It was Lucky’s turn to nod and he started to walk toward Sissy.

“No,” Luke stopped Lucky’s progress on that one word mainly because it was said in a tone where you could tell he really meant it and Luke wasn’t the kind of guy you ignored when he really meant something even if you were a beefy henchman. “Hector’s taking Sissy to the police station. She needs to ID the guy who punched her.”

“Vito wants her,” Lucky said and I looked at Lucky then at Luke in an effort to understand why Vito would want Sissy. Luke was blank-faced so I couldn’t read him. Lucky was always blank-faced.

“She needs to ID the guy,” Luke repeated still in his firm tone, his eyes moving to Sissy. “You’ll go with Hector.”

She nodded at Luke and I put my arm around her shoulders. “I’ll go with you,” I promised.

Luke’s gaze swung to me. “A minute,” he said to me (I will note, he did not ask). Then he walked to the utility room without waiting for me to respond. Since I wanted to know what was going on, I squeezed Sissy’s arm reassuringly then followed Luke.

When I got to the utility room Luke was looking around like he had stepped off our world onto another planet. His eyes came to me and even considering the borderline scary and definitely crazy situation we currently found ourselves in his eyes were amused.

“Babe,” he said as if that one word spoke volumes.

“What?” I asked because that one word didn’t speak volumes.

Like a flash, his hand came out and nabbed me behind my neck, giving me a jerk forward so I slammed into his body. He bent his head and kissed me; not a hot and hard, open-mouthed tongue fest but it was hard and it communicated something that I did not quite get. He let me go but kept his hand at my neck and his eyes on mine were ultra warm.

“What?” I asked again when he didn’t speak, this time I asked it softly.

“I’ll get into ‘what’ later, tonight, after the gig, when you’re home, drunk and naked.”

Ho-ly shit!

“Right now, we got a problem,” he went on.

His eyes became serious and he certainly sounded like we had a problem, so much so I let the “drunk and naked” comment go.

“What?” I said (again!).

“At the meet with Vito on Sunday, Vito, Lee and I agreed if we get Vincetti before the bad guys find him, we hand him over to Vito. We got him, we handed him over to Vito. Problem is these bad guys are bad guys. The two Darius and Hector just nailed are foot soldiers, two of dozens. This is a big problem for Vito, an ongoing problem because no matter what Vito offers, they don’t feel like negotiating and they got a lot of men to throw at it. Losing two is not going to deter them. What they want is simple, just Vincetti. To make this problem disappear, Vito needs to make Vincetti disappear and that’s what he’s gonna do.”

My mouth dropped open, my heart stuttered to a halt and I stared. Then I whispered, “Uncle Vito is going to make his own nephew swim with the fishes?”

Luke’s lips pressed together but, even so, they were still twitching like something was very, very funny and he didn’t want to laugh out loud.

When he got himself under control, he said, “I don’t think they say that anymore, Ava, if they ever did, outside the movies.”

Oh well. So I didn’t talk wise guy. Sue me.

I leaned in. “What you’re saying is, they’re going to whack him,” I was still whispering.

Luke shook his head, let my neck go but his hand slid to my jaw. “No, where Vincetti’s goin’, he’ll still be breathin’. Your problem is, Vito wants to send Sissy with him.”

All my body systems froze solid.

No!

No, no, no!

No!

“That can’t happen,” I said when my mouth was moving again.

“Vito’s determined, says marriage is life. Wants them back together.”

I’d heard that before.

“But, Dom’s a dickhead,” I said, sounding slightly desperate (which I was). “He’s mean to her. He doesn’t let her serve leftovers. He tells her what to wear. He doesn’t know what a woman should wear! One time he told her to put on these pink Capri pants with this purple gypsy shirt. Apart they were kickass items of clothing. Together she looked like a fool. I know it sounds stupid but it’s not. It’s bossy and not in the tough guy, kinda sexy, bossy way that you’re bossy, it’s just plain old mean bossy. He’s a jerk!”

Oops.

Did I just tell Luke his tough guy, bossy ways were “kinda sexy”?

His face was coming closer to mine, his hand had flexed on my jaw and he had a full on grin happening so I guessed I did.

“I take that back!” I said a bit loud and sounding like a third grader. His head stopped its descent but his grin didn’t go away. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just freaked out. I don’t want Sissy to go back to Dom.”

Lucky for me, Luke decided to let it go. “I know that, babe, but Matt saw you two wrestling when Vincetti was out on the street. You were trying to stop her from getting to him. You have to talk to her, give her the option because Sissy might not agree.”

Unfortunately, Luke was right, she might not.

I closed my eyes. With my eyes closed, I felt Luke kiss my nose.

Just as an aside, a closed-eyes, you’re about to lose your bestest best friend to Uncle Vito oblivion, Luke Nose Kiss was very, very sweet.

I opened my eyes again and saw his face was partly soft, but his eyes were fully warm like he knew what losing Sissy would mean to me. This caused another warm whoosh to power through me.

“You’ve got to the police station to talk to her,” Luke said softly. “Find out what she wants to do. She decides she wants to divorce him, we’ll take care of her, put her in the safe room until Vito cools it and Vincetti is out of the picture. She decides she wants to go with him, we’ll deliver her safe to Vito.”

I needed more information. Tons more.

“What does ‘disappearing’ mean?” I asked. “Is she going to be gone for everyone, her Dad, her Mom? And if so, for how long? Will she come back? Will she phone? What do I tell them? Can we visit her? Are we talking another state, another country, another continent?”

“Right now disappearing at all is Sissy’s decision. We delay a lot longer here, babe, Vito’s gonna cotton on to what we’re doing and it will be Vito’s decision.”

I decided I didn’t need any more information.