Where there’d once been one car and two bodyguards, there’d been three cars and six men. Big, scary, clearly armed men.
Violet and I had been escorted by Luca to a large SUV which had had a brand-new child safety seat in it. In the back of the SUV, there’d been at least half a dozen plastic bags full of more clothes and toys for Violet. Luca had let Violet pick a toy out of one of the bags as he’d gotten her strapped into her car seat, since I hadn’t had a clue how to do it. Violet had picked a doll, but when I’d tried to take the keychain from her so I could return it to Luca, she’d started throwing the mother of all temper tantrums. Luca had been the one to calm her by saying she could keep the keychain.
The hotel we’d gone to had been one of those fancy high rises and there’d been a couple more bodyguards waiting for us.
Along with some of my own possessions from my apartment.
I hadn’t had time to be pissed at Luca for the invasion of my privacy because he’d insisted that Violet and I relax while he made us some dinner.
Yeah, the man cooked.
So he was gorgeous, rich, and he cooked.
While he’d made dinner, Violet and I had played in the spacious living room which had an amazing view of downtown Seattle, the waters of Elliot Bay, and the Olympic mountain range. Violet and I had watched the ferries go back and forth on the water for a bit before we’d settled down and started going through her new toys. I’d never seen her more excited. Dinner had been an informal affair. There’d been stir fry for me and Luca and some mac ‘n’ cheese for Violet. Within minutes of eating, Violet had started to nod off, and I’d taken her to the bedroom I was sharing with her and put her down for the night. I’d tried to go to sleep myself, but I’d been tossing and turning for the past few hours.
Hence the wandering around in the fancy hotel suite that was more like a luxury apartment.
I made my way to the full-length windows and stared at the twinkling lights of the city below. I still couldn’t believe I was there… that I’d gone with Luca instead of staying with Ronan.
Ronan was, by far, the safer, smarter choice. That’d become even more clear after he and I had talked in his daughter’s bedroom as Violet had played a game on his tablet. I didn’t believe his claim that I was family now, but I hadn’t argued with him about it. I’d already known Ronan would help me simply because Aleks was my friend. It was the same reason one of his men, Memphis, had helped me two years earlier after I’d left Chicago. Getting out of the city had been my only goal at that time. Aleks’s brother, Dante, had made it happen after I’d told him where to find Aleks.
When I’d gotten off the bus in Seattle, Memphis had been waiting for me. He’d taken me straight to a methadone clinic, then an NA meeting. When I’d left the meeting an hour later, there’d been an apartment waiting for me, as well as the promise of an entry-level job at a security firm. I’d taken those opportunities and run with them.
I’d done everything right, yet fate had led me here.
I shook my head because as hard as I’d tried over the past several hours, I still couldn’t process any of it… or what was to come.
The idea of being reliant on Luca scared the hell out of me and I was having a case of extreme buyer’s remorse that I’d decided to go with him. But the thing that had led me to say yes to him earlier when he’d started to beg me to let him help me was the same thing that was keeping me from packing Violet up and going back to Ronan’s or reaching out to Aleks for help.
He’d lost his son… and found him again.
I was desperately curious to know what all that meant, but the part that was keeping me rooted in this place that I had no business being in was a cold, hard truth that was forcing me to change my perspective about the day I’d first met Luca.
He’d been looking for his child that day.
And he’d found me instead.
I had a million questions that I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to. What I wanted was to have that day back. I wanted it to have been some other man who’d walked into that dirty room. Someone who would have done to me what all the others had. Another nameless, faceless pervert who took what little hope I’d had left inside of me.