Train's Clash (The Last Riders Book 9) (39 page)

P
ulling
his classic black Cadillac onto the side of the street, he positioned himself perfectly to watch the house. Then he looked at the clock and saw he had timed it perfectly.
School’s out.

He flipped his lighter off and on, off and on, waiting for her return. Lucca had never been good at sitting still, nor was he a very patient man when he was tired. The night before had been a long one, and his body still felt it this afternoon. Regardless, he had enjoyed every second of it.

Last night, he had lain Mr. Johnson to rest and held up his promise of fucking the blonde until she regretted it. Both things had satiated his dark side …
for now, anyway.

Lucca flipped his lighter closed as a stuck-up BMW pulled into the driveway. He had never trusted a German car. The only thing good about it was its black paint color.

A strawberry blonde exited the car.
Elle Buchanan.
He couldn’t help the sneer he pasted on his face. His little brother was in big fucking trouble.

Watching her walk to the front door, he believed the girl only got prettier the more you looked at her.

It’s going to be a shame when I have to strangle the life out of her.

One thing was for sure, the girl was going to die, and nothing was going to save her. It was unfortunate she had been there when the trigger had been pulled, but some girls were just born unlucky, this one in particular. She was only going to make it another month to her eighteenth birthday.

The stuck-up looking car reversed, drawing back his attention. He wondered who would drop off a girl in this neighborhood. Truthfully, he was a little shocked this was the address, considering the girl had come from a prep school.

Looking at the clock again, he noticed there was a bit of time before Elle went to work. His gut told him to follow the car. Anyone she hung out with could possibly be collateral damage if her fucking mouth blabbed too much.

Lucca started his car, deciding to follow the BMW. He kept a good distance back, following it in a direction he hadn’t been expecting. This part of town was mostly owned by the city, along with some expensive restaurants and shops.

Watching the car pull into one of the most expensive shops in town, he parked on the street and pulled out his cell phone to text the license plate number to a friend. He waited in anticipation, the curiosity slowly eating away at him, only growing worse when the car door opened.

Immediately, he knew it was a woman when tall, black boots and black jeans hit the ground. The next thing he noticed was her long, silky hair. It was the blackest hair he had ever seen.

He desperately wanted a glimpse of her face, but she never turned around.

Lucca found himself turning off the car and getting out, wondering how this was more important than anything else he could do with his time. His instincts were what kept him going, following her into the store.

Lucca prided himself on being able to go unnoticed. His appearance of dark jeans, black shirts, and black sweatshirts allowed him to do that, plus his scruffy face and hair. He could go places no one in the family could go. Made men demanded attention with their suits and immaculate grooming, whereas he didn’t need that kind of attention.
I have other ways to get the attention I demand.

Entering the store undetected was easy with all the expensive shit it held. He navigated the store, finding the girl in all black who seemed to be looking for a particular piece. A slight glimpse of the left side of her face revealed her soft porcelain skin. He stalked closer.

Have I seen her before?

Another small glimpse revealed her young age.

Stopping, he was about to turn around.
She’s too young.

The girl turned then went back to a table she had missed.

His heart stopped a beat when he saw the whole left side of her face and a striking gray eye. The other half of her face was covered by a veil of hair. He wished he could reach out to feel the pure black strands of silk and move it to reveal the rest of her face.

Leave now.
Nothing good would come of this. He should have left the moment he had noticed she was just a teenage girl.

He was unable to place it yet, but something about her called to him. It kept him from looking away from the girl and leaving.

The whole thing felt so wrong yet so right. He was being pulled in different directions. His mind told him to leave, but his body kept him patiently waiting.

Watching her hand go up to her face, he felt his breath catch in his throat when she swept her hair behind her ear.
Fuck.

His heart skipped another beat at the sight of her face in its entirety. His eyes traveled down the right side of her gorgeous face that held a scar from above her eyebrow down to the hollow of her cheek. Another one graced the right side above and below her luscious lips. The instinct to let his fingertips glide down each mark was so strong he thought he might break his cover.

Her gray eyes held the story behind the scar, a story of sadness, grief, and torture. It was like staring at a perfect porcelain doll that had been dropped one too many times. Others would see a flaw in the cracked doll, making her no longer perfect, but he saw only beauty. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

He could watch her study the delicate piece with gentle hands for hours.

The gold, ornate piece she was infatuated with was unfamiliar to him until she opened the egg-shaped object, and music began to play. Her eyes danced as she watched a ballerina twirl to the music. He wondered what it would feel like if she looked at him that way.

“It’s a beautiful piece, isn’t it?” the older woman who looked to be the storeowner asked as she came up to her.

The girl quickly became startled, shutting the music box. He wanted her to go back to the way she had been a moment before.

When her tongue peeked out to lick her lips, he eagerly waited to hear the voice that belonged to her.

“Y-yes.” She went back to looking at the box, avoiding the gaze of the woman. “H-how much is it?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

She removed her fingers from the piece. “Oh.”

The woman kindly smiled. “I know Christmas just passed, but you could always ask for it for your birthday, maybe. I could hold it.”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s too much.”

The lady smiled. “Well, you could always come back if you talk your parents into it.”

“Thank you.” The girl took one last glance at the music box before she left the store.

Watching her leave was harder than he had thought it would be. He wouldn’t be able to come out of the store until she pulled out. Therefore, he had to watch her go to the car through the display window, and that wasn’t close enough for him.

A vibration in his pocket had him pulling out his cell phone. He didn’t say a word when he accepted the call.

His friend Sal came over the phone. “The BMW is registered to Maxwell Masters.”

That wasn’t what he had expected, though it explained why he felt like he had seen her before.

“Girl,” Lucca spoke into the phone carefully, watching her approach the driver’s side.

“He’s married to Elaine Maste—”

“Younger,” he cut him off.

Sal paused. “Scar?”

Lucca’s eyes traced her markings. “Yes.”

“That’s Maxwell’s daughter, Chloe Masters.”

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.

L
ucca 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.