Chapter Seventeen
1170 Words
Chapter Seventeen
(Adrian’s POV)
For a moment, no one moved.
Luca stood in the middle of my sitting room with blood already darkening at the corner of his mouth from whatever truth he thought he had just delivered.
Sienna stared at him like she wanted to tear him apart.
Daniel looked like he wanted the floor to open beneath him.
And I was tired.
“Leave,” I said looking Sienna and then Daniel.
Sienna’s head snapped toward me. “Adrian.”
“Not now.”
“But he insulted me.”
“And I told you to leave Sienna”
Her eyes filled with angry tears. “You’re letting him speak to me that way?”
Luca laughed under his breath. “You mean the way you speak about Nia when she isn’t here?”
Sienna’s face went red.
I shot him a warning look. “Luca.”
He lifted both hands. “What? I’m just saying, if she wants to steal her sister’s life, she should at least learn to take criticism.”
Sienna inhaled sharply.
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed.
“Maybe,” Luca said. “But I’m not the one trying to climb into a marriage before the wife has even finished leaving.”
Her eyes cut to me, waiting for me to defend her.
I didn’t.
Not this time.
“Sienna,” I said, my voice hardening. “Go home.”
For a second, I thought she would argue again. Then she pressed her lips together, turned, and walked toward the hall.
At the doorway, she looked back at Luca.
The glare she gave him was sharp enough to draw blood.
Daniel followed quickly behind her, too quickly.
The door shut.
The room went quiet.
Luca walked to the bar like he owned the place, picked up two glasses, and poured whiskey into both.
“I didn’t say I wanted a drink,” I said.
“You look like you need one.”
“I look like I need people to stop walking into my house uninvited.”
He handed me a glass anyway. “You look like you need a functioning brain, but we work with what we have.”
I stared at him.
He smiled, showing off his obscenely white teeth.
That was when I hit him.
My fist caught his jaw, hard enough to send him staggering back into the bar. One glass dropped and shattered against the floor. Whiskey spread across the marble.
Luca blinked once, touched his mouth, and looked at the blood on his fingers.
Then he grinned.
“Oh, good. There he is.”
He swung back.
The punch caught my cheek, and pain flashed across my face. I lunged at him, grabbing his jacket, and we crashed into the side table. The second glass hit the floor and broke beneath our feet.
I shoved him against the wall.
He shoved me back.
We hit the sofa, then the floor, years of friendship turning into fists, curses, and the kind of rage that had nowhere else to go.
Luca laughed even as I slammed him down.
“You always were dramatic.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I drove my forearm across his chest and pinned him to the rug.
Both of us were breathing hard.
His lip was split. My knuckles ached. My cheek throbbed where he had hit me.
“Stop being a dumbass,” I said.
Luca stared at me for one second.
Then he laughed.
The sound broke something in the room.
He shoved me off him and sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Feel better?”
I stayed on the floor, breathing through my nose.
After a moment, I nodded once.
“Slightly.”
“Good.” He reached for the bottle that had somehow survived the fight and took a drink straight from it. “Now use that tiny moment of clarity to figure out what’s right in front of you.”
I pushed myself up. “Don’t start.”
“I’m starting.”
“Luca.”
“No.” He pointed the bottle at me. “You need someone to say it because everyone else is either afraid of you or wants something from you.”
I stood slowly.
He didn’t back down.
“Do you feel nothing for Nia?” he asked.
The question hit too hard.
I looked away.
That was answer enough.
Luca chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all day.”
I glared at him.
He took another drink. “You have Nia all wrong.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know enough.”
“You met her a handful of times.”
“And every time, she looked like a woman trying not to fall apart in a room full of people waiting for her to fail.” His expression hardened. “Anyone with two eyes can see what Sienna is doing.”
“Sienna is insecure,” I snapped. “She’s young. She was pushed aside when Nia was found, and she’s acting out because she’s trying to find her place in the Caldwell family.”
Luca stared at me.
Then he laughed again, quieter this time.
“You really believe that?”
“She lost the life she thought was hers.”
“And Nia lost the life she should have had from birth,” he said. “Funny how you only seem to remember one of them suffered.”
I said nothing.
Because I had no answer that did not sound weak even to me.
Luca turned back to the bar and grabbed the bottle of scotch. This time, he didn’t bother with a glass.
He took a long swallow.
I studied him.
There was something beneath the mockery. Something heavier than his usual arrogance.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
He lowered the bottle.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he laughed softly, like the sound was aimed at himself.
“You’re not the only one with woman problems.”
I frowned. “Since when do you have woman problems?”
“Since today.”
I stared at him.
He looked toward the window, still holding the bottle loosely in one hand.
“I met a girl today,” he said. “The woman of my dreams.”
Despite everything, I exhaled a tired laugh. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, man.” His smile twisted. “I can’t be with her though.”
“Why not?”
He looked back at me.
“She’s married.”
The words settled between us.
For once, I had no joke, no warning, no insult ready.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Luca hesitated.
Then he said, “Sophie Voss.”
The name tugged at something in my memory.
Sophie Voss.
I had heard it before.
Where?
- Writer
