The moment Lucca had dreaded, saying goodbye, had gone better than he had expected. He frowned as he rubbed at the invisible ache in his chest, wondering why that fact would be so unsettling. It had been for the best, all of it.

Romina had felt comfortable with Logan from the start. That was a good thing. He should be happy for her. He was happy for her, and yet… He had been the most important person in the child’s life up until today. As a reward of sorts for looking out for her in that hellhole she had called home, he had been promised that he would continue to be near her and watch her grow up.

In the span of only a few days, the little girl’s life had been transformed. She’d be a princess with a family eager to spoil her as every little girl should be spoiled. She would be forever safe, forever protected. As for the rest of it, he would just have to deal.

Lucca looked up at the sky and exhaled long and slow. The Glazovs and his little Romina were already miles away, soaring through the clouds on their way to America. He would see her someday soon. In the meantime, he didn’t need to invite her new grandfather’s displeasure, so he would keep his distance.

He had killed the drive-by gangbangers, but they had still had their heads when he had finished with them. Seeing them decapitated like that, bleeding out like pig carcasses, had shaken him up. He had seen worse than that before, of course. But the Ramirez brothers weren’t in the habit of sending such a brutal message on behalf of anyone outside their own cartel.

There was only one loose end to be taken care of now: to blow up the stash house and everyone in it. Then he would be home-free, except for the pain he would inevitably have to endure at the end of Antonio Wayne’s whip. He had entertained the hope that he might somehow avoid it, but no such luck. Antonio Wayne never missed a chance to dispense justice with his whip, and Lucca understood that, no matter what he had to endure, he was fortunate to be allowed to live.

Time was on his side when he arrived at the stash house. With the onset of dusk and the camouflage provided by the woods, Mother Nature was on his side. He got out and quietly opened the rear door of the SUV. He wasn’t a professional when it came to explosives, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to light the sticks of dynamite that would be the inhabitants’ demise. The biggest challenge would be arranging them so they worked like dominos, each one lighting the one next to it.

Music blared from the windows as Lucca quietly made his way to the back of the house. He placed sticks of dynamite around the perimeter of the foundation, connecting them with the extra-long fuses that would cause the dynamite to light in rapid succession. The fuses were specially treated to be fast burning, so once the fireworks started the whole damn place would go sky high.

Lucca peered in a window at the back of the house. Amelia was in bed, eyes glazed, her crack pipe on the mattress just beyond her reach. The perpetual search for oblivion continued. But it would end tonight.

Killing her hadn’t been an easy decision for him. They had never been friends, had merely been under the same roof because it suited their respective business needs. Despite refusing her repeated offers to suck him off, eventually he had bonded with her in a sick, dysfunctional way. But his loyalty was to Romina, and what he was about to do would cement that commitment for all time.

From now on, every time he saw Romina and looked into those innocent brown eyes, he would remember that he had killed her mother. If it meant a happy life for the girl, he would gladly carry that burden to his grave.

He couldn’t let Amelia live. It was inevitable that she would want to cash in on her daughter’s happiness, maybe even try to take her back. She wouldn’t succeed, of course, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying and disrupting Romina’s new life. He wouldn’t allow it. Amelia had told him many times that she’d be better off dead. So, tonight she would die. Simple as that.

He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. He didn’t want to face the Ramirez brothers’ wrath if he didn’t manage to pull off this hit like he’d been directed to do. He also owed them his life. Marco did, too. After he had explained Marco’s minor role in his plans, Marco had been allowed to live but would forever be relegated to doing the cartel’s grunt work. As for himself, he wasn’t sure what life held for him; he was just glad to be alive.

The only soul who had ever evoked even the slightest compassion in his heart was a little girl with chocolate brown eyes and messy dark curls. The thought of dying didn’t bother him nearly as much as the thought of not being able to see Romina and watch her grow up. For her sake, he would do whatever he was called upon to do, endure whatever he had to endure. Lucca took one last look in the window, lit the main fuse, and strode away. To a casual observer, he was just a man out for an evening stroll, but he knew his steps were carrying him into an unknown future.

As the fireball lit up the night sky behind him, a lifetime of secrets and degradation was swept away like the ashes being scattered on the evening breeze. As sirens sounded in the distance, Lucca smiled and picked up his pace.