Best Laid Plans (14 page)

Luca was glad he’d left his car at long stay. Cost a stupid amount, but it saved him waiting for taxis. From Heathrow to the parking garage of his flats was a twenty-five-minute journey, excluding stops to buy Francesca some flowers and to pick up a cake from Nonna Mamione. As much as he enjoyed cooking for his sweetheart, he’d rather spend the time loving her. By surprising her a whole day early, he hadn’t given her time to prepare, but it didn’t matter. All he needed was to touch her, hold her, and the hellish time in Naples would fade into nothing.

Luca picked up the flowers and cake and headed to the parking door. The entry lock looked as if it had been tampered with. Only slightly, but enough for him to be wary. He carefully entered the lobby area. The lift was marked as out of order in handwriting that was horribly familiar. Luca dropped the flowers and cake to run.

He took the stairs two, three at a time, racing to the eighth floor.
Don’t be home. Don’t be home
, he chanted in his head. Racing to his flat, he barged the door open with his side and saw Francesca slamming one of his precious copper-coated pots into Clemente Falco’s face, sending him flying into the fridge.

Before Francesca even lifted the pot to swing again, Luca had Clemente by both arms. With a huge foot, he rammed Clemente’s back ribs through his lungs. Clemente took a gargled breath as his lungs filled with his own blood before he toppled to the floor. Francesca had little spots of blood all over her face. She looked from Clemente’s body to Luca.

“Honey, I’m home,” he said for want of anything else to say.
Sorry about the blood, sweetheart,
didn’t seem enough.

“Fucking hell, Gianluca,” she swore, not letting go of the pot.

Dafne was pinned to the floor, one of his knives deep in her hand. Luca wanted to start laughing, but it wasn’t the best time. His almost wife was an absolute revelation. Dafne turned her head and said, “Oh thank God. Look what this crazy woman did to me!”

Luca stepped around Clemente’s twitching corpse to carefully remove the pot from Francesca’s hands so he could pull her into his arms. “Are you all right?”

She was gazing at him in complete shock. “Umm.”

“This must be a joke!” Dafne yelled from the floor. “You? And her?”

Luca didn’t want to scare Francesca any more than she already was. “You need to do something for me.”

She struggled to focus on him. “What?”

“You need to get in my car, not yours, mine and go to my cousin’s home. It’s ten minutes away. This is the address.” He sent her a text message. “Where’s your phone?”

She shook her head. “No, hold on a minute. I’m going to call the police.”

Dafne and Luca stared at her in disbelief. “Francesca, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I am one, and these bitches attacked me in my own home. Your home, but they broke in.”

Luca tucked his phone into his back pocket and cupped her face. “You’ve got previous form, sweetheart. If you look at him and her, it doesn’t really look like self-defence as much as it looks like revenge.”

Francesca’s eyes narrowed disgustedly on Dafne’s form. “She asked for it. Him... That was sort of brutal.”

“There are people who can take care of this.”

She frowned up at him. “People? As in
people
?”

“Yeah. People.” He retrieved his phone and called Tony.

“You’ve been back in the country for forty-five minutes, what have you done?”

“I’m doing a cleanup. Francesca doesn’t need to be here to see it,” he said, touching his palm to Francesca’s forehead. She felt clammy and hot. “No, she’s not well at all. One-time favour. She comes to you.” He leaned over and took some tissues from the coffee table and gently wiped the blood from Francesca’s face.

“I’ll bring a crew with me. Lydia’s at home for once. Your Francesca should have either water or tea. The only two things my wife can’t fuck up in a kitchen. All right?”

“Thank you. Don’t be too long,” he added, looking briefly at Dafne. “I don’t want to get carried away.”

He handed Francesca his car keys and collected her handbag and phone. “As soon as I’m done, we’ll go to the hospital and make sure you’re all right.”

“Luca, hold on,” she protested, digging her heels in.

“Francesca,” he said and his tone made her stop. “You don’t need to be here for this. I’ll take care of everything else. I promise. Please, just go to my cousin’s and I will come for you.”

She breathed out shakily and nodded. “All right. All right, fine.”

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but with his ex-girlfriend nailed by a knife to the floor and her brother lying dead and bloody in his kitchen, this wasn’t the most opportune of surroundings to declare his love. “I won’t be long.”

He closed the door behind her and turned to face Dafne. She looked very white and for the first time in their history, she looked very scared.

“You should have stayed in Naples,” he told her softly.

Tears welled in her eyes. Christ, was she serious? “I just want what’s owed to me. You owe me!”

He nodded toward the kitchen, “You know your brother’s dead.”

This time, he knew the tears were real. “What?”

“Dafne, you broke into my home, you put your hands on my pregnant girlfriend, the woman I’m going to marry, and you thought I’d be all right with that? No apologies, no forgiveness, no IOUs and definitely no exchanges. Today’s the day you die. Not for me—I could have let you live as long as you stayed away. You made a choice not to. I’m making a choice to take you out of this world.”

“She’ll never look at you the same,” Dafne flashed. “She’ll always think you’ll do the same to her if she doesn’t follow your fucking orders.”

Luca took the knife from Dafne’s hand, ignoring the scream she gave. “This is what she did to you, and she hadn’t even met you before today. Can you imagine what she’d do to me if I even tried to hurt her?”

“Please, Luca.” Dafne’s voice shook. “Clemente’s gone, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

He breathed out slowly. What peace would there be until she was no longer alive? “No. It’s not.”

Frankie couldn’t remember a single minute of the drive to Luca’s cousin’s home. It didn’t worry her as much as it usually would, because her brain was consumed by Luca and what he could be doing to his ex-girlfriend. She caught sight of her still bloodied hand and nearly threw up. Visions of thrusting Luca’s fancy knife into Dafne’s throat instead of her hand kept flashing in her mind. That woman was nothing more than a wily, vicious animal.  

She looked down at the text on her phone and realised she’d been outside his cousin’s fancy-looking home for the past ten minutes. Tony and Lydia Caristo were apparently going to have no problem with a battered-looking, bleeding, pregnant woman rocking up on their doorstep early evening? She knocked on the door and looked hesitantly over her shoulder to check if anyone was watching. Paranoia was beginning to irritate her. A curvaceous woman threw open the door, took one look at Frankie and shook her head. “Not enough Hail Marys in the world. Come in, you look shell shocked.”

Frankie did as she was told, or rather allowed her arm to be gripped and her body to be pulled over the threshold. “I’m Lydia. You should get yourself upstairs to clean up. There’re clean clothes in the bathroom for you. And when you’re ready, come back down for some tea and cakes.”

Frankie had heard enough of the famous Lydia to be wary of the offer of food. “Er, I’m not sure…”

“Did my feckin’ husband say something about my food? Eejit, I bought a lot of stuff from Waitrose, all it does is go in an oven. I can manage that well enough. He’s such an arse, how does he think I ate before I met him?”

Lydia didn’t seem to be paying attention to any response Frankie may have had, only edged her up the stairs. “Bathroom’s just there.”

“Brilliant.” Frankie’s voice was flat and emotionless.

Lydia gently touched her arm. “I didn’t go through what you’re going through because I knew full well what my husband is like. It’s not okay right now, but it will be.”

Frankie shook her head. “It’s… I mean I’m not.” She shut her eyes tightly. “I’ve seen things like this before.”

“It’s not that. It’s watching the man you
love
do it,” Lydia corrected her. “There’s a nice brand new pair of jeans, a quite sexy t-shirt if I say so myself and a cardie in the bathroom for you. Don’t think it won’t fit, I’ve got a good few inches on you, so you’ll be fine.”

“It’s really nice of you, thank you.”

Lydia grinned. “Welcome to the family. Sorry about the introduction. I’ll be having words with Luca.”

She nudged her into the bathroom and closed the door behind Frankie. The command was enough for Frankie to undress and shower. Her neck stung, her arms ached and red-tinged water flowed from her skin. Feeling much better, she pulled on the borrowed clothing. So her Gianluca really was dangerous. It didn’t equate with the big, gentle man she knew. The father of her child. Truth be told, that bitch Dafne deserved whatever she got. All she’d done by turning up in London asking for a fight was to prove that Luca had been honest with her and he would protect her, no matter what.

She made her way downstairs and found Lydia in the kitchen. “Here we are. Tea, hot and sweet. I’ve just put a chicken kiev in the oven for you but I’m having cake now.”

Frankie sat down, and within two sips of the best cup of tea she’d had in a long time, she finally felt the tension leave her body. Without the tension, there was nothing to stop one sob from escaping her throat. Then the rest followed. Lydia’s fine brows came together and she pulled Frankie into a tight hug. “It’s natural to be upset. Let it out.”

“I just wanted him to have a nice homecoming and instead, I’m half crucifying his ex-girlfriend with his
Sugimoto
knives and he really loves those. And they are fucking expensive, I looked them up,” she hiccupped.

Lydia gave her back a soothing rub. “The least of his worries.”

“And I fucked up his copper pot as well, oh God!”

“It’s an excuse for him to buy some new ones,” Lydia told her firmly. Frankie sat up, away from the pillows Lydia called breasts, and wiped her eyes.

“That was lame, I’m sorry. I’m a bit hormonal.”

“Don’t be. Like I said, you’ve had a shock. Finish your tea.”

Taking another sip, Frankie was disconcerted when Lydia picked up Frankie’s arm, pressed her fingers into the pit of her elbow and looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Any pain anywhere? Any dizziness?”

“A little dizzy, only when I stand up.”

“When did you last eat?”

“I had some of those water biscuits. You know the Duchy ones? But that was this morning.” Lydia nodded and picked up her phone from the table. She tapped out a message. “I do think you should go to the hospital.”

If they went now, then at least she’d have a bit more time to explain herself to Luca rather than the doctor asking him if he was looking forward to having a boy or a girl. Lydia got to her feet. “Best we do this now. There’s no telling how long they’ll be doing whatever it is they need to do.”

Lydia picked up her bag and coat. Frankie blinked. “Um, the oven?”

“What, now?”

“The oven. You’ve left it on.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jaysus, save me. Hold on.” She switched it off and removed the meat from the heat. “If you tell Tony about that, you and I won’t be friends.”

God knows she was going to need them.

“Forty-five minutes in the country,” Tony muttered, shaking his head. “That’s got to be some sort of record.”

Luca wasn’t bothered anymore. The cleanup crew had arrived and blitzed him. If anyone found a mark on him relating to Clemente or Dafne, it would be through prayer alone. The rest of his apartment was scrubbed and the bodies taken to be disposed of. He just needed to see Francesca and make sure she was all right. The way she’d looked at him after he killed Clemente… “Jesus,” he swore, rubbing his hands over his eyes.

“At least there’s one less crazy bitch in the world. I don’t know why you lot attract them.”