He ended the call with the push of a button.
Time stood still for him as he soaked in anything and everything he could about her before she disappeared into the car.
There was always a moment one faced in life when a choice had to be made, and this was his.
Her tortured soul called to his dark one, whispering for him to save her. His heart was now slow, steady, finding its purpose—Chloe Masters …
Taking one last look at the scar on her face, he couldn’t wait for the day he could run his fingers across it. Beautiful.
1
Mine
Lucca sat at the desk in his home office, running his hands through his hair and trying to take deep breaths. The image of her had yet to leave his mind. His fingers still itched to trace her gorgeous markings. He wanted her, regardless of her age, and nothing is going to stop me.
He had very seldom wanted anything in his life. The first had been becoming a Made Man, and the second had been becoming the underboss. Both things he had accomplished at a very young age. Being just twenty-six years old, he was the youngest underboss in the history of the Caruso family, and had become Made at the age of seventeen, which was also the youngest anyone in the family had ever been Made. What he had done to become Made at seventeen was something that would send most grown men to the psych ward, but not Lucca.
Lucca was born with a dark side. He had realized at a very young age he wasn’t like the rest of the world. The only emotions he ever felt were when he caused pain. At first, it didn’t take much, just simply pinching another kid until he cried. It brought him joy and contentment. Slowly through the years, though, he needed more and more to bring those feelings back. Now, twenty-six years later, he was a full-blown monster, craving nothing but blood and chaos.
Turning on his computer, he searched the Internet, putting in the name that called to him. When an image of her popped up, his heart began to hum in his chest. It was a much younger picture of her; the scars on her face much fresher. They were bright red and unlike the faint pink he had seen today. To put it simply, they looked gruesome on her perfectly porcelain face.
Zooming into the picture of her, he gripped the mouse tighter, beginning to seethe with pure anger. The cuts were clean and precise, at a calculated depth to cause immense pain in the sensitive areas, and to scar her for life. He knew all too well those could only be caused by a knife.
Whoever the fuck touched her better be dead.
Going back to the search, he looked for who had marked her, but the only thing to come up was a car wreck she had been in three years ago. Reading the old newspaper article, he found out that her father, Maxwell Masters, was the one behind the wheel that night, and that her scars were blamed on the windshield glass breaking and hitting her in the face on the passenger side. Bullshit.
Lucca went back to the photo of Chloe, now zooming out to reveal her father getting sworn in to become the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. Not a single scratch was on him, confirming what he already knew.
The thirst for blood now coursed through his veins. He was going to do anything and everything to find out what had happened to her the night she had received her scars. Anyone who had anything to do with it would be buried six feet under by the time he was done.
Looking at her bitch of a father and mother, he had a feeling the list was going to be quite long. They will all die.
Going back to his search of her, he wanted to learn everything he could about her.
Seeing a much more recent picture of her at some function, he stared at the image, his heart starting to hum even louder and somewhat satiating his blood thirst. Fuck, he wanted her even more so than he had ever wanted to be made or become the underboss.
His gut twisted at thinking about how long he was going to have to wait for her to become eighteen. He wasn’t sure how he was going to keep himself from taking her, unused to these strong feelings. Her tortured eyes seemed to be screaming at him to save her, only making his urges worse.
Putting a cigarette to his lips, he flipped open the lid to his cold, metal lighter, burning the end to take a long drag.
Smoking always gave him something to do and focus on when his sick, twisted urges came up. He only hoped it was going to help him stay away from Chloe as well.
Flipping the lid close, he placed his zippo back on his desk before looking at the recent picture of her once more.
One single thought entered his mind.
Mine.
2
If Salvation Is What You Seek, Violence Is Not The Answer