The girl startled, shutting the music box.
He wanted her to go back to the way she had been a moment before. He could watch her study the delicate piece with gentle hands for hours.
When her tongue peeked out to lick her lips, he eagerly waited to hear her voice.
“Y-yes.” She went back to looking at the box, avoiding the woman’s gaze. “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 continued to smile. “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 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 of her BMW.
“He’s married to Elaine Maste—”
“Younger,” he cut him off.
Sal paused. “Scars?”
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 and steady, finding its purpose—Chloe Masters.
Taking one last look at the scars on her face, he couldn’t wait for the day he could run his fingers across it. Beautiful.
One
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 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 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 picture of a much younger her; the scars much fresher, bright red and unlike the faint pink he had seen today. To put it simply, they looked gruesome on her perfect porcelain face.
Zooming in, he gripped the mouse tighter, seething with pure anger. He knew all too well they were caused by a knife. The cuts were clean and precise, at a calculated depth to cause immense pain in those sensitive areas, and to scar her for life.
Whoever the fuck touched her better be dead.
Going back to the search, he looked for who had marked her, but the only thing that came up was a car wreck from 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. Bullshit.
Lucca went back to the photo of Chloe, now zooming out to reveal her father getting sworn in as 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. 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.
He went back to his search of her, wanting to learn everything he could.
Seeing a much more recent picture of her at some function, he stared at the image, his heart humming even louder, somewhat satiating his blood thirst. Fuck, he wanted her more than he had 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.