fury in Luca’s tone made her blood run cold. Rostova was the head of the Bratva’s Chicago faction—a bloody, ruthless syndicate that had been waging a quiet shadow war against the Romano family for control of the shipping ports.
"What does Viktor Rostova want with a waitress?" Emma cried out, wincing as another volley of silenced gunfire pinged off the diner’s metal siding outside.
"He doesn't want you," Luca said, his gaze locking onto hers with terrifying intensity. "He wants me. And you just spent twenty minutes fixing the car of the man he’s been trying to assassinate for six months."
Enzo burst back through the kitchen doors, blood staining his white shirt sleeve. "Boss! They’re in vans—three black Sprinters heading south down Cicero. We got one of their shooters. He swallowed a cyanide capsule before we could blink."
Luca slowly stood up, pulling Emma to her feet with him. He brushed glass dust off his lapel as if he had just spilled a drop of espresso.
"Clean this up," Luca told the shaking manager, who was cowering behind the donut display. He pulled a heavy gold signet ring from his pinky finger and tossed it onto the cash register. "Send the bill for the window to my office. Double whatever it costs."
He looked back at Emma, whose chest was heaving, her eyes wild with adrenaline and disbelief.
"You're not working here another minute," Luca stated, not asking, but commanding.
May you like
"Like hell I'm not!" Emma fired back, her stubborn pride flaring up despite the smoking bullet holes around them. "This is my job! My life! I don't need your protection, Luca—or whatever your real name is!"
Luca stepped close, his voice dropping into a lethal, hypnotic register. "You can come willingly with me, or you can spend the next hour dodging Rostova’s clean-up crew while they burn this diner to the ground. Choose."
